Yesterday, The John Evans Center hosted an event for Northwestern sociology and gender and sexuality studies professor Héctor Carrillo’s new book, "Pathways of Desire: Sexual Migration of Mexican Gay Men." The event was sponsored by the Department of Sociology, the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, the Latina/o Studies Program, and the Sexualities Project at Northwestern (SPAN). Before Carrillo spoke, three Northwestern professors praised the book’s insights into Mexican gay sexuality and the diverse array of viewpoints featured in the book.
Carrillo and his research assistants spent four years conducting interviews in San Diego, a popular location for gay Mexican males. The interviews focused on the sexual motivations for migration. In addition to Mexican-born males, they also interviewed gay US-born Latinos and men of any ethnicity who had been in relationships or had sexual encounters with Mexican males.
Carrillo and his team used a detailed procedure to establish trust with their subjects and get the information they needed while still being conversational. In an interview the day after the event Carrillo described the diversity of his subjects.
“There’s lots of stories that really stand out that tell us something about gay guys in different parts of Mexico. Both In large cities and in small towns,” Carrillo said “Ways in which middle class and working class families react to their loved ones’ sexual orientation.”
At the event, sociology professor Wendy Espeland praised Carrillo’s ability to return sex to sexuality studies.
“He suggests that desire, eroticism, passion bodily experiences, these have largely disappeared from studies of sexuality,” Espeland said “Hector shows how desire and the sexual scripts associated with a hot and tender Latino and a cold and impersonal white American are deployed in negotiating power in sexual relationships.”
On the matter of sex, Carrillo said “It opens up the ability of incorporating affect into analysis of sexuality,” Carrillo said, “Passion was significant for the study in showing how participants can analyze their sexualities and their identities.”
E. Patrick Johnson, African American studies chair and performance studies professor, and performance studies chair Ramón Rivera-Servera mixed performance and analysis into their celebration of Carrillo’s work. In an innuendo-laden summation of the book, Johnson noted the different research methods used in the book.
“Pathways of Desire employs a promiscuous methodology. Engaging as it does ethnographic field research, qualitative interviews and a rich historical survey of representations of Mexican queer desire.”
Johnson also expressed interest in expanding the study to include lesbian migrants, “What about Mexican lesbians? Do the same patterns of migration and desire emerge among this population, or are there other variables that affect queer migratory patterns based on gender?”
Carrillo appreciated these comments and hopes that others will use his study as a model for conducting further research. He mentioned that future work should also include transgender Mexicans.
The current presidential administration and its rhetoric about Mexican immigration did not go unmentioned during the event. Carrillo discussed how his research worked against prejudices in the United States, which purport the notion that migrants did not have lives before crossing the border. When asked later, Carrillo said that he believed his research into the motivations of migration is relevant in the current political climate.
“The motivations behind transnational migration are not purely economic or family related. In fact people who come from countries like Mexico sometimes engage in migration for lifestyle reasons.”