The Dating Game

Mixed Media Assemblage. 2024.

Initially just a reflection of dating app results in the Rio Grande Valley, this piece explores local societal views on dating and relationships. These include conventional gender roles, stereotypes, racism and colorism that plague family expectations on one's potential significant other all through the lens of a familiar game.

Lotería originated in Italy, but the version you’ll see played in Mexican households was created by French business man Don Clemente Jacques. While a beloved game for many generations, all of the figure cards showcase a stereotype based in racism and/or colorism. And though this version of the game was published in 1887, many of these views persist in modern day Latinx communities, and make themselves known the most when topics of dating and marriage are brought up in conversations. Most known of these are the “El Negrito” card and the “El Apache” card, which are clearly offensive caricatures. I had wondered if I should leave these out of my assemblage, but followed the example set by Dr. Gloria Arjona who emphasized in her article, “¡Lotería! A Racial & Gender Approach to the Mexican Bingo,” that doing so is exactly what entities have done to those people and their communities for centuries: erasing them completely.

Furthermore, the game only has three women cards compared to its variety of men. This also contributes to the narrow notions of how women may be perceived by their communities or as potential partners: “La Dama,” an upper class, white woman in ; “La Serena,” the temptress; or “La Chalupa,” the embodiment of the strong, hardworking Indigenous/Mexican woman. Only these three are options to choose from.

My assemblage was made to look like exactly the way we play the game at home, with DIY cards on cardboard and anything we can find to mark the cards. It’s messy; just like navigating invasive questions, bad dates, and conventional expectations.