Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls 9781032231600, 9781032435541, 9781003276043

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Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture

This book presents a study of the figure of the stranger in US Latinx literary and cultural forms, ranging from contemporary novels through essays to film and transborder art activism. The focus on this abject figure is twofold: first, to explore its potential to expose the processes of othering to which Latinxs are subjected; and, second, to foreground its epistemic response to neocolonial structures and beliefs. Thus, this book draws on relevant sociological literature on the stranger to unveil the political and social processes behind the recognition of Latinxs as ‘out of place.’ On the other hand, and most importantly, this volume follows the path of neo-​cosmopolitan approaches to bring to the fore processes of interrelatedness, interaction, and conviviality that run counter to criminalizing discourses around Latinxs. Through an engagement with these theoretical tenets, the goal of this book is to showcase the role of the Latinx stranger as a cosmopolitan mediator that transforms walls into bridges. Esther Álvarez-​López is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She has published on ethnic literatures, gender, and intersectionality. Her latest publications are “Identity, De-​ colonization and Cosmopolitanism in (Afro)Latina Artists’ Spoken Word Performances” (2021) and “Strangers, Persisters, and Killjoys: Confronting Gender Inequality through Performance Poetry” (Routledge 2022). Andrea Fernández-​García is Assistant Professor at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She studies the relationship between gender, space, and decoloniality in US Latina literature. She is the author of Geographies of Girlhood in US Latina Writing: Decolonizing Spaces and Identities (2020), among other publications.

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Narrative Theory and Culture Series Editor: Dr. Christopher González Utah State University, USA

This new series will focus on bridging the scholarly gap between narrative theory and cultural studies and addressing the disconnect. The study of narrative is one of the pillars of the study of literature and one of its foremost movements. However, narrative theory has generally missed opportunities for examinations of culturally located narratives, just as cultural studies has tended to look past issues of narrative form and design. This series aims to put these areas of study into conversation with one another. Books considered for this series will appeal to a variety of levels of academics in the field, with some books being geared to the upper-​level researchers and others designed to be used in the undergraduate classroom. Research monographs, which are written with the specialist in mind, should aim to provide the reader with cutting-​edge research on emerging areas of interest, or new perspectives on well-​established areas. Books that are aiming to reach a broader audience, and perhaps be used in the classroom, should be written in an inviting style that will engage readers at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Alterity and Empathy in Post-​1945 Asian American Narratives Narrating Other Minds Hyesu Park Ethnic American Literatures and Critical Race Narratology Edited by Alexa Weik von Mossner, Marijana Mikić, and Mario Grill Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture Building Bridges, Not Walls Edited by Esther Álvarez-​López and Andrea Fernández-​García For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​ Narrat​ive-​The​ory-​and-​Cult​ure/​book-​ser​ies/​NTAC

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Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture Building Bridges, Not Walls Edited by Esther Álvarez-​López and Andrea Fernández-​García

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First published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Esther Álvarez-​López and Andrea Fernández-​García; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Esther Álvarez-​López and Andrea Fernández-​García to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 9781032231600 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032435541 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003276043 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003276043 Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

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Contents

List of Figures  List of Contributors  Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited: From Othering to Effecting Social Change 

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E S TH E R Á LVARE Z-​L Ó P E Z A N D A N DRE A FE R NÁNDEZ - ​G AR C ÍA

1 Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action: The Latina Writer as Stranger and Mediator in García McCall’s All the Stars Denied 

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VA N E S S A D E VE RITCH WO O DSIDE

2 Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From 

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A N A M ª M A NZA N A S CA LVO

3 Beyond the Wall: Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels 

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M A C A R E N A GARCÍA -​AVE L L O

4 Inhabiting Nepantla: The Stranger in Contemporary Chicana Fiction 

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N O R M A E . CA N TÚ

5 The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality in Jennine Capó Crucet’s Make Your Home Among Strangers and My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education  M I C H A E L G RAFA L S

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6 Strangers in the City: Cosmopolitan Strangers and Transnational Urbanism in the Literary Imagination of Valeria Luiselli 

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A L E J A N D R O RA MÍRE Z-​M É N DE Z

7 Hostipitality and Solidarity in Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena 

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E WA A N TO S Z E K

8 Humanizing the Wall: Cosmopolitan Artistic Interventions on the US–​Mexico Border 

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M A R Í A J E S Ú S CA STRO DO PACIO

Index 

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Figures

8.1 Lizbeth De La Cruz, Playas de Tijuana Mural Project, 2021. 8.2 Enrique Chiu, Mural de la Hermandad, 2020. 8.3 Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Teeter-​Totter Wall, 2019.

153 159 162

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Contributors

Editors Esther Álvarez-​López is Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She has published on ethnic literatures, gender, and intersectionality. Her latest publications are “Identity, De-​ colonization and Cosmopolitanism in (Afro)Latina Artists’ Spoken Word Performances” (Brill 2021) and “Strangers, Persisters, and Killjoys: Confronting Gender Inequality through Performance Poetry” (Routledge 2022). Andrea Fernández-​García is Assistant Professor at the University of Oviedo, Spain. She studies the relationship between gender, space, and decoloniality in US Latina literature. She is the author of Geographies of Girlhood in US Latina Writing: Decolonizing Spaces and Identities (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), among other publications.

