Rewriting My Story as a Latino

By Albert Alvarado

Most days I forget I am an adult man, a considerable amount of federally ‘granted’ agency and responsibility that I never asked for.

When I was younger, I distinctly remember my abuela recounting about my bisabuela, who would dream of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren's future. Even though I never came to know her, my great-grandmother had seen a grown-up version of the baby beset in my mother’s arms, a young [Dominican] man with a car and a dog. Of course, I still live in romantic solace in that reality, but as I continue in my young adult steps of becoming, I think of the hetero patriarchal narratives that even those suenos entrench.

A car, a definite foundation of financial stability in privilege of self-agent transportation and affordance. A dog, ‘man’s best friend’ and the spiritual embodiment of the male, lone wolf persona that stretches way beyond Latin-American culture.

Growing up, I didn’t really dream dreams like those ones though. At age seven, who I imagined would look back in the mirror ten, twenty, one hundred years from now, would likely have been the black power ranger. Yet, myself, a known erratic and indecisive boy, is a bad case study for having a set ideal for the man who I want to be.

Across Latin-American culture, voluntarily and involuntarily, both young boys and girls are raised in the strata of the dominating patriarchal culture, or in simpler words, machismo. \

Machismo, and the ensuing machistas (female enablers), follows the ideology that men are innately superior in every way to women/the opposite sex. Directly, this results in greater focus on nurturing the gradual physical and educational development of male children, while many times female children are left to support their counterparts. For the female child, the world is already unjust for them from a young age as though it is possible to receive less preferred developmental treatment, they are additionally subjected to higher standards of physical and mental maturity, less gradual and intensely sexualized.

Moreover, in

, male children are seeded to become sole breadwinners of a heterosexual, Roman-Catholic family construct, their dominance perpetuated by monopolistic control of finances and heuristic beliefs to pass down to future generations, continuing the cycle. Commonly, the traditions are based in rejection, an intrinsic, sociological opposition of anything that cannot further its perspectives– homosexuality, feminism, and egalitarianism are immediate examples.

Naturally, the patriarchy is not a native idea to Latin-America, and has existed since man has had greed.

In a male dominated power structure, the highest value of respect and role models that are granted pedestals are figures that extenuate the most macho. Further, camaraderie is found in honored commune acts of the macho masculinity (e.g. military, militia, hunt) that is venerated. In humour, homoeroticism, which is the ‘satirical horseplay’ reliant upon batting around or mocking homosexual acts. Most aspects of the male life are centered around focal, valued interaction with other males, intentional exclusion of women as to nothing but narratively sexual or ‘domestic’ biological robots.

Of course in contemporary times people like to believe that they do not adhere to these ‘far-gone’ traditional values. Women as sexual objects or as stay-at-home wives that support a man while he works hard away with his buddies? Men that believe women are inherently inferior beings that must worship the grounds they walk? In 2025? Well, social media and the current societal/political climate says a definitive yes.

Naturally, in every generation, there are the ‘good apples’ of men and women that do not reinforce narrative systems like machismo. Abundantly, there are Latino men, from less to highly educated or a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, who say no to the idea that they are the center of this human universe. But, when men tend to think like this, it is possible they might subconsciously believe they are arbitrators of moral empathy and Latina feminism, great outliers of a bar set so low you can step over it.

There are the young and old Latino men who, whether directly or indirectly, grew up around machismo and developed willful ignorance to progression and additional selfish, malevolent perspective of gain. Supporting movements that cease LGTBQ+ solidarity or control women’s civil liberties, this male autonomy reserves itself a right to reject criticism for dogma.

Unintentionally, the more divisive they are to approaching machismo/their masculinity, both sides of the Latino man do no better than reinforce that patriarchy. Steadfast in being the macho man of the house in finances and ‘conserver of tradition’ or the macho man who’s well-versed in his noble understanding of women and his innate privileges in all their ‘mutually exclusive’ complexities (he might ask you to go 50/50).

Objectification or Objectification; the latter does no more than create a fantasy of reality and might crash out and grift if their liberal tendencies are underappreciated.

But, personally, I do wake up with the privilege of not having to be the macho man every morning. In a sense, no different from any other societal norm, we only adhere to these rules as much as we care for the opinion of those that uphold them.

Now, this is not liberation from the patriarchy. One does not escape the systems in place by participating in their own ‘willful ignorance.’ It is dissonance to indicate that because I intangibly reject people holding me to this overarching idea of man and our duties that there are not tangible articles that still affect or benefit me. But like many that have come before and will come after me, we all have a right to rebel and be stubborn in our own ways to the invisible threads that desire to paint a narrow collective.

Machismo denies both male and female individuality in its narrative to detail that every man or woman must act a certain way to live. You can easily come to think of those macho and machista archetypes that promote the Latin hetero-patriachy, but it’s all like fruits in a basket because the ideas have made all of them fundamentally the same.

As I have come directionless to think of the man I want to be with my adult responsibilities and free will, I know I am a stubborn and close-minded person regarding others trying to control my individuality. I find my strength and sensibility when I read or write, watch a great film or listen to some raw music, but I do not deserve applause for always being myself and accepting the things I like or believe.

In becoming ourselves, yourself, and myself, societal norms will always draw breath, but to invent identity it is necessary to own personal guidance whether in acceptance or rejection of other’s concept of you and yours of them.