“Whose Barrio Is It?”

Abstract

The popular 1970s sitcom Chico and the Mandepicted whites and Chicanos living side by side in the East L.A. barrio. As a prime-time network series, Chico presented a mediated fantasy space that appealed to utopian possibilities and offered multiple sorts of pleasure and displeasure to a multiracial audience, providing the opportunity to interrogate cultural signs of Otherness or Chicano-ness in comparison to whiteness, which traditionally “never has to acknowledge its role as an organizing principle,” as George Lipsitz states. Although the paternalistic relationship between an older white figure and a young Chicano at the show’s core invokes the racial power dynamics of other 1970s integrated ghetto shows, Chico offers brief disruptive moments that escape this strategy of ideological containment. These highlight the contradictory nature of the show (and TV itself), which often succeeds in quelling minoritized voices but can still be mobilized by them as an instrument for enjoyment/self-affirmation.