Contributors Ewa Antoszek is Assistant Professor at the Department of British and American Studies of Maria Curie-​Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. Her current research examines Latinx authors and artists (re) writing the US–​Mexico border. She is the author of Out of the Margins: Identity Formation in Contemporary Chicana Writings (2012). Norma Elia Cantú currently serves as the Murchison Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, USA, where she teaches Latinx and Chicanx Studies. The author of several novels, including Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, she has edited or coedited over a dozen anthologies. María Jesús Castro Dopacio currently teaches at the University of Oviedo, Spain. Her research interests focus on border literature, women’s studies, and Chicanx and Latinx art and literature. She is the author of Emperatriz de las Américas: La Virgen de Guadalupe en la literatura chicana (2010), among other publications.

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List of Contributors  ix Vanessa de Veritch Woodside is Associate Professor of Spanish Languages and Cultures at the University of Washington Tacoma, USA, where she teaches Spanish and Latin American and Latinx Studies. She is the author of Ripped Apart: Unsettling Narratives of Transnational Migration (2021). She participates in various community-​engaged projects with local immigrant and refugee communities and organizations. Macarena García-​Avello teaches at the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain. Her research focuses on gender and contemporary Latinx literature. She is the author of Nuevos Horizontes en la literatura latina de Estados Unidos: Transnacionalismos, resistencias queer y sus manifestaciones en la web (2018). Michael Grafals is Assistant Professor at Florida International University, USA. He is interested in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and diasporic subjectivity in Caribbean and US Latinx literature. He has written on Gloria Anzaldúa in “Creolizing the Chasms of Humanity: Threshold Passages in Wilson Harris and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Cross-​ Cultural Poetics” (2020). Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo is Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her publications include Hospitality in American Literature and Culture: Spaces, Bodies, Borders (Routledge 2017), coauthored with J. Benito. With Benito, she is general editor of the Brill Series “Critical Approaches to Ethnic American Literature.” Alejandro Ramírez-​Méndez is Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. Currently he is working on urban narratives from Latinx writers that portray migratory flows of people and ideas in the American city. He is the coauthor of “Seeking Literary Justice: La Caja Mágica in Boyle Heights” (2016).

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Introduction Latinx Strangers Revisited: From Othering to Effecting Social Change Esther Álvarez-​López and Andrea Fernández-​García Cosmopolitan Strangers in US Latinx Literature and Culture: Building Bridges, Not Walls presents a study of the figure of the stranger in US Latinx literary and cultural forms, ranging from contemporary novels through essays to film and transborder art activism.1 While it is not new that Latinxs are rendered strangers in the US context, the last few years have witnessed a surge in anti-​Latinx sentiment and hate crimes, along with record-​breaking numbers of deportations. These racist maneuvers picture a social and political panorama where Latinxs are targeted by virtue of their status as ‘dangerous strangers.’ By bringing together literature, film, and mural painting, the eight essays included in this volume explore the workings of othering that have shaped the lives of Latinxs over the past 20 years, emphasizing alternative avenues for the deconstruction of their strange(r)ness. Our focus on this abject figure is therefore two-​ fold: first, to explore its potential to expose the processes of othering to which Latinxs are subjected; and second, to foreground its epistemic response to (neo)colonial structures (the global capitalist system, cultural biases and hierarchies, Eurocentric structures of knowledge and epistemologies, etc.) and beliefs. To accomplish these purposes, this volume follows a variety of theoretical orientations. On the one hand, it draws on relevant sociological literature on the stranger (e.g., Georg Simmel, Zygmunt Bauman, Elizabeth Goodstein) to unveil the political and social processes behind the recognition of Latinxs as ‘out of place,’ thus dispelling simplistic notions of visible difference. On the other hand, and most importantly, this project follows the path of decolonial and (neo)cosmopolitan approaches (e.g., Marotta 2010, 2017; Anzaldúa 2002a, 2002b; Mignolo 2000; Gunew 2017; Appiah 2007) to bring to the fore processes of interrelatedness, interaction, and conviviality that run counter to criminalizing discourses around Latinxs. Through an engagement with these theoretical tenets, our goal is to showcase the role of the Latinx stranger as a cosmopolitan mediator who transforms walls into bridges, into spiraling paths from self to Other, from Other to self.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-1

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2  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García

