CHILDHOOD AND HYBRID ACTS IN CUE´NTAME CO´MO ...

MI CHINA JUVENTUD : CHILDHOOD

AND HYBRID ACTS IN CUENTAME

COMO PASO

DELPHI PEARL MAY

ABSTRACT

Since 1990, Spain has taken in over 200,000 Chinese immigrants. Withthese citizens often the targets of racist attacks and stereotypes, several filmicand televisual texts offer stereotypical representations of Chinese immigrantseither as violent or as a model minority. Nevertheless, texts are emergingthat offer more nuanced representations of this migrant body and constructcomplex characters whose identity struggles form part of Spain’s socio-cultural fabric. Cuentame como paso (La1, 2001 – present) is one of the firstSpanish television programmes to represent a Spanish-Chinese immigrantchild this way. This article analyses the Spanish-Chinese immigrant child’sconstruction within public service broadcasting, arguing that her character’srepresentation is informed by the channel’s public service responsibility.The analysis considers the notion that her character is the generator of‘hybrid acts’ and is an agent of cross-cultural contact in her friendshipgroup.

Keywords: Spanish television; public service broadcasting; childhood; hybridacts; Chinese immigration

WHAT IS MISSING from Spanish television programmes today, fictional and

non-fictional combined, is a serious reflection on one of Spain’s most pressing

socio-political issues: immigration. At best, the wealth of dramas, sitcoms, crime

shows, comedies and documentaries gloss over this subject in a highly superficial

and unengaged way. This relatively indifferent approach has been taken specifically

towards Chinese immigration, Chinese immigrants, and their children. The comedy

series Anclados (Tele5, 2015), for example, which is set on an entertainment cruise

ship and stars Korean actor Alberto Jo Lee (naturally, playing a Chinese sailor),

often shows his fellow shipmates teasing him for his ‘non-Spanish’ appearance, and

for his exasperation when they insist his name must be ‘Jose Ling’ (and not the very

common Jose Luis). Equally controversial was the series Aıda (Tele5, 2005–2014),

in which a sign popped up in a bar stating ‘both dogs and Chinese’ were strictly

prohibited. As might be expected, the move provoked outrage from the Chinese em-

bassy, with their spokesperson demanding that ‘the situation be quickly resolved and

the trust of the Spanish public regained’.1

# The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press for the Court of the University of St Andrews.The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland: No. SC013532.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduc-tion in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Forum for Modern Language Studies Vol. 57, No. 3, doi: 10.1093/fmls/cqab016Advance Access Publication 15 August 2021

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My analysis focuses on the popular family drama Cuentame como paso (La1, 2001 –

present), which from season 15 onwards includes the Spanish-Chinese child Fan

fan’s escapades with two other Spanish girls. A number of issues are thus explored:

Chinese immigration, childhood, adolescence and friendship, all of which intersect

to varying degrees throughout the programme and contribute to more general

debates about race and ethnicity on Spanish television. I have selected Cuentame be-

cause it is an example of the way in which directors and producers are adopting a

more serious critical outlook on issues of (Chinese) immigration, hyphenated identity

and discrimination. More crucially, these issues are informed by the conceptualiza-

tion of the hybrid act and public service broadcasting. The article discusses

the multi-layered characterization of Fan fan as a friend and as an integral part of

the Spanish-Chinese child-friendship network, considering her role in the girls’

growth into hybrid acts.

Conceptualizing the hybrid act

My notion of the ‘hybrid act’ is born out of scholarship on (postcolonial) hybrid-

ity theory. A generic conceptualization of the term is provided by Kirsti Bohata:

‘Hybridity is most often used to refer to a process of transculturation which

occurs in colonial contact zones, but also extended to refer to a variety of

cultural “exchanges”.’2 Whether such points of contact are called ‘exchanges’,

‘moments’ or ‘instances’ does not necessarily underpin the very acts which

render these ‘exchanges’ transformative, or powerful, in nature. My choice of

the word ‘act’ here firstly reflects the way in which the term denotes the very act

of ‘taking action’3 or taking initiative. As I shall outline, the common hybrid

acts which I have identified in the texts examined (which are not just limited to

Cuentame como paso, but also include La fuente amarilla/The Yellow Fountain

(dir. Miguel Santesmases, 1998), Biutiful (dir. Alejandro Gonzalez I~narritu,

2010), Fısica o quımica/Physics or Chemistry (Antena 3, 2008–2011), and Huidas/

Escapes (dir. Mercedes Gaspar, 2015)) are, in one way or another, instrumental

in challenging racist or divisive rhetoric displayed by certain characters towards

mixing between Spanish and (Spanish-)Chinese citizens. Secondly, the term

‘act’ here denotes ‘an operation of the mind’.4 Under most circumstances, both

Spanish and (Spanish-)Chinese citizens are shown to make a conscious decision

to carry out such powerful gestures in the face of intolerance or resistance

to their social mixing. In this way, the term ‘act’ as I have used it here works to

capture the motives at play when such acts are carried out.

The idea of the hybrid act is largely inspired by Ien Ang’s conceptualization of hy-

bridity as not only signifying ‘fusion and synthesis’,5 but also as being ‘about friction

and tension, about ambivalence and incommensurability, about the contestations

and interrogations that go hand in hand with the heterogeneity, diversity and multi-

plicity we have to deal with as we live together in difference’.6 In this way, Ang,

along with other postcolonial theorists (such as Robert Young, Stuart Hall, Homi

Bhabha, Paul Gilroy and Nestor Garcıa Canclini7), understands hybridity as

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destabilizing ‘established cultural power relations between colonizer and colonized,

centre and periphery, the “West” and the “rest”, [by] throwing into question these

very binaries through a process of boundary blurring transculturation’.8 This is not,

however, to elide the weaknesses and contradictory aspects to be found in this

(contemporary) interpretation of hybridity. Bohata points out that:

While hybridity seems to offer a space which privileges cultural differance [:::], the

etymology of the term (originating as it does from the biological sciences) suggests a certain

tension between postcolonial usage of the word to represent a release from ideas of cultural

authenticity and the implied fixity of the two (or more) ‘parent’ cultures ‘in-between’ which

the interstitial, hybrid space is formed.9

Robert Young, in his earlier work (1995), Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and

Race, interrogates the term ‘hybridity’, stating that it is inextricably linked to racial

ideologies of purity and miscegenation.10 Young even suggests that hybridity’s

re-introduction to critical discourse is reducible to enduring fascinations with ‘inter-

minable, adulterating, aleatory, illicit, inter-racial sex’.11 Celebrators of hybridity are

also criticized for divesting it of its caustic biological associations, thus evading issues

of race and racism which, paradoxically, should form the bedrock of hybridity stud-

ies. Scott Michaelsen supports the notion that championing hybridity in fact

reinstates essentialism: ‘[W]hat has gone wrong [:::] in hybridity studies in general is

that these celebrated and often-cited attempts to maneuver the hybrid beyond the

reach of essentialism have all, in fact, reiterated the logic of essentialism.’12

Michaelsen’s concern is that contemporary revivals of hybridity in postcolonial

theory tread too fine a line between approving the existence of hybrids ‘as a sign of

utopian powers and potentialities’ (vested in minorities), and determining ‘the

individual elements that make up the hybrid’,13 subjecting it to recycling the rhetoric

of nineteenth-century racial studies.

