MIRROR – Patricia Chevez, 2020
Name
Patricia Chevez
Age
20
Race/Ethnicity
Latina
Interview Notes
PC: “I want to look vulgar. I want people to be mad and confused. Recently I’ve been thinking about how clothing is coded in gender. I want to look androgynous but not trying to look like a middle ground. I’d rather do both gender extremes instead of looking androgynous. Like is that masculine or feminine? No it’s masculine and feminine together, like a mash up. Non-binary but jarring, both genders.”
“Because I feel like that’s what people feel when they’re around me. They don’t talk to me. They don’t make an effort to talk to me. When they talk to me they’re very careful about what they say.”
DE: “You mean at MICA?”
PC: “Yeah.”
DE: “Why do you think they are careful?”
PC: “I don’t know. I feel like I would snap. I don’t know what they’ve heard about me. Like in my queer theory class. Most of us are queer in there, but people in the class will make more of an effort to speak to the white androgynous queer folk. Meanwhile the brown people or anyone else that doesn’t look like them or doesn’t look gay, they’re like “I’m not going to talk to them”
“You can’t really make assumptions because how you code yourself isn’t always what you’re thinking. I choose to present myself a certain way, I’m making you perceive me this way. How do you know I’m not performing for you right now? That’s how I think about other people, I don’t know if they’re performing or not. Is it their true self? I don’t even think of people as having one self, personality or one look. I’m always interested and wondering how they are in a different setting with different people.”