Encountering the Latinx Stranger Two years after the coronavirus upended life in the United States, Latinxs find themselves in an environment that is at once greatly improved and frustratingly familiar. Even though they have similar vaccination rates to Anglo-​Americans in 23 states and their unemployment rate nears pre-​pandemic levels, Latinxs have poorer health outcomes and are hit hardest by inflation in the post-​COVID-​19 economy (Noe-​Bustamante et al. 2021b; Nudgga et al. 2022; Owers 2022). In a similar vein, half of the Latinxs surveyed in a recent report by the Pew Research Center state that they have experienced some form of discrimination over the past year, including racial prejudice, profiling, and hate crimes (Noe-​ Bustamante et al. 2021a). Thus, despite the sense of optimism that the country may be moving to a better, fairer, and more resilient future, the Latinx community remains vulnerable to the lethal structural racism that pervades US society, which lays bare their ‘strange(r)ness’ or marginal societal status. Whether immigrants or US-​born, Latinxs have long been seen as perpetual foreigners or strangers, a controlling image that seeks to legitimize their subordination and exclusion from the national community (Chavez 2013; Flores-​González 2017; Roth 2012). Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-​coloniality (2000, 7–​10), this volume starts from the premise that such identification is shaped by political, cultural, and social processes linked to colonial structures. This means that Latinxs are recognized not as an unknown group, but as already constructed as different by the colonial structures that divide the world into a hierarchy of superior and inferior people. Ahmed argues that this production of differences should be understood through thinking about the role of everyday encounters in the forming of social space … Such differences are then not to be found on the bodies of others, but are determined through encounters between others; they are impossible to grasp in the present. (2000, 9) Ahmed’s concept of the stranger as always already socially produced foregrounds the historicity and materiality of social relations embedded in the imagery, challenging previous ahistorical understandings of this social form. To accept the figure of the stranger as simply present overshadows the antagonistic relations that produce the stranger as a figure in the first place, and how ‘the stranger’ comes into being through the ‘marking out’ of space, bodies, and terrains of knowledge. Recognition cannot be based on the present encounter itself, but on perceptions that have been built up over time as to who has the authority to be in a specific place. Thus, the labeling of Latinxs as strangers can be accounted for by focusing on the ideologies of white supremacy and processes of racialization that have

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  3 shaped the United States since colonial times. As a wide array of social science scholarship maintains (Canizales and Vallejo 2021; Chavez 2013; Roth 2012), these power structures deem Anglo-​Americans to be the true inhabitants of the nation, while categorizing Latinxs as non-​white and non-​American. This racialization, which has been operating since the United States needed to justify its territorial designs on the Southwest, is perpetuated through prejudices and stereotypes. The chapters in the volume aim to critically scrutinize this long-​ formed imagery. Hence, through a close reading of contemporary literary texts and other artwork produced between 2004 and 2022, the eight contributions in this volume explore the workings of Latinx othering and strange(r)ness, especially during the post-​9/​11 war on terror and Donald Trump’s presidency. They analyze how this demeaning social imagery plays out in different contexts, namely the US–​Mexico border, New York City, and Miami, providing a critical and broad account of the workings of Latinx strange(r)ness. As for the US–​Mexico borderlands, this project pays attention to the materiality of the border through an exploration of the traumas of family separation, border crossing, and surveillance, and to the figure of the undocumented immigrant, two understudied areas in the field of Latinx literary and cultural criticism (cf. Caminero-​Santangelo 2016).

Of Immigrants, Strangers, and Borders While Latinxs have shouldered the burden of strange(r)ness since the end of the nineteenth century, the stigma of otherness has been more readily associated with Latinx immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, people without citizenship, and undocumented/​ illegal ‘aliens,’ “other others” (Ahmed 2000) from Central America and Mexico knocking on the country’s doors. The ongoing influx of incomers and the resulting demographics were the germ of the so-​called immigration crisis, fraught with anxieties for the ‘native’ population, who feel that the proliferation of Latinx strangers is out of their control and tend to perceive the situation as a state of emergency and a major cause of fear. According to Zygmunt Bauman, the impact of news stories about the (im)migration crisis comes close to “causing a veritable ‘moral panic,’ ” a phenomenon that stands for “a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-​being of society” (2017, 1–​2). Latinxs are thus resented as being responsible for the collapse of a familiar order and way of life, blamed for the existential insecurities, uncertainties, and disorientations that characterize present-​day society in the wake of 9/​ 11, a society dominated by the unbridled and elusive forces of globalization. They are, in short, a source of ‘cosmic fear’ (Bauman 2017) because not only are they considered to be different—​hence unfit, undesirable, and out of place—​but they are also “the ones arriving with questions, posing questions, making one pose questions and thus challenging the order” (Dikeç 2002, 227). Likewise, these strangers remind us of our

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4  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García helplessness, of the vulnerability and precariousness of our own position in the world, and it is out of these qualities of the human condition that ‘official fear’ is molded. Along this line of thought, Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist Achille Mbembe further holds that “the security state thrives on a state of insecurity, which it participates in fomenting and to which it claims to be the solution” (2019, 54). Allegedly in response to that insecurity, the United States has worsened anti-​immigration laws—​which are ever more hostile and inhospitable—​ reinforced geopolitical frontiers, and increasingly securitized the border. In this regard, the bordering frenzy of the Trump administration, with the former president’s signature promise of erecting a “big, beautiful wall” on the dividing line between Mexico and the United States, additionally contributed to intensifying anger and fear, which called in turn for more securitization and harder anti-​immigrant measures to prevent an ‘imminent invasion’ that allegedly portended the collapse of a familiar way of life and the well-​being of society. Meanwhile, xenophobia, racism, and chauvinistic nationalism were built up on the dehumanization and alienation of these ‘Other’ humans. In The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (2013), anthropologist Leo R. Chavez argues that pre-​and post-​ 9/​11 public discourse on national security has rested on images of Latino men as illegal, criminal, and culturally and intellectually deficient, and Latinas and their children as public resource drainers and, ultimately, a threat to the nation. This paranoiac social imagery, which Chavez (2013) has termed “The Latino Threat Narrative,” articulates anxieties about “the browning of America” (cf. Sundstrom 2008), or how immigration and a perceived refusal to assimilate will change the ethno-​racial and political makeup of the United States. These fabricated fears have been the driving force behind much immigration policy aimed at deterring the flow of Latin American migrants, such as Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, signed into law by Governor Jay Brewer on April 23, 2010, and more recently, the executive order “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” issued by then President Donald Trump on January 25, 2017. Following Miguel Díaz Barriga and Margaret E. Dorsey’s Fencing in Democracy: Border Walls, Necrocitizenship, and the Security State (2020, 97–​98), it can be contended that these political maneuvers demonstrate that border security and immigration enforcement have become fused following 9/​11. What is more, they point out that this fusion has a racial trajectory, as it is applied mainly against the US–​Mexico border and places where Latinxs—​and especially Mexicans—​are the majority population (97–​98). Mexicans and Central Americans have been the main targets of former President Trump’s anti-​immigrant legislation. As Stephanie L. Canizales and Jody A. Vallejo state in “Latinxs and Racism in the Trump Era,” these anti-​ Latinx policies garnered support thanks to the confluence of four factors, which they deem to be unique to Trumpism: “What is