Nevertheless, Ien Ang’s attempt to refashion the very notion of hybridity within

the context of a globalized world, accounting for its incongruences and inconsisten-

cies, is convincing when applied to analysis of filmic and television representations of

Chinese identity and Spanish–Chinese encounters. Indeed, Ang asserts that hybrid-

ity ‘can never be a question of simple [sic] shaking hands, of happy, harmonious

merger and fusion’,14 a claim supported by Canclini when he states that ‘hybridisa-

tion is not synonymous with reconciliation among ethnicities and nations, nor does

it guarantee democratic interactions’.15 In other words, negotiations of difference on

a local level are informed by complex mediation between expressions of intolerance,

caustic racism, and even violence, alongside acts of acceptance and mutual under-

standing. Hence, my conceptualization of the ‘hybrid act’ is based on the idea that

arrival at such (conciliatory) acts is not totally without conflict and problems, but is

rather part of a longer process of conflict, interaction and negotiation, primarily

between people of different national contexts. I identify ‘hybrid acts’ as border-

breaking actions, usually enacted with the intention of countering expressions of

violence and racism. As such, these acts are driven by a motive to defy and resist

practices of othering and intolerance.

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The hybrid acts identified so far which occur between Spanish and Chinese

characters across Spanish visual media are: care-giving, the giving of water, sex-

ual intercourse, children’s play rituals, and growth from childhood to

adolescence, although the first three are at present the most common. This arti-

cle provides an insight into the ways in which directors and producers in Spain

are in the process of developing a stylistic preoccupation with the dynamics of

contact, which can be epitomized, for example, by directors’ and cinematogra-

phers’ interest in skin-to-skin contact between Spanish and Spanish-Chinese

characters. Rather than restricting their representations of such relations to a

strained/celebratory binary, more recent texts have depicted the complex medi-

ation between conflict and symbiosis experienced by Spanish, Chinese and

Spanish-Chinese characters. As such, whilst a hybrid act is in principle a posi-

tive, or transformative, gesture, the process of arriving at such hybrid acts is not

shown in Cuentame to be a simple affair, as is the case for other filmic and televi-

sual (post-1999) texts I have explored elsewhere.16

More vitally, there is a growing emphasis within these texts on the local, everyday

spaces in which hybrid acts are produced (in Cuentame’s case, the school and domes-

tic unit). The notion of the hybrid act creates a more tangible mode of analysing

and visualizing the dynamics and micro-politics which govern these everyday spaces.

With this in mind, this article contends that part of the nuance and complexity of

Cuentame lies in the importance it places on the apparently insignificant, routine

encounters in everyday locales. As Anita Harris states:

It is in the sharing of place that people establish a visceral and emotional lived experience

of diversity [:::]; it is essential to study the micro-publics of everyday social contact and

encounter [:::] because this is where identity and attitudes are informed and where

struggles over place and entitlement are played out.17

Harris continues, ‘[Y]oung people are also more likely to occupy places where the

production and contestation of cultural difference is most heightened and meaning-

ful.’18 Bearing this observation in mind, the hybrid acts which take place between

children on screen are apt points of departure in terms of attesting to the potentially

transformative power they exercise in developing the Spanish–Chinese encounters

depicted within recent television narratives. As the children in Cuentame mature,

following intense periods of awakening and learning, their arrival at more transfor-

mative hybrid gestures, and their ability to confront aspects of everyday life which

challenge such gestures, become salient features of the show’s serial incorporation of

their characters.

‘Cuentame como paso’ and Spain’s public service reform

The discourses regarding the hybrid act briefly outlined above can be situated within

the framework of (Spanish) public service television. To situate Cuentame thus is to

continue an enquiry into the institutional and cultural ethos of Spanish public service

television. This also means commencing an investigation into how programmes with


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a certain public service obligation represent Spanish–Chinese interactions. In 2005,

Palacio published his Historia de la television en Espa~na which takes a historical ap-

proach to the birth and growth of public service television in Spain, as well as

providing a detailed insight into the emergence of Spain’s television industry.19 Paul

Julian Smith on the other hand tends to analyse Spanish public service television us-

ing specific case studies which illustrate the shifting aesthetics and objectives of

programmes driven by a public service ethos.20 In his chapter in Dramatized Societies:

Quality Television in Spain and Mexico on El internado and Fısica o quımica, for example,

Smith states that both shows (Fısica in particular, which features a detailed, two-sea-

son-long exploration of interracial relations between a Chinese student, Jan, and his

classmates21) are ‘an education in responsible citizenship’.22 Notwithstanding their

detailed accounts of public service broadcasting, Palacio and Smith say very little

about the core aims, functions and obligations of public service television in Spain as

set out by the Grupo Radiotelevision Espa~nola in a charter-like format.23 Rather,

more attention has been paid to investigating the educative potential of TV texts

(like Cuentame) using the more abstract theoretical framework of social pedagogy.

Indeed, if Cuentame is to be analysed as a text with public service ethos, a consider-

ation of the formal apparatus of public service broadcasting in Spain (by means of

surveying annual reports and statements of commitment from RTVE) is necessary

in order to unravel the particular innovations and problems regarding Fan fan’s

(Cristina Xiaoli) inclusion in the narrative. This then facilitates a discussion of the

synergies between Cuentame as a public service text and Cuentame as a family drama –

in this case, with the representation of an immigrant child as the central focus be-

tween these two (television-centred) debates, and wider debates on childhood,

adolescence and friendship. Indeed, other scholarship on Cuentame does point to the

idea that it might be interpreted as a text with great educational potential, and thus

a text which might readily be considered in light of public service discourse. Linda

Bartlett and Lourdes Manye, for example, have documented how they have used

Cuentame as an integral tool in the classroom to help students understand Spain’s

transition to democracy,24 and to further their ‘understanding of history, change,

and memory in contemporary Spain’.25

To this end, a general consideration of RTVE’s annual reports reveals the ways

in which Cuentame’s personnel have sought to address the differing criteria laid out in

the public service remits, and also reveals ways in which the criteria may not have

been so readily met. Interestingly, the provision of annual reports between the years

of judicial upheaval and reform (2004–2006), which are by law public documents,

are missing from RTVE’s website (ironically, compiled under the heading

‘Transparencia’ [‘Transparency’]).26 The annual updates of RTVE’s fulfilled public

service objectives and future targets are available only for the year 2003, and then

2007 onwards. In any case, Cuentame has lived with RTVE through the corporation’s

major shake-up, remaining a robust bastion of the broadcaster’s public service ethos

and commitment to accessible fictional programming. Of particular relevance in the

reports are: the public service objectives followed by RTVE; any significant develop-

ments over the last decade with regards to RTVE’s objectives, specifically as

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Spanish society has been drastically reconfigured by immigration; allusion to

the provision of accessible content for ethnic minorities; and any reference to the

significance of Cuentame as a product which safeguards the broadcaster’s pledge(s) to

the Spanish public.

