Art, bodies, and cultural struggle as political within “This Is America” and my experience of “becoming” as a Mexican immigrant in America: A coupling of rhetorical and performative analyses towards understanding marginalized voices.

In this two-fold critical analyses, I examine the 2018 hip-hop music video “This Is America” by Childish Gambino and I then utilize a differing critical cultural approach and analyze my personal experiences as a first-generation Mexican immigrant who now exists in the realm of academia. First, “This Is America” is undertaken as a rhetorical analysis in which I argue that the music video’s visual aesthetic and symbolic elements work rhetorically to invite viewers to recognize their social, cultural, and collective indifference concerning modern day anti-Black violence.

I maintain that unique art like music videos have the potential to be subversive and political, while in my second essay I explore how the personal is political. In this latter performative piece, I provide two personal narratives—also tying in the experiences of my Mexican mother— that are then followed by foundational Chicana feminists’ theories. As I analyze my cultural position of marginalization alongside my privileges as a Mexican, white-passing educated woman, I work through what I call a sense-making journey of “becoming.” I discuss how gaining the vocabulary and tools to name my experiences has situated me in the realm of academia. The rhetorical analysis of “This Is America” and the subsequent exploration of embodied cultural struggle both aim to highlight the critical link between the personal and the political, as well as how it is at play in modern day American structures.