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  5 different about the Trump era is the converging pressure of immigration-​ driven demographic change, rising economy inequality, and White racial resentment alongside the relegitimization of the alt-​ right and overt White nationalism” (2021, 158–​159). Thanks to an inflammatory rhetoric where all these aspects came together, Trump managed to shift the blame about the vanishing American dream from the federal government to Latinxs and other racialized groups, pushing for legal provisions that reminded Anglo-​Americans of who the stranger was. Thus, the executive order “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” called for the construction of a wall along the US–​Mexico border to stop the flow of ‘dangerous Spanish-​speaking strangers’ coming to the United States. By resorting to the Latino Threat Narrative, the Trump administration gained support for an order that, other than adding new barriers to the existing fences, doubled the number of floodlights, motion sensors, cameras, and uniformed agents available in border communities, further militarizing the US–​Mexico frontier. In addition to bolstering a violent panopticon regime of security intended to preserve the (white) nation from racialized outsiders, this order also included sections that advocated for the expanded use of expedited removal and limited access to asylum, thus violating international human rights law. The tightening of security has thus turned this zone into a necropolitical boundary, characterized by a system based on governance by terror and increasing militarization, weaponization, and securitization. Consequently, the borderland has become “a big common grave” (Luiselli 2017, 28) where hundreds of migrants find their deaths every year.2 To add to Trumpism’s cruelty, the dehumanizing provisions of the executive order were further reinforced by the ‘zero tolerance’ policy, implemented in 2018, which separated parents seeking asylum from their accompanying children at the US–​ Mexico border, thereby turning a humanitarian crisis into an immigration one. On the other hand, Trump also attempted to rescind the Obama-​ era executive order of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which had granted temporary residency to an entire category of young undocumented immigrants, most of whom came from Mexico and other predominantly Latin American countries.3 The decision to repeal the order, announced in 2017, was justified by falsely claiming that DACA spurred a “massive surge” of immigrants from Central America, some of whom, Trump claimed, joined the Salvadoran American gang MS-​13 (Canizales and Vallejo 2021, 154).4 Achille Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics (2019) is particularly fitting for this border context: this important heuristic category of critical thought is based on the premise that sovereignty resides as much in the capacity to dictate who may live and who may die, who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not, as it does on the exercise of power, tied to the desire, even the drive, for an enemy and the fantasy of extermination (2019, 43). The resultant “society of enmity” fuels hate movements and hostility, as well as the desire for separation and enclosure; hence, the

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6  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García building and proliferation of all manner of demarcations, walls, fences, and other security barriers, which, he observes, is “in full swing” everywhere and has “no other function than to intensify the zoning off of entire communities, without ever fully succeeding in keeping away those considered a threat” (2019, 43). Indeed, the increasing reinforcing and policing of the borderzone has not deterred migrants from setting out on their perilous journey and attempting to reach their destination on the other side of this dividing line. The physical border wall has ultimately come to represent the most distinct, visible manifestation of a national (b)order grounded on difference, cultural purity, and territorial privilege: Under a neoliberal regime that celebrates open borders and global belonging in the name of a homogenized and undifferentiated universal culture, borders have become prime sites to defend and perform the territorial sanctity of nations and the inviolability of national cultures. (Echchaibi 2019, 286) Together, Trump’s nativist rhetoric and immigration-​related policies reinforced the idea that Latinxs were strangers unworthy of entry to the United States and of accessing US rights and citizenship. Consequently, the distinctive line of separation and exclusion represented by the wall has been replicated and redrawn in other boundaries beyond the actual geographic border, which are often expressed through hydraulic racism—​ juridicobureaucratic and institutional micro-​ and macro measures of the state machine (Mbembe 2019, 59)—​and its complement brand of prejudice based on skin color, nanoracism, “a dark desire to stigmatize and, in particular, to inflict violence, to injure and humiliate, to sully those not considered to be one of us” (2019, 58). In her groundbreaking Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Gloria Anzaldúa made the distinction clear: to her, the border was not only “a narrow strip along a steep edge” between Mexico and the United States, or “una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds,” the result of war and violence in the territory; but it was also, and very importantly, a concept set up to define “the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them” (1999, 25). Anzaldúa was aware of the articulation and multiple manifestations of all kinds of borders beyond a specific topographic location—​ in this case the US–​ Mexico borderlands—​ as these boundaries are extended to, and impact, vital realms of a person’s lived experience, their subjectivity, and social worlds. For their part, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson reflect that in so far as the border serves at once to make divisions and establish connections it can be considered an epistemological device “at work whenever a distinction between subject and object is established” (2012, 65). They consider that for this reason borders are “essential to cognitive processes” since