Accentuated in RTVE’s 2003 report is the legal mandate drawn up by the corpo-

ration in light of the 1997 Amsterdam Protocol. The protocol stipulated that each

EU Member State should define the function of their national (radio and televisual)

public service aims, clarify their means of securing funding, and entrust the opera-

tional management of the public service body to an independent authority.27 The

mandate, comprised of ten pledges, pays particular attention to provision for minori-

ties, promotion of pluralism, and universal accessibility of content. This is evidenced

in particular by clauses 2, 3, 4 and 7.28 The italicized parts of note 28 draw attention

to where Cuentame in particular both works and fails to deliver on these minority-ori-

entated public service remits (primarily through Fan fan’s character); they also flag

up the wider institutional issues with Spain’s public service obligations to its ethnic

minorities. Regarding the latter point, it is notable that in 1995 a volume entitled

European Television: Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities was published, which provides a

comprehensive survey of both public service and private provision for, and represen-

tation of, ethnic minorities on European television screens. This study revealed that

Spain had no provision of channels, programmes, or international broadcasts (origi-

nal programmes from immigrants’ home countries) for any of its ethnic minority

groups.29 The reason cited by the Spanish Emigration Institute was that immigra-

tion was a relatively recent phenomenon for Spain, and hence ‘none of the mass

media have come up with any specialized coverage intended for immigrants’.30 In

1995, this was perhaps at best barely understandable. Yet in 2003, eight years on,

RTVE’s annual report shows no intention of rectifying this lack of accessibility, and

a consideration of the reports post-2007 (when migration to Spain really accelerated)

reveals that this situation remains stagnant.31

One of this article’s main goals is to link the representation of Fan fan’s character

in Cuentame to RTVE’s public service pledges. In particular, I assess where, in

the representation of one of Spain’s largest ethnic minorities, the show complies with

the public service pledges (particularly those linked to accessibility, representation

and ‘positive attitudes’), and in which aspects it falls short of fulfilling them. Part of

Cuentame’s intrigue regarding Fan fan is its attempt at a more reflective engagement

with Chinese migration to Spain, particularly in its use of a Spanish-Chinese child –

yet racism, rejection and the flattening out of ethnic differences are folded into the

prime-time family drama’s scripting. Characters who are much loved and celebrated

for their warmth and inclusive rhetoric on occasion show concern about Fan fan’s

Chineseness, engaging in processes of othering not too dissimilar to those seen in

other texts. That this intermittent weaving of intolerance into the serial format

should be outweighed by Fan fan’s friendship with Marıa and Gala (both from

Spanish families) is subject to investigation in this article, and invites an ongoing dis-

cussion of how the hybrid act might manifest across Cuentame’s episodes in a

protracted way.


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Fan fan and friendship: the hybrid trio?

This section analyses the various positionalities of Fan fan, and the manifold burdens

placed upon her as an enabler of hybrid acts. All of these disparate burdens

(the friend, her hyphenated identity, the daughter) are in some way linked back to

her Chineseness. However, given the serial structure of television, the development

of the hybrid act is not as immediate as it is in feature films, but is presented as

something that is protracted, ongoing, and in a constant state of flux.

The notion of protracted hybrid acts, as opposed to being sudden, spontaneous

ways of reaching out to an ‘other’, are built up in Cuentame as part of a network of

ongoing daily gestures. These gestures, which occur repeatedly, deepen relationships

and by default emit a message promoting togetherness – with some superficial differ-

ences (primarily, the superficial, unchangeable difference is the girls’ different

heritages). Also, the importance in the everyday encounters between the three girls

lies in the constant potential for further engagement in more consequential moments

as they mature. Rather than the more specific acts which occur between Spanish

and Chinese adults (sex, shared food consumption, interpretation), the acts which

are more significant for the child characters are as ordinary as dialogue, play and,

particularly, conflict resolution. Such encounters tend to be informed by varying

issues the girls confront, which increase in complexity with each episode, thus requir-

ing more from the girls in terms of maturity and understanding. At times, the level

of maturity required of them causes problems which are to be resolved in subse-

quent episodes, giving scope to the girls (Fan fan in particular) to demonstrate their

growing capabilities to resolve conflict in a measured way. This, I argue, is a

befitting assessment given their social condition as ‘human becomings’ or ‘projects

in the making’.32 In this way, the three girls are yet to discover the more ‘serious’ or

‘demanding’ acts (caring, (physical) contact) which will eventually shape their future

intercultural encounters with other ethnic minorities. However, this is not to under-

mine the importance of the daily dialogues, play rituals and conflict management

measures in which the girls engage. As ever, the girls’ importance lies in the fact that

they are agents in the making who show the ability to create an atmosphere of living

together in difference. Indeed, as Valerie Hey points out, understanding the minu-

tiae of girls’ friendships is key to recovering more complex cultural codes which

determine how they relate to one another.33 It is through Cuentame’s mode of story-

telling that the maturation and internal logic34 of the girls’ friendship is given its

complexity, especially given that someone perceived to be an ‘other’ is a part of that

friendship. As Jason Mittell notes, this mode of storytelling embraces ‘a poetics of

slow paced redundancy – but instead of treating repetition as a necessary evil’ repeti-

tion is raised ‘to an art form’.35 Mittell refers in particular to several characters’

reactions to one single event in a given episode via the dialogue-heavy conventions

of the soap genre. However, whilst he argues that redundancy and repetition are

not necessarily typical characteristics of the (weekly) prime-time serial, Cuentame, as a

show which scrutinizes the everyday intricacies of family life and friendship, embra-

ces redundancy and repetition in a number of its narrative threads. The protracted,

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repetitive dialogues between Fan fan and her friends is one such thread which gains

momentum over the course of three seasons.

Close analysis of the girls’ encounters across a number of episodes highlights the

ways in which they work towards an increasingly hybrid-orientated relationship.

The analysis also reveals moments which challenge their maturation, therefore

threatening the habitual ‘togetherness’ of the trio. I look specifically at both the

shift in conflict dynamics and Fan fan’s presence between episodes 258 and 265,

and I consider Fan fan’s interstitial position as the group’s ‘social glue’ in episodes

286 and 301.

Episode 258 (‘Como debe ser’ [‘How things should be’]) presents Fan fan as a

potential threat to the stability of Marıa and Gala’s (Spanish) friendship. Whilst this

is not directly attributed to her Chineseness, her being introduced as unequivocally

Chinese by Marıa in episode 255 suggests a loose link between her racial heritage

and the fractures the friendship endures over the course of the episode. The way in

which Fan fan is inserted into Marıa and Gala’s discourse signals the disruption,

rather than production, of a hybrid trio. The reverse medium tracking shot captured

in Figure 1 suggests the progression and stability which come with the Spanish

friendship: the two girls occupy equal space in the frame, have similar complexions,

and both take pleasure in defying Herminia’s (the grandmother) demands that they

stop dawdling. Moreover, the way in which the camera is moved is of paramount

importance here: when Marıa and Gala are alone, the reverse tracking shot is

unbroken and keeps synchronicity with the girls’ movement, indicating the

undisturbed progression of their friendship. When Fan fan enters the frame in the

background (positioned between the girl’s heads, as if halting their communication),

this motion is stopped (Figure 2). The halting of the reverse tracking shot, coupled

with the insertion of Fan fan into the (now overpopulated) medium shot, signals that

Figure 1 Gala and Marıa make plans.


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the ‘other’ child has the potential to unbalance the familiar, homogeneous allegiance

between the two girls. The reverse tracking shot is resumed; however, Marıa is now

markedly excluded from Fan fan and Gala’s conversation (about a child’s version of

tarot cards). Fan fan then instigates the breakdown of the trio by saying ‘Me lo rega-

las, que soy tu mejor amiga’ [‘Go on, give me the card, since I’m your best friend’],

awakening fury in Marıa, who retorts ‘De eso nada, que su mejor amiga soy yo,

somos vecinas y mejores amigas’ [‘What, no way! I’m her best friend, we’re neigh-

bours and best friends’]. Most vital is the intuitive movement of the camera, which

slows down precisely as Fan fan instigates the argument and halts as Marıa responds;

as such, the gradual decline in the camera’s movement as Fan fan speaks shifts cul-

pability onto her for the breakdown of the (homogeneous) relationship. The

suspension of both the homogeneous and hybrid relationships is ushered in by a se-

ries of cuts between the three girls as they force Gala to decide whose friendship she

values most. The relationships (captured by the medium reverse tracking shot) are

quickly thrown into relief (the overpopulated medium shot, the halting of the reverse

tracking shot, the cuts), and are then finally ruptured by the point of view shot of

Gala and Fan fan leaving Marıa behind. The show’s central Spanish child is aban-

doned, with the ‘other’ child character momentarily constructed as a threatening

and disruptive presence.

