Heteronormatywność a wykluczenie – obraz Latynosów w przestrzeni kulturowej USA
Heteronormativity and Exclusion – The Image of Latinos/Latinas in the Cultural space of the USA

Summary/Abstract: The primary objective of this article is to pay attention to the dominant nature of the paradigm of heteronormativity which makes it impossible for the internally diversified population of the United States to develop and manifest sexual identities that are not consistent with the images of a man and a woman established already in the colonial period. In spite of the development of societies based on the principles of democracy and broadly understood tolerance, there are still some individuals who are socially and culturally marginalized in the sanctioned pubic order, and the very idea of heteronormativity invariably determines desirable patterns of conduct. The necessity to revise the time-honored standards regulating the sexual and romantic lives of both individuals and groups is highlighted by the analysis of stereotypes concerning the members of the Hispanic minority in the United States of America. It is shown that the practices employed in everyday life which are repeated in literature, movies and mass media contribute to perpetuating the existent divisions leading to further conflicts. The problem of relations occurring between Eurocentric and religious values, on the one hand, and the plurality of forms of masculinity and femininity, on the other, is juxtaposed here with one more issue, i.e. racial relations, which have been repeatedly used to justify acts of discrimination and maintain the policy of hegemony. What is more, the article indicates that the change of the existing policy can be effected by the change of factors accompanying the process of upbringing which could function as the corrective measures leading to the acknowledgement of potential “otherness” of fellow citizens.

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