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  7 they allow “both the establishment of taxonomies and conceptual hierarchies that structure the movement of thought” (25) affecting people’s lives in very concrete and often devastating ways. Even though at the border, there is a certain intensification of the political and even existential stakes “that crystallize relations of domination and exploitation, subjection and subjectivation, power and resistance” (60), these (conflictual) relations—​with their implied dehumanization and hierarchization, separation and exclusion—​bourgeon, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, all over the US territory, as Valeria Luiselli, Jennine Capó Crucet, and Luis Alberto Urrea, among others, outline in their works. The writers and artists under study in this volume reveal, however, that there is a certain ambiguity, a duality, in borders: on the one hand, borders can be construed as (institutional) dividing lines that exclude; on the other, as (interactional) locations where other forms of relationality, solidarity, and inclusion are possible. Thus, despite material demarcations and all kinds of limitations designed to prevent trespassing, the art producers demonstrate that borders are porous and permeable, and that processes of partition, filtering, and division are usually challenged and contraposed by processes of border crossing. In their works, these artists envision an alternative politics and imaginary of the frontier, predicated not on principles of separation, restrictive frameworks, the logics of exclusionary belonging, or cultural binaries, but on openness, encounter, and a mobility configured as freedom, not as threat. In “Drawing lines in the sand” (2006), Martinique writer Édouard Glissant defends the position that borders can be “places of passage and transformation,” where relationship “depends on the mutual influence of identities,” and where one can change by exchanging with the Other: “That is why we need borders, not as places to stop at, but as the point at which we may exercise that right of free passage from the same to the Other; savour the wonder of here and there” (2006). Following this philosophy of transforming “our places of suffering or defeat into places of promise” (2006), Latinx artists cross and dismantle borders that, as barricades or walls, separate people, encouraging readers/​audiences/​viewers to oppose the negative dialectics of otherness and simplistic modes of identity, and reject ethnonationalist forms of thought, speech, and action. Their creative works are an invitation to trespass established categories and destabilize common frames of reference to (re)think the world anew. Our critical study on Latinx othering is therefore complemented by an innovative exploration of the potential of the Latinx stranger to deconstruct their own strange(r)ness, creating conditions for social change. To help understand this transition from othering to social transformation, this volume draws on Georg Simmel’s influential work on the stranger (1964) and on Vince Marotta’s insights on the cosmopolitan stranger (2010, 2017), focusing on the ambivalence that both sociologists attribute to this social form. In his well-​known essay “The Stranger” (1964), Simmel

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8  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García posits that this figure is best defined by liminality and hybridity. For him, the stranger represents a position between the familiar and the alien: The unity of nearness and remoteness involved in every human relation is organized, in the phenomenon of the stranger, in a way which may be most briefly formulated by saying that in the relationship to him [sic], distance means that he, who is close by, is far, and strangeness means that he, who is far, is actually near. (1964, 402) Far from being the opposite of familiarity, the stranger represents a hybrid social form through which sameness and difference coexist. This unstable distance between ‘closeness’ and ‘apartness’ allows the stranger to have a certain view on the social that complete insiders can never understand. Simmel (1964, 405) calls it “objectivity,” a kind of “bird’s-​ eye view” that allows the stranger to experience the reality from a less biased perspective. In his revisionist study of the figure of the stranger in social theory, Marotta (2010, 115) emphasizes that this “bird’s-​eye view” provides a critical perspective on different political and sociocultural positions in the community. This third position, he argues, “encourages a critical view of binary thinking and the essentialist identities it fosters. Understanding the insider experience (host or local) is only possible through proximity and distance, through self-​reflexivity and through an ironic dialogical imagination” (2010, 115). It is in fact this place of ambivalence which allows Marotta (2010; 2017) to draw a connection between the stranger and (neo)cosmopolitanism. Unlike traditional cosmopolitanism, an approach presented as a foil to rooted, vernacular, translocal, and decolonial orientations, (neo)cosmopolitanism is understood as a disposition and involvement with others grounded in the in-​between position occupied by strangers (Delanty 2012; Gunew 2017).5 This epistemological stance, which is at the core of this volume, enables the concept of the cosmopolitan stranger (Marotta 2010, 2017). Due to their flexibility, reflexivity, and mobility, this boundary-​crossing subject develops an alternative form of thinking that is unavailable to those who are fixed within their particularistic frameworks (2017, 125). This way of transcending single-​or mono-​perspectives makes room for coexistence and reconciliation within difference. Drawing on these insights, we contend that, through their ambivalence, the Latinx cosmopolitan stranger can pave the way for forms of conviviality that transcend borders, dislocating common narratives of otherness in the United States.