At the end of the episode, the disruption within the female child network is

granted partial closure. However, expectations that peace will be restored between

the hybrid trio are left unsatisfied. Instead, priority is given to closing the conflict be-

tween the homogeneous duo (Marıa and Gala), without showcasing how the

dynamic between Fan fan and the other girls is re-balanced. The conflict is resolved

in the (Spanish) domestic setting of the Alcantara home (as opposed to the exterior

landscape of the square, with the spectral presence of the Chinese restaurant, and,

therefore, the possibility of Fan fan’s interference). The transition from public

Figure 2 Fan fan catches up.

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(ethnically marked) space to the private (homogeneous) space of the domestic setting

positions the spectator in the place that they have come to know as the emblem of

national tradition and (Spanish) family values. In other words, the Alcantara home

is not yet exposed to Fan fan’s racial difference, and has therefore not been ‘marked’

as a space which is open to socio-cultural pluralization. The tonal disruption which

Fan fan brings to the trio’s dynamics throughout the course of the episode is absent

in this final sequence, and it is this which (problematically) enables the closure of this

plotline.

The gulf between Gala and Marıa is embodied in the cuts between the two girls,

figuratively pitching them against one another in the ongoing battle caused by Fan

fan (the ongoing use of cuts continues the conflict discussed in the paragraph above).

The struggle is abruptly ended, however, when they move on to discussing more

trivial matters far removed from their recent conflict. Marıa, rather randomly, asks

‘Gala, >alguna vez has visto al Diablo?’ [‘Gala, have you ever seen the Devil?’] – an

utterance which is followed by a cut to a medium-wide shot of both girls in Marıa’s

bedroom. In this way, the spectator is encouraged, above all else, to acknowledge

that the conflict is resolved in (a) this homogeneous space which is (b) devoid of the

(obstructive) difference Fan fan embodies, linking Fan fan’s absence from the sanc-

tity of the domestic space to the conflict’s resolution. Moreover, it is by returning to

the very minutiae of the girls’ fears, worries and thoughts that the conflict is sealed

over and the lesson finally learned. Paradoxically, episode 258 underscores the (im-

plied) difficulties of socio-cultural diversity as an open-ended story arc which merits

further exploration in subsequent episodes, and critically undermines Cuentame’s status

as one of RTVE’s public service trophies. The absence of Fan fan from the resolu-

tion in essence compromises the efforts the show invests in cultivating positive

attitudes and respect for minorities, since any potential for an attempt to deconstruct

her condition as a threat is forfeited. Furthermore, it is only Gala and Marıa

who are shown to acquire the skills for future (hybrid) interactions; no collective lesson

is actually learned.

Nevertheless, a crucial transition in Fan fan’s nature and approach to conflict is

marked between episodes 286 and 301. Episode 286 (‘Los amigos de Luis’ [‘Luis’s

friends’]) showcases a turning point in the girls’ progression to adolescence, because

the subject matter they have to work through (in this case, drug addiction) requires a

higher level of maturity for their successful comprehension of the issue at hand.

Much weight is placed on Fan fan as the social glue of the hybrid trio; in this way,

the success of the girls’ behavioural acquisitions is contingent upon how Fan fan

handles any threat to the stability of the trio. There are two levels on which this

sequence can be understood. On the one hand, the shift from the micropolitics of

the girls’ talk (anchored in play) to the wider implications of drug addiction can be

interpreted as yet another test to the moral order and competency of the group.

Episode 286 raises questions: will the girls give in to an opportunity to indulge in

‘strivings for power and social prestige’, embedded in the ‘highly ritualized nature of

girls’ exclusionary practices’?36 If so, how is the behavioural order restored, and by

whom? Alternatively, this sequence can be seen to set the precedent for a more overt


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display of maturation and conflict resolution in a later episode which features Fan

fan. Interpreted this way, episode 286 showcases part of the socialization process –

and engagement in more pivotal hybrid gestures – as the girls acquire certain traits

and capacities, such as self-concept, self-actualization, personality integration, inde-

pendence, autonomy and environmental mastery.37 This places an emphasis upon

how ‘the individual child [:::] can get along with the tensions and frustrations of

both normal or adverse environments so that a stable competent self can develop,

one that is able to both form personal bonds and control and structure the environ-

ment’.38 It is on Fan fan’s maturation (between episodes 286 and 301) that the

stability of the hybrid trio is dependent. As such, the girls’ readiness for future inter-

action in more consequential hybrid acts with the ‘other’ (both racial and otherwise)

is determined by Fan fan’s management of intra-group conflict. In effect, the

hyphenated child possesses immense power in driving the trio’s development into

‘competent children’.

A dialectical opposition between childish innocence (play) and social awakening

(talk) is constructed at the opening of the sequence featuring the trio in episode 286.

The sequence commences with a wide shot of the three girls on a set of swings, sur-

rounded by other schoolchildren using equipment in the playground (Figure 3). The

innocuous tonal register is immediately placed at odds with the more explicit content

of their dialogue: ‘Mi madre dice que las drogas son mas fuertes que el sexo’ [‘My

Mum says that drugs are even stronger than sex’]. What promises to be a

familiar, trivial moment of play – signalled by the repetitive motion of the swinging

– and the innocence of the childish action of playing on swings is immediately pro-

pelled into more adult (and therefore unpredictable) territory by Gala’s utterance.

The tension is therefore between bodily development and cognitive understanding.

The girls are still physically childlike, engaging in physical activities inextricably

linked with childhood, yet their verbal discourse demonstrates a level of cognitive

comprehension which is out of step with their physical maturation. This tonal

disjuncture establishes the potential breakdown in harmony amongst the hybrid trio,

which ensues when the child/adult tension between the action (swinging) and the

conversation (drugs/sex) ventures entirely into more adult, and notionally ‘prohib-

ited’, terrain. Gala asks ‘>Quereis ver jeringuillas?’ [‘Do you want to see some

syringes?’], at which point the three girls abandon the child-orientated activity of

swinging as Gala leads the other two to the side of the playground, where she pokes

at some used needles and syringes with a stick. The positioning of the contaminated

products – at the side-lines, signalling the marginalized condition of the consumers,

yet still within the sheltered space of a children’s playground – contributes further to

the confused and potentially volatile tonal texture of the encounter, fusing childhood

ignorance with premature and unexpected awakening. Following the close-up of the

syringes, there is a pan up to a medium close-up of the three girls, their physical

closeness and equal distribution across the frame still sustaining the stability of the

trio. At this point, the distanced political content of their conversation (drug con-

sumption) becomes localized when Marıa says ‘Pues por mi se pueden morir todos,

sobre todo el que me robo la bici’ [‘Well all of them can go die, especially whoever

