Edward Vidaurre and the Politics of the Cholo Strut

Abstract I chart paths for navigating the contemporary political moment via the work of the working-class barrio poet Edward Vidaurre. The take-away from his work is a form of confrontational poetic activism or what I call the politics of the cholo strut. Vidaurre creates a counterculture via poetry to resist white-racist-capitalist propaganda and ideology. The cholo strut is not a criminal act but flags defiant subjectivity and points to an emancipatory politics that enacts militancy and yearning for utopia. Via the politics of the cholo strut, I seek to explode the limits of mainstream political science research on Chicanx politics in terms of whose voices are included and what counts as legitimate knowledge. Vidaurre’s work, I argue, opens new vectors for radical political reflection via code-switching and bridging while also staring into the abyss via the poetry of poverty.