Building Bridges, Not Walls The ‘building walls’ strategy of the Trump era, which constructed the stranger as a fictional enemy, an outsider, the object of ejection and even of extermination, prompted Latinx writers and artists to address the

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  9 immigration issue from a ‘building bridges’ stance instead, very much in sync with theories of cosmopolitanism, hospitality, and conviviality (Adloff 2019; Amin 2012; Anzaldúa 2002; Bauman 2017; Braidotti et al. 2013; Gilroy 2005; Gunew 2017; Mbembe 2019; Neal et al. 2019; Wise and Noble 2016; Wise and Velayutham 2014), and with a politics of care “to reinforce social interest in the shared material, virtual and affective commons” (Amin 2012, 8). In their narratives, some of the writers featured in this book, Guadalupe García McCall, Oscar Cásares, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Valeria Luiselli (2017, 2019), and artists like Ivannia Villalobos Vindas, Lisbeth De La Cruz, and Enrique Chiu, among others, have exposed border necropolitics and its fission strategies while bridging the jagged line that divides ‘us’ and ‘them.’ To counter institutionalized marginalization, anti-​immigration sentiment, and aggressive immigration policies, they have fostered “spaces of identification” (Amin 2012) that become an opportunity for encounter, dialogue (Adloff 2019; Wise and Noble 2016), and human recognition, where convivial solidarities (Gilroy 2004) born of habitual interaction come into play, pointing toward commonalities beyond boundaries. Ultimately, these writers/​ artists know that building walls instead of bridges can only lead, as Bauman asserts, onto “the wasteland of mutual mistrust, estrangement and aggravation” (2017, 18), to the recognition that between them and us, us and them, there can be nothing that is shared in common, and ultimately to the “anxiety of annihilation” (Mbembe 2019) at the core of contemporary projects of separation. Instead of the hate movements, hostility, and the struggle against an enemy characteristic of the current era—​and particularly of border societies—​for Bauman, the sole way out of the present discomforts and future woes leads through rejecting the treacherous temptations of separation; instead of refusing to face up to the realities of the ‘one planet, one humanity’ challenges of our times, washing our hands and fencing ourselves off from the annoying differences, dissimilarities and self-​imposed estrangements, we must seek occasions to come into a close and increasingly intimate contact with them—​hopefully resulting in a fusion of horizons, instead of their induced and contrived, yet self-​ exacerbating, fission. (2017, 18–​19) With this energy metaphor, the Polish sociologist is calling for an end to the dialectic—​and practice—​of wall/​border drawing, which ought to be replaced by the solidarity of humans and a common horizon (fusion), rather than by friction and disjunction (fission) as the only possible way out of the current human(itarian) crisis. The solution, if there is one, does not then lie in radicalizing difference and envisaging one’s salvation through the force of destroying Others; a more humane alternative is to act upon the belief that “our horizon is about preserving, conserving, and

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10  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García safeguarding, that these activities form the very condition of existing” (Mbembe 2019, 184). In Necropolitics, Mbembe avers that “becoming-​ human-​in-​the-​world … is a matter of journeying, of movement, and of transfiguration” (187). To traverse the world, to pass constantly from one place to another—​both in a literal and a figurative sense, we might add—​ ought to be the project of the human being to escape from the peril of the society of enmity, as well as from the threat of dissociation and mutilation (188, 189). The writers and artists in this volume engage readers/​ viewers in imaginary journeys—​physical and of the self—​in the willful practice of ‘world’-​travelling, in which, according to María Lugones, the subject enters other ‘worlds’ not as an “arrogant perceiver” but open to a reconstruction of the self: “The shift from being one person to being a different person is what I call ‘travel’ ” (1987, 11). For Lugones, the way to truly comprehend plurality and difference is through attempting to see oneself, one’s world, and other people “as they must be in their worlds” (3). Travelling through literature and art to other (and Others’) worlds, becoming an errant in Glissant’s terms (1997), across different times and spaces, political and material contexts, defying the oppressive machinations of boundaries, borders, and territory, may potentially enable the shift that María Lugones speaks about. Like ‘world’-​travelling, bridging “means loosening our borders, not closing off borders, not closing off to others. Bridging is the work of opening the gate to the stranger within and without” (Anzaldúa 2002a, 3) and to step across is to dissolve the categories that need the bridge in the first place.6 Gloria Anzaldúa expressed this idea through her concept of nepantla, a Nahuatl term for the in-​between, the space of change and possibility, of the border-​crosser—​a nepantla figure who moves within and among multiple worlds and, as mediator, helps to establish a bridge between cultures to enact both personal and social transformation: You distend this more inclusive puente to unknown corners—​you don’t build bridges to safe and familiar territories, you have to risk making mundo nuevo, have to risk the uncertainty of change. And nepantla is the only space where change happens. Change requires more than words on a page—​it takes perseverance, creative ingenuity, and acts of love. (2002b, 574) Anzaldúa’s nepantla epistemology is a form of spiritual inquiry or conocimiento, a relational way of knowing grounded on respecting the differences within and among diverse groups while simultaneously positing connections and commonalities; it awakens recognition of this common ground and interwoven kinship among all things and people, thus making possible “new forms of community and new types of social action” (Keating 2006, 6). Norma E. Cantú in Chapter 4 and Michael Grafals in Chapter 5 draw on this Anzalduan thought and, respectively,