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stole my bike’], to which Gala responds, ‘Tu no puedes decir eso ::: que tu hermana

es drogadicta’ [‘You can’t say that ::: your sister is a drug addict’]. The rapid descent

from childhood play, to general adult discourse, to localized (political) conflict is

again marked by the camerawork. Marıa shoves Gala, exclaiming ‘¡Retira eso ahora

mismo!’ [‘Take that back right now!’], shifting the medium close-up – evocative of

togetherness – to a reverse angle shot, with the girls adopting more combative stan-

ces. As the camera pans right, a wider frame is held, with Fan fan slightly removed

from the conflict (Figure 4). Her positioning between the two girls emphasizes her

potential power as the group’s mediator, therefore underscoring her condition as a

hyphenated child – deeply entrenched in the fabric of the group yet somehow per-

petually on the fringes. Fan fan’s positioning between Marıa and Gala also places a

significant burden of responsibility on her with respect to her potential action. The

position of the hyphenated child as ‘a point of articulation’39 is in flux; Fan fan’s

power to shut down the conflict and restore order to the hybrid trio is frustrated

when she leaves the frame with Gala, not as much out of loyalty to Gala as out of

sheer panic. The delicate subject matter defeats the girls in this episode since the

conflict remains unresolved, demonstrating a preoccupation with the consequences

of their premature social awakening, and simultaneously showing a desire to build

their accrual of behavioural attributes around Fan fan’s own social competencies. In

plainer terms, the female network cannot function in a stable condition of ‘together-

ness’ without the intervention – and conflict-resolution abilities – of the hyphenated

child.

The paragraphs above have briefly established that the three girls acquire varying

skills which enable them to engage with ‘others’ in meaningful ways. The challeng-

ing tests of development in which they participate prepare them for future

encounters with different, marginalized, or simply ‘other’ human beings, encounters

Figure 3 The girls at play.


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which later on are not necessarily readily identifiable as border-breaking hybrid acts.

This is partially because Fan fan is often constructed as simply ‘Spanish’ through

her deep involvement in a friendship with a strong homogeneous base, and through

her entrenchment in the Spanish educational system. Nevertheless, there are junc-

tures within certain episodes where the opportunity for more pivotal encounters

between Fan fan as a (Spanish-)Chinese child and the long-standing ‘native’ Spanish

characters arises. Episode 282 (‘Misa de diez’ [‘10 o’clock Mass’]) is one such

example.

An initial viewing of ‘Misa de diez’ would suggest that the episode may be cele-

brated for its successful compliance with the core principles of public service

broadcasting. Focusing on the preparations for the televised transmission of one of

San Genaro’s Sunday Masses, the episode sets up various opportunities for vital

public service remits to be explored and fulfilled. This includes reflecting ‘the differ-

ent philosophical ideas and religious beliefs in society, with the aim of strengthening

mutual understanding and tolerance and promoting community relations in pluri-

ethnic and multicultural societies’.40 Another outcome expected of an episode which

approaches the themes of family, religion and community is that it should promote

‘intercultural and interreligious dialogue’ and ‘respect for cultural diversity’.41 As a

show whose public service ethos is linked with its mode of storytelling, there is inevi-

table overlap between the institutional public service rhetoric embedded within its

narrative threads and its sense of ‘moral legibility’,42 stated by Linda Ruth Williams

as a defining characteristic of the long-form melodrama. The crossover between

public service commitments, morality and affect is often mapped across a number

of Cuentame’s most loved characters, who have gradually become the most salient

figures safeguarding the show’s public service standing. It is expected that such

Figure 4 Marıa attacks Gala.

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characters (the Priest, the stern yet loveable grandmother and the Alcantara parents)

should be leading defenders of the show’s public service promises:

mutual understanding, dialogue and respect. Yet their roles as gatekeepers of

this public service rhetoric are problematized throughout this potentially pivotal

episode, this problematization stemming from their (lack of) interaction with the

(Spanish-)Chinese child. Ien Ang’s insistence that ‘togetherness in difference’ –

which could qualify as a public service principle in itself – should be a defining

aspect of contemporary human relations is challenged by the disruptions these

characters bring to the overarching sensibility of the episode. However, this is

precisely how Cuentame exhibits its complexities, arising out of its blending

Spain’s past (institutional and social racism) with contemporary public service

pledges.

In this episode, a moralistic divergence is set up between the younger, progressive

characters (represented by the female network) and the old-school, authoritative gen-

eration which lived through the most contentious years of the Francoist dictatorship.

The trio, which for the purposes of exploring female friendship is fraught with divi-

sion, now embodies changing human relations characterized by the rhetoric of

‘togetherness in difference’. Investigations into (female) intra-group conflict, sociali-

zation and cognitive development are suspended, and their youthfulness is utilized

to explore more pressing public service concerns related to socio-cultural change.

Consequently, their interactions gain a distinct political dimension, distinct from

their other encounters, which are governed by discourses on friendship and social

development. The girls’ religious, social and ethnic differences are worked through

with a more serious consideration of how these differences drive their relationship

forward, and how they alter the dynamics of their relations with other (older)

characters.

Fan fan’s position as a hyphenated child is singled out as the main barrier to the

‘togetherness’ which permeates the episode’s message. The more engaged explora-

tion of her complex religious, social and ethnic status exposes inconsistencies within

the characters who purportedly embody the defining principles of public service

texts. These characters are used to undermine the sensitivity required towards Fan

fan’s intersecting identities, with the writers potentially forming a critique of Spain’s

authoritarian institutions of parenthood and religion, whilst (vexingly) closing down

narrative opportunities to develop the Spanish–Chinese encounter. The tonal regis-

ter of the episode thus oscillates between homogeneity and heterogeneity, both of

which are underscored (or could have been achieved) through practices of accep-

tance and rejection. With this in mind, the specific ‘problem’ which the girls have to

resolve is how Fan fan can (temporarily) escape the demands of her religious and

ethnic heritage so as to participate in the televised Mass. In the first instance, this

requires an acknowledgement (and understanding) of Fan fan’s differences, which is

worked through in the trio’s dialogue:

FAN FAN >Oye, los budistas podemos ir a misa? [Hey, can us Buddhists go to Mass?]


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MARIA Creo que sı, pero cuando salıs ya teneis que ser un poco cristianos. [I think so, yes,

but by the time you leave you have to be at least a bit Christian.]

FAN FAN Joe, si me hago cristiana mis padres me matan ::: Que injusto, querıa salir en la

tele. [God, if I become a Christian my parents will kill me ::: It’s so unfair, I wanted to be

on TV.]

MARIA Chicas, tenemos que hacer algo para que podais ir a la misa. [Girls, we’ve got to

do something so that you can go to the Mass.]

The calm, pragmatic tone of this exchange is modulated by the threat of Fan fan’s

potential exclusion from the Mass owing to her Chinese heritage. The girls are

framed in the wide shot outside Marıa’s home (nominally employed to connote

the overarching stability and equality which characterizes their friendship), with the

camera following them in what is expected to be an extended take (given that they

are deep in conversation). That the movement of the camera is initially governed by

their pace signifies that this (the space outside Marıa’s home) is ‘their’ own space,

free of authoritative intervention or institutional gazes. The threat of authoritative

(and therefore homogeneous) order is introduced by a cut to Carlos (Marıa’s

brother), who conveys that Antonio (their father) wants her to return home. The in-

evitable removal of the central Spanish child from this exchange to the

(homogeneous) domestic space suggests that the potential cross-cultural encounter

will later be cut off by the same authoritative presence. This abstract intervention of

parental authority – signalled by the cut to Carlos – sets a precedent for the manifold

vacillations in tone which dominate the rest of the episode. This cut also ushers in

Marıa’s acknowledgement and problematization of Fan fan’s Chineseness

(highlighted in the dialogue above). The dialogue, which constructs a tonal sensibility

privileging homogeneity over difference, works against the continuation of the

extended take following the cut. Their progression down the road, captured in an

extended reverse tracking shot, suggests that despite the problem posed by Fan fan’s

Chineseness, they will use their (hybrid) friendship to find a conciliatory solution

which will enable her to attend the Mass. As such, Fan fan’s difference is constructed

as a way in which they can potentially consolidate their friendship, collectively

defying the outdated rhetoric of institutional and familial authority.

