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There is a Puerto Rican saying that goes “El pillo juzga por su condicion”–the thief judges by his own condition. Molzahn and Obejas’s review of Familias would be suspect on the grounds of its internal contradiction and misrepresentation alone. These critics complain that Familias is both unclear and too straightforward; that it tends “to underscore the most tragic images of Latinos,” yet is also too idealized and hopeful. They charge that the piece neglects the reality of single motherhood in the Latino community when two sections of Familias are devoted precisely to that experience.
After over a decade of creating, presenting, and supporting art that emerges from and speaks to Latino experience, we find such suggestions to be as laughable as they are offensive. What might be considered truly cynical is the way that Molzahn and Obejas have used the critical space of their column to polemicize against art that doesn’t attempt to divorce itself from social contexts and relevance. Molzahn and Obejas’s art-for-art’s sake rhetoric never seems more derivative or empty than when, following Croce’s lead, they charge that Familias renders itself critically unassailable by its “nonartistic origins.” Would Molzahn and Obejas really want to disqualify contemporary family and community life, personal history, and human experience in general from the realm of potential “artistic origins”?
Kate Ramsey