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  11 establish a link with Donna Haraway’s notion of the chthulucene and with Hannah Arendt’s cosmopolitan conception of critical thinking. Dismantling walls and building bridges is about human recognition in alterity, about finding spaces of identification, relating to others by recognizing commonalities and connections across difference to make community. Community should be interpreted here as interdependent practices of sociality and action rather than as bounded or selected groups joined by the anxiety of cohesion and “against the society of strangers that exists mainly in the public sphere” (Amin 2012, 14). While in sedentarist thinking communitarians yearn for social unity based on strong ties between known people and places, in nomadic thinking cosmopolitans seek to restore social bonds between communities; they consider “the narrative of local community as an anachronism or constraint on those who do not conform, wish to be different, or belong to other spatial gatherings” (Amin 2012, 15). Unlike in this type of community, affiliation should rest on the engagement across, and negotiation of, difference, capacities that conform to the basis of communitas, which should be reinforced by a politics of care (Amin 2012; Hamington 2010; Mbembe 2019) as “the appropriate approach to integration in the society of strangers” (Amin 2012, 16). Cosmopolitanism is considered an ethics of inclusion, an optimistic approach to alternative modes of interaction and imaginings such as conviviality. Conviviality, or convivencia (Spanish for ‘living together’), a term that some authors prefer (Adloff 2019; Wise and Noble 2016; Wise and Velayutham 2014),7 is that mode of interaction and connection which emphasizes “the affective side of the social” (Wise and Velayutham 2014, 407). Convivencia encompasses the practices, capacities, and habits that people develop for living with difference (Adloff 2019; Amin 2008, 2012; Noble 2013; Sandercock 2006; Wise and Noble 2016), as well as the frictions, conflicts, and negotiations that necessarily accompany the complexities of interaction and coexistence. According to Greg Noble, people with border experiences are more likely to adopt cosmopolitan, convivial attitudes in relation to cultural difference (2013, 169). However, as happens with cosmopolitanism, a term which is “sometimes used over-​enthusiastically, neglecting the negative implications it might carry” (Dikeç 2002, 228–​229), this pragmatic notion of conviviality, of living together amidst diversity, does not mean to imply—​as the authors in this volume demonstrate—​that racism/​othering no longer exists or that tolerance always rules. Another form of conviviality, hospitality is at the core of the cosmopolitan project. As expressed originally by Immanuel Kant in the third article of his Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795) entitled “The law of world citizenship is to be united to conditions of universal hospitality,” hospitality has nothing to do with philanthropy, but with rights, the right of a visiting stranger not to be treated as an enemy upon arrival in someone else’s territory, for no one has more

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12  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García right than anyone else to any particular part of the earth and mankind can use this “common right to the face of the earth to create a possibility of peaceful interaction” (Kant 2017, 12). Kant’s idea of hospitality was designed toward achieving universal, lasting peace, as the title of his article indicates, and to the realization of the cosmopolitan principle of the protection of strangers. However, hospitality to him was conditional, since the foreigner had the right of visit, but could also be refused acceptance into the society and be turned away insofar as this refusal did not imply that he [sic] would suffer fatal consequences, but if he behaved peaceably, he could not be treated as an enemy—​which unfortunately is not the case of the Latinxs who venture into an inhospitable US territory. The ideas that Kant developed in this philosophical sketch have been the backbone of most of the political and legal codes of hospitality in the Western world. It would be Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida who would move the discussion from being wholly centered on the field of rights (politics) to that of ethics (humanity), or rather to ethicopolitics (Baker 2009) and its impulse to cosmopolitan ethical universality. For Levinas, “hospitality is ethicity itself” (Derrida 1997, 50), and for Derrida, “hospitality is culture itself and not simply one ethics among others … Ethics is hospitality” (Derrida 2001, 17). In Levinas’ theorization (1969), hospitality stands for a primary dimension of being always open toward others. To him, subjectivity is fundamentally welcoming the Other, setting in motion a relation with the Other, so that to be is to-​be-​in relation and identity is located in interaction with others. Following Levinas, for Derrida, hospitality deconstructs the binary of identity and difference in our ethical relations with strangers. In the French philosopher’s thinking, the absolute welcoming of the Other is a categorical imperative, albeit not free from tensions and contradictions (and is ultimately aporetic), as Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo analyzes in the second chapter of this volume. Derrida makes a distinction between the law of unlimited, unconditional hospitality (ethics)—​which he variously describes as ‘pure,’ ‘absolute,’ and ‘true’ (2000)—​and the laws of conditional hospitality, which establish a (political) right and a duty of hospitality but place terms and conditions—​legal, juridical regulations—​to it as well. These conditional laws are responsible for the “crimes against hospitality endured by the guests (hôtes) and hostages of our time, incarcerated or deported day after day, from concentration camp to detention camp, from border to border, close to us or far away” (Derrida 1997, 71). To avoid these crimes, Derrida called for the opening and establishment of refuge cities across the world, “each as independent from the other and from the state as possible, but nevertheless, allied to each other according to forms of solidarity yet to be invented” (2001, 4), cities that would take in refugees, immigrants, and foreigners. This new politics of hospitality, solidarity, and ethics defines a cosmo-​politics grounded in cosmopolitanism. The US Sanctuary Movement, which began in the early 1980s along the US–​Mexico border as a response to federal immigration