The binary between progressive and antiquated social politics is intensified when

Marıa asks if Fan fan (and Gala) can be baptised:

MARIA >A que Gala y Fan fan no pueden ir a la iglesia? [Why can’t Gala and Fan fan go

to church?]

HERMINIA >Por que no van a poder ir a la iglesia? [What do you mean they won’t be able

to go to church?]

MARIA Porque no estan bautizadas, pero las dos quieren ir para salir por la tele. [Because

they’re not baptised, but they want to go because they want to be on TV.]

HERMINIA Sı pueden ir a la iglesia, lo que no pueden es comulgar porque serıa un

sacrilegio. [Yes, they can go to church, but what they can’t do is take communion because

that would be a sin.]

MARIA >Y que pasa si no estas bautizada? [And what happens if you’re not baptised?]

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HERMINIA Que tienen el pecado original ::: Tus amigas son muy inocentes para ir al

infierno, yo creo que irıan al limbo. [They carry original sin ::: Your friends are too

innocent to go to Hell, I think they’ll end up in Limbo.]

The moral sanctity and social inclusivity that Herminia previously embodied is now

questionable. Consequently, one of the show’s most robust representatives of public

service ethics becomes a character who is a cipher for the outdated ideals of the

Francoist social imagination. Whilst this exchange can be seen as being constructed

for comedic effect, this does not alter the fact that the comedy in the encounter turns

upon the ‘otherness’ of the hyphenated child. The intergenerational divide in

attitude is further highlighted throughout this episode by the disparate uses of mise-

en-scene within the domestic space. Herminia’s bedroom brings out the underlying

textures of exclusion and othering in this exchange: the antique furniture, and

the demure, uniform colour scheme, reflecting the social and religious order now

embodied by her character. This is contrasted with the vibrancy and disorderliness

of Marıa’s bedroom (Figure 5), which later becomes an unregulated space where

Fan fan’s ‘baptism’ occurs, hosting the progressive values of ‘togetherness in

difference’ that are shut down by Herminia and El Padre Froilan.

A contradicting (and contradictory) tonal feeling is created by Fan fan’s clandes-

tine baptism within the confines of Marıa’s bedroom. Whereas other spaces in

the house are regulated by the moral and social standing of the Alcantara adults, the

child’s bedroom in this episode acts as a ‘refuge’ in which ‘other’ bodies, not conven-

tionally in line with the homogeneity of the family, are welcomed. This echoes

Elijah Anderson’s notion of the ‘cosmopolitan canopy’, which, he argues, is a setting

that offers respite from ‘lingering tensions’ and provides ‘an opportunity for diverse

people to come together’.43 An atmosphere in which a (transformative) hybrid act

between the Spanish child and the hyphenated child can manifest is established.

The wide shot capturing the girls in a triangular set-up is again employed to intro-

duce the baptism, signifying the unwavering togetherness of the female friendship

network (Figure 5). There is then a cut to a medium close-up of Marıa baptising Fan

fan with Herminia’s holy water, the proximity between Marıa’s (Spanish) hand and

Fan fan’s (‘other’) body occupying the central part of the frame. On one level, the

tonal fabric of this exchange is a sharp contrast to the underlying intolerance and

fear of the other that coloured Marıa’s exchange with Herminia. The child’s bed-

room is, on the face of it, a welcoming space in which a potentially pivotal act

between the Spanish child and the hyphenated child occurs, an act that supposedly

solves the problem the girls are tasked with working through. However, several

nuanced contradictions within this Spanish/hyphen exchange can be teased out: on

the one hand, the fact that Fan fan is baptised acts as a welcoming gesture from

the ‘native’ child, irrespective of Fan fan’s ethnic and religious differences. Also, the

baptism – carried out in an unregulated environment away from the adult defenders

of religious exclusivity and social order – showcases a crucial development in the

internal logic of the girls’ play rituals. Although there is probably a wider reflection

on Europe’s missionary past at play here, the encounter between self and other here


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simultaneously enables the girls to defy premeditated emphasis on social division

and exclusion, which is a crucial attribute in confronting more politically charged

encounters with ‘other’ bodies. Marıa’s theft of Herminia’s holy water for the pur-

poses of baptising the ‘other’ child is a particularly significant act of defiance. On the

other hand, the fact that the baptism is clandestine underscores the notion that it is a

sinful and notionally undesirable act between the two children, the Spanish child

and the hyphenated child. The ominous tonal sensibility of Marıa’s conversation

with Herminia carries through into the (supposedly) refreshing gesture between two

young, ‘different’ bodies, making spectators aware of the possibility of the younger

generation’s (albeit muted) attempt to continue the exclusionary practices of the

older generation.

Also highly interesting here is the tension between total assimilation and preserva-

tion of one’s own ‘otherness’: it is an act which simultaneously preserves and erases

Fan fan’s differences. The overarching remit of the baptism is to bring Fan fan in

line with the religious uniformity of the Catholic church, and is therefore a gesture

which favours homogeneity over difference. However, the issue of Fan fan’s chosen

baptised name complicates this:

MARIA >Con que nombre te bautizas? [What name do you want to be baptised with?]

FAN FAN Que tonterıa, con el mıo. [With mine, stupid.]

GALA >Te lo puedes cambiar? [Can you change it?]

MARIA Creo que sı. [I think so.]

FAN FAN Siempre he querido llamarme Yin yin. [I’ve always wanted to be called Yin yin.]

MARIA Entre Fan fan y Yin yin, Fan fan ya nos lo sabemos. [Well if it’s between Fan fan

and Yin yin, we’re already used to Fan fan.]

The Spanish child unwittingly attempts to ‘correct’ Fan fan’s Chineseness by asking

her what baptismal name she will choose (the subtext being that it would be better

to change her name). Despite the fact that Fan fan does in the end retain her

Figure 5 The secret baptism of Fan fan.

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Chinese name, the association of baptism with ritual cleansing here implies that Fan

fan’s Chineseness is an impurity that needs to be removed. The request that she

should divest herself of her Chinese name, and the implication that she adopt a

Christian one, reconstructs her ‘otherness’ as an obstruction to the resolution of their

task. Rather than relenting and picking a Catholic name (which spectators expect

she might do), her selection of a name that is still in line with her Chinese heritage

further defies the overarching homogeneous rhetoric of those around her.

Importantly, the slight resistance from the Spanish girl here – a potential defender-

in-the-making of religious and social exclusivity – consolidates this act of defiance

and consecrates Fan fan’s gesture of preserving her otherness in the face of requests

to adopt a ‘Christian’ name.

It is in turn expected that the televised Mass would bring together all the public

service ideals that an episode with a religious thematic focus would aim to fulfil. As

the episode draws to a close, it is equally expected that the intergenerational divide

will be resolved, and that the notion of ‘togetherness in difference’ is shown to be

embraced on a wider scale. However, like Marıa’s conversation with Herminia, the

final sequence merges conflicting tonal textures which undermine the episode’s

efforts to showcase public service principles. This conflicting tonal sensibility is

achieved by El Padre Froilan, whose verbal rhetoric is at odds with his (re)action to-

wards Fan fan during Communion. That this mixed tonal feeling is established

using a character who conventionally champions inclusivity and altruism signifi-

cantly undermines the meaning of the episode’s earlier hybrid act. Since a hybrid

act is carried out with all of these ideals in mind, that the bastion of these ideals

should refuse to welcome Fan fan’s difference negates the transformative power of

Marıa’s own gesture of inclusivity and understanding.

