The Side Eye and La Movida
How to be mindful of the movida…frequent use of the side eye, el ojo detras, the eye behind your head. While humans don’t have the ability to see behind their heads, they do have a broad range of peripheral vision. Chicanas, when organizing or collaborating on an issue, synchronize their actions, like flying birds or swimming fish (see emergence), relying on the peripheral vision of the most external bird/fish—a trained Chicana side eye that catches every and all movidas going on, frequently generated by a “group of concerned citizens.”
Side eye is a learned behavior, notice the child in the photograph, practicing side eye and smiling as if the one action is unrelated to the other, or offering the untrained eye the suggestion that the child is up to something. In reality the child is practicing the hidden action behind the side-eye, eavesdropping on an unsuspecting adult, probably in the middle of a movida conversation with another adult. There will follow, in the car on the way home, conversation about la movida—in this way Chicana children are both curious and resourceful.
