Identity In Erika Lopez's Flaming Iguanas

Erika Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas addresses various constitutions of American identity, including ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The protagonist, Jolene, is illustrative of how these constitutions of identity are complicated as she travels west. In particular, traveling westward typically consists of white men who reject the constraints of middle class life and decide to get on the road in hopes of finding selfhood. Flaming Iguanas demonstrates that gender, class, and ethnicity tie into the ability or inability to finding one’s self of self. Therefore, Jolene is unable to find her true sense of self because she is a woman. Lopez directs her readers’ attention to situations in her protagonist’s life where her mixed ethnicity, and ambivalent

Gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are core components that create a solid identity. In the western world Jolene is known as a bisexual Latina female. She is bisexual because she is sexually attracted to men and women, she is a Latina because she is a mixed company of Puerto Rican and German American, and she is a female because she has the physical attributes of a woman. Although gender, ethnicity, and sexuality are all relating factors, they are also separate units of identity. Gender refers to physical attributes and traits that make one appear to be male or female. Sexuality refers to how one feels about their body, one’s sexual orientation, and one’s sexual attraction for others. Ethnicity refers to a group of people who share the same cultural background and heritage. Lopez uses these three different factors of identity and crafts them together simultaneously to suggest the damage of stereotypes. Throughout the novel, Lopez’s Flaming Iguanas highlights the conformity of sex and gender stereotypes, and addresses the socially constructed stereotypes to challenge the patriarchy and expose the damage it does to one’s search for selfhood. Jolene exemplifies how they damage one’s sense of self as she ventures