As has been established, the developmental journey the girls undertake turns on

their increasing understanding of those who are socially marginalized in different

ways. This is a lesson which most other characters also learn, and the overarching

moral sensibility of the episode is reactivated by the Priest at the opening of the

Communion sequence, when in his sermon he addresses the drug-related problems

experienced by some of San Genaro’s young inhabitants. His appeal that the town’s

neighbours reach out to those with addiction (‘les daremos esperanza para que

salgan de ese pozo oscuro’ [‘we will give them hope so that they may find their way

out of this dark well’]) upholds the ideals of ‘togetherness in difference’ embraced by

the show’s younger characters, establishing an atmosphere in which acts celebrating

difference can take place. The sermon is littered with references to the transforma-

tive power of ‘togetherness’, fortified by his incessant use of the plural pronoun

‘vosotros’ (all of you), and the term ‘hermano’ (brother). This verbal rhetoric of

togetherness is underscored by the camerawork; high-angle wide shots of the entire

congregation are interspersed with extreme close-ups of two or three people

(Figure 6), creating a visible construction of the togetherness and mutual understand-

ing championed in the sermon.

However, this tone is disrupted during Communion, when the ‘problem’ of Fan

fan’s ethnic and religious difference is again brought to the spectator’s attention. In


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effect, it was implied by the clandestine baptism that this issue had been resolved by

the three girls. Yet the transformative power of the hybrid act between Marıa and

Fan fan (Marıa’s pouring and Fan fan’s acceptance of the holy water) is disrupted by

the Priest’s (physical) negation of ‘togetherness in difference’. Figures 6 and 7 show-

case Fan fan as an inextricable and accepted part of San Genaro’s social and

religious fabric; her relationship to all members of the social strata is shown in

Figure 7, and the specific affinity she maintains with the neighbourhood’s younger

members is demonstrated in Figure 6. This is undercut by the framing of Fan fan

during Communion; as other members of the congregation receive Communion,

medium and wide shots are used so that several recipients are captured in one

frame, pointing both to the togetherness and to the homogeneous fabric of San

Genaro. Subsequently, however, Fan fan is sought out amongst the crowd, her space

encroached upon in the form of zooms and extreme close-ups. As opposed to the

fabric of togetherness and mutual support in which she was previously inserted (the

wide/medium close-ups), she is now singled out as an anomaly in the (homoge-

neous) space of the church. The conflicting tonal sensibility reaches its peak when

Froilan gives her the Communion bread – replicating the transformative skin con-

tact when Marıa doused Fan fan with holy water – which is both an

intergenerational gesture (old/young) and a cross-cultural gesture of acceptance and

tolerance. Following the medium close-up of Froilan’s hands feeding Fan fan

the bread, there is a cut to a medium close-up of his perplexed (and disapproving)

reaction (Figure 8). The potential for the completion of an intergenerational and

cross-cultural hybrid act here collapses, strengthening the underlying rhetoric of

homogeneity and religious exclusivity that (intermittently) dominated earlier

exchanges in the episode. Again, the positioning of the hyphenated child as marginal

and anomalous – especially given that the verbal rhetoric has underscored the

ideals of inclusivity, altruism and understanding – is a particularly unexpected

Figure 6 The girls at Mass.

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manoeuvre in an episode which should be a pertinent contender in fulfilling the

show’s public service commitments. In this way, it seems that the episode offers a

strange oscillation between an unwavering commitment to delivering the public ser-

vice ideals of respect for minorities and encouraging diversity, and a complete

failure to work through the ‘problem’ that Fan fan’s (Spanish-)Chinesesness poses

for the overall closure of the episode’s narrative thread. Ultimately, the value

invested in the notion of living ‘together in difference’ is temporarily under duress

as, by the end of the episode, the divisive rhetoric of social homogeneity and reli-

gious exclusivity seems to have victory.

Figure 7 The San Genaro congregation.

Figure 8 El Padre Froilan is perplexed.


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Conclusion

This article has commenced an urgent endeavour within the field of television stud-

ies: that of enquiring into the representation of television’s (immigrant) children. The

portrayal of the Spanish-Chinese child is just one of many depictions of the immi-

grant child within global television, and by no means is it the most politically

charged. Nevertheless, I have started this enquiry by assessing how notions of public

service, and public service obligations, affect representations of the immigrant child

in Spain and the extent to which Cuentame, as a public service text, fulfils its public

service mandates. I have sketched out that despite the intermittent appearance of

the immigrant child in Cuentame, the show has managed to outline some striking

complexities, which are mapped across the hyphenated (Spanish-)Chinese character.

These are chiefly the varying positionalities she negotiates: friend, classmate, student,

daughter and (immigrant) child. I have also contextualized Fan fan’s development

within the framework of discourses on female friendship, analysing the points at

which the (Spanish-)Chinese child is particularly important to the survival of the

trio. Notions of hybridity and the hybrid act also inform this article’s analysis, and I

have charted via close analysis the ways in which the girls show potential growth

into more meaningful hybrid acts. Importantly, however, in analysing Fan fan’s

appearances I underscore how research into representations of immigration and in-

terracial interaction on Spanish television screens is a timely endeavour, with

Spanish–Chinese interactions being a crucial case in point. Clearly, via the incorpo-

ration of a Chinese family (Fan fan’s family members are only seen once, which is

another interesting point of reflection44), Cuentame is constructing a response to the

relative exponential growth of Chinese migration to Spain. It is perhaps not coinci-

dental that the broadcasting of episode 237 (the opening of the restaurant) in 2013

was contemporaneous with a period in which Chinese migration to Spain hit a new

high (bringing it to a total of 164,555).45 More widely, it is important that research-

ers of Spanish television underscore not only Cuentame’s place in working through

the nation’s relationship to memory, and political and socio-historical change, but

also its place in complicating stereotypical or reductive representations of

Chineseness that are a common feature of other television programmes. Cuentame’s

sustained allusion to issues of migration, interracial interaction and hyphenation are

indeed highly valuable in times of political and social uncertainty, speaking to our

potential – despite challenge, resistance or other forms of intolerance – to live ‘to-

gether in difference’.

Queen’s Building

University of Exeter

Devon EX4 4HQ

UK

[email protected]

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NOTES

1[Anon.], ‘El gobierno chino pide a Telecinco que “corrija su error” por la polemica en

“Aıda” ’, La Vanguardia (2014), <http://www.lavanguardia.com/television/series/20140522/54407190527/china-aida-insultos-indignada.html> [accessed 18 May 2018]. ‘Demandamos al canalde television que::: se corrija y se gane la confianza de la sociedad Espa~nola.’ Translation my own.

2Kirsti Bohata, ‘Hybridity and Authenticity’, in Postcolonialism Revisited: Writing Wales in English

(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2004), p. 129.3

Oxford English Dictionary, ‘act, v.’, <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/1889?rskey¼xbVg5V&result¼5&isAdvanced¼false#eid> [accessed 5 March 2021].

4Ibid. ‘act, n.’, <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/1888?rskey¼xbVg5V&result¼4&

isAdvanced¼false#eid> [accessed 5 March 2021].5

Ien Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 200.6

Ibid.7

Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Oxford: Routledge, 1994); Nestor Garcıa Canclini,Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1995); Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London: Verso, 1993); StuartHall, ‘The local and the global: Globalization and ethnicity’, in A. D. King (Ed.), Culture, Globalizationand the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity (London: Macmillan, 1991);Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (Oxford: Routledge, 1995).

8Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese, p. 26.

9Bohata, ‘Hybridity and Authenticity’, p. 129.

10Robert Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London: Routledge, 1995),

p. 171.11

Ibid.12

Scott Michaelsen, ‘Hybrid Bound’, in Anthropology’s Wake: Attending to the End of Culture, ed. byScott Michaelsen and David E. Johnson (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p. 167.

13Ibid., p. 175 (both quotations).

14Ang, On Not Speaking Chinese, p. 17.

15Canclini, Hybrid Cultures, p. 31.

16Delphi May, ‘Hybrid Acts: Representations of (Spanish-)Chineseness in Spanish Film and

Television’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Exeter, 2019).17

Anita Harris, ‘Shifting the Boundaries of Cultural Spaces: Young People and EverydayMulticulturalism’, Social Identities, 15 (2008), 187–205 (p. 191).

18Ibid., p. 193.

19Manuel Palacio, Historia de la television en Espa~na (Barcelona: Gedisa, 2008).

20Most works dating from 2006 onwards by Smith comment on public service television in

Spain to varying degrees. See in particular Spanish Screen Fiction: Between Cinema and Television(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press); Spanish Practices: Literature, Cinema, Television (Abingdon:Routledge, 2012), and Spanish Lessons: Cinema and Television in Contemporary Spain (New York: BerghahnBooks, 2017).

21Delphi May, ‘Mi china juventud (II): Adolescence, (strained) interracial relations, and (tempo-

rary) conciliations in Fısica o quımica (Antena 3, 2008–2011)’, in May, ‘Hybrid Acts’.22

Paul Julian Smith, Dramatized Societies: Quality Television in Spain and Mexico (Liverpool:Liverpool University Press, 2017), p. 79.

23[Anon.], ‘Principios, RTVE Corporacion’ (2014), <https://www.rtve.es/rtve/20140526/

rc-principios/943189.shtml> [accessed 5 March 2021].24

Linda Bartlett and Lourdes Manye, ‘Television as Textbook: “Cuentame como paso” in theSpanish (Literature) Classroom’, Hispania, 98.3 (2015), 511–21 (p. 518).

25Ibid. p. 515.


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http://www.lavanguardia.com/television/series/20140522/54407190527/china-aida-insultos-indignada.htm

http://www.lavanguardia.com/television/series/20140522/54407190527/china-aida-insultos-indignada.htm

https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/1889?rskey=xbVg5V&hx0026;result=5&hx0026;isAdvanced=false#eid












https://www.rtve.es/rtve/20140526/rc-principios/943189.shtml

https://www.rtve.es/rtve/20140526/rc-principios/943189.shtml

26[Anon.], ‘Transparencia: Memorias de Servicio Publico (2014), <https://www.rtve.es/

rtve/20140609/transparencia-memorias-servicio-publico/951181.shtml> [accessed 15 September2019].

27‘Grupo RadioTelevision Espa~nola: Informe Anual sobre el Cumplimiento de la Funcion de

Servicio Publico del Grupo RadioTelevision Espa~nola en 2003’, 16–18. ‘Each member state of theEuropean Union is obliged to: define the function of their public service institutions [:::]; determinemeans of financing said institutions, be this mixed or from an exclusive source; grant independentcontrol of the operations of the public service institution to an independent body or entity.’Translation my own.

28Ibid. These pledges are, in order: ‘2. To promote, in an active manner, pluralism – that is,

pluralism in every sense of the word, not just political pluralism – with absolute respect for minorities,through democratic debate, pluralized, unbiased provision of information and free expression ofopinions. 3. To promote respect for human dignity – not only is there no place for programmes which arederogatory to anybody, but also positive attitudes must be engendered – and, above all, with regard to the rightsof children, sexual equality, and the dispelling of any kind of discrimination. 4. To promote cultural and lin-guistic diversity. [:::] 7. To create a favourable atmosphere which promises universal access to differenttypes of programme and institutional, social, cultural and sporting events, which are directed towardsall members of the receiving audience, and to all ages and social groups, including those with an impairmentor disability.’ Translation my own, emphasis my own.

29Claire Frachon and Marion Vargaftig, European Television: Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities

(London: John Libbey Publishing, 1995), pp. 223–30.30

Ibid., p. 227.31

In the reports, much weight is put on the provision of regional broadcasting channels, whichcover Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country, but there is no mention of provision – or intentionto provide – for minorities who have come to Spain from abroad. In the 2016 report, there is a cele-bratory section dedicated to RTVE’s decision to subtitle a large proportion of their channels’programmes in Castilian Spanish (highest 91.11%), yet this manoeuvre was geared more towardsthose with hearing impairments, and could do very little to promote comprehension of the languageamongst those who have elementary to no Spanish. Subtitling into the manifold languages of Spain’sethnic minorities is of course a difficult ideal to achieve, yet the issue in hand is the lack of foresighton the part of RTVE in terms of generating more content accessible to ethnic minorities, or indeedallocating prime-time slots to texts which would court the ethnic minority populations.

32Allison James and Alan Prout, ‘A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood?

Provenance, Promise and Problems’, in Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood (Oxford: Routledge,1997), pp. 7–34.

33Valerie Hey, The Company She Keeps: An Ethnography of Girls’ Friendships (Buckingham: Open

University Press, 1997), p. 125.34

M. J. Kehily, An Introduction to Childhood Studies (New York: Open University Press, 2004),p. 9.

35Jason Mittell, ‘Serial Melodrama’, in Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary TV Storytelling

(New York: New York University Press, 2015), p. 239.36

Hey, The Company She Keeps, p. 126.37

Lucia Rabello de Castro, ‘Otherness in Me, Otherness in Others: Children’s and Youth’sConstructions of Self and Other’, Childhood, 11.4 (2004), 469–93 (p. 472).

38Ibid.

39Emma Wilson and Sarah Wright, ‘Introduction’, in Childhood and Nation in Contemporary World

Cinema: Borders and Encounters (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), p. 7.40

Karol Jakubowicz, ‘If Not Us, Then Who? Public Service Broadcasting and Culture in the21st Century’, in Making a Difference: Public Service Broadcasting in the European Media Landscape (London:John Libbey Publishing, 2006), p. 41.

41Ibid.

42Linda Williams, ‘Melodrama Revised’, in Refiguring American Film Genres: Theory and History,

ed. by Nick Browne (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), pp. 42–88.

DELPHI PEARL MAY374

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43Elijah Anderson, The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life (New York: Norton,

2011), p. xiv.44

Fan fan’s mother is only seen once throughout the entire run of Cuentame como paso, and inthis episode she was not involved in any dialogue. Whilst I am not sure whether the exclusion of Fanfan’s family from the plot was a deliberate decision made by the writers and producers of the show, itdoes point to an overarching, enduring tendency in Spanish television to leave migrant family mem-bers out of the shows’ storylines. This is much in contrast to Fısica o quımica (Antena 3, 2008–2011), inwhich viewers are given far more access to a Chinese student’s family life.

45Instituto Nacional de Estadıstica, ‘Population Figures at 1 January 2014, Migration

Statistics 2013 (Provisional Data)’, <https://www.ine.es/en/prensa/np854_en.pdf> [accessed 25July 2018].


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