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  13 policies, and the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM) are representative of this cosmopolitan hospitality in Derridean thinking. In this movement, citizens are committed to providing shelter, protection, and legal advice to refugees, acting upon civil initiatives that usually challenge the laws they think the government may be violating.8 In Chapter 6, Alejandro Ramírez-​Méndez focuses on Valeria Luiselli’s representation of New York City, a sanctuary city, and its transnational urbanism. The Mexican writer has created a street, “Zapata Boulevard,” which turns out to be a kind of (fictional) ‘sanctuary’ location that she hopes may one day be transmuted into a real street of the city that, according to Ramírez-​Méndez, “can help to raise awareness of the forgotten and overlooked voices and faces that also belong to the Upper Manhattan landscape.” In so doing, Luiselli reverses the subordinating forces of dominant urbanism that erase the presence of Mexicans and other Latinxs in American metropolises, picturing imaginative spaces where strong community bonds are played out. The chapters are organized according to the relationship of their specific topics to issues that are at the core of theories of the stranger and cosmopolitanism. Thus, they go from considering the US–​Mexico border as the backdrop for discussions of the cosmopolitan stranger, hos(ti)pitality, and nepantilism in Chicanx and Cuban American narratives, to analyzing how the subordinating structures of dominant urbanism are challenged by bringing to light the presence of Mexican cosmopolitan strangers in US metropolises. After a thorough analysis of diverse literary texts, the volume moves on to the visual arts, first with an exploration of Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ documentary film Casa en tierra ajena (2016) and then with the digital murals established alongside the US–​Mexico border, focusing on how, through a cosmopolitan spirit, this divisive space is turned into a convivial contact zone that humanizes the immigrants and provides alternative possibilities for encounters, alliances, and solidarity. In Chapter 1, “Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action: The Latina Writer as Stranger and Mediator in García McCall’s All the Stars Denied,” Vanessa de Veritch Woodside argues that in-​between Latinx writers such as Guadalupe García McCall are themselves cosmopolitan strangers who occupy a liminal space that endows them with a subjective objectivity and positions them as cultural mediators, acting as bridges between the dominant group and the immigrant. De Veritch provides an insightful analysis of McCall’s YA novel All the Stars Denied (2018), where the writer utilizes empathetic narrative techniques, textual exposure, and other strategies to counter the dehumanization of Latinx immigrants, perceived to be threats to US liberties and resources, problematize the ‘us versus them’ dialectic, and ultimately develop an affective connection of the readers with the characters. According to De Veritch, exposing readers to the histories and experiences of immigrants through these strategies may potentially lead them to extratextual pro-​ social behaviors and actions and to establish transfontera alliances and coalitions in pursuit of social justice and change.

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14  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García In Chapter 2, “Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From,” Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo analyzes this writer’s 2019 novel, where he strips away the politics of migration in order to access its moral code, an attempt that is quite a political proposition given the family separation policy that peaked in the summer of 2019, the general anti-​immigrant rhetoric permeating political speeches and rallies, as well as the mesh of theories (such as invasion and replacement) that circulate in social media and right-​wing fora. In this intoxicating political climate, especially in the Trump era, and its accompanying intersecting demarcations, this chapter explores how Cásares’ novel illustrates different modalities of hospitality as the protagonist, Nina, administers a changing hospitable response in her encounter with the Other. Manzanas Calvo’s analysis demonstrates how, just as the border mechanism creates sides and separations, this side versus that side, inside versus outside, legal versus illegal, host versus guest, Cásares uses the modus operandi of the border in his novel to go against the same reproduction of lines and boundaries, so that readers can glimpse the spaces in between, the commonalities, the shared worries and concerns. This chapter maps out these intersections through the concept and practice of hospitality, which is at the core of cosmopolitanism. Macarena García-​ Avello’s “Beyond the Wall: Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels” explores new insights into discussions of strangers and cosmopolitanism in Latinx studies, but, in this case, through an analysis of the depiction of the US–​Mexico borderlands in Urrea’s family saga The House of Broken Angels, published in 2018 during Trump’s presidency. García-​Avello engages with the work of Simmel, Bauman, and Marotta to examine how the novel navigates and ultimately bridges dialectical tensions between the self and the Other, the real and the imagined, the personal and the collective, literature and politics, as well as national and transnational forces. The outcome is compared to a cartography in which multiple times, spaces, and subjectivities converge in the articulation of alternative forms of understanding the cosmopolitan stranger, thus presenting The House of Broken Angels as a discursive space where tensions meet and are negotiated, leading to a dialogue between literary and political discourses in the Trump era. Writer and scholar Norma E. Cantú engages in Chapter 4 the notion of the ‘stranger,’ as defined by Georg Simmel, with Gloria Anzaldúa’s insights on nepantilism and bridging and Donna Haraway’s work on the chthulucene, concepts that she develops in her analysis of two novels: Felicia Luna Lemus’ Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (2003) and Reyna Grande’s A Ballad of Love and Glory (2022). Cantú also deals with the apparent dual logic implied in borderlands and in strange(r)ness as represented in the characters of these novels, who are strangers in their own land and remain outside and marginal while situated in their own space. As cosmopolitan strangers, these characters traverse geographical spaces and transcend time to better assess and shape their futures.

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  15 They are nepantleras living in the interstices, en tierra desconocida, as Anzaldúa put it, and both must engage in bridging across generational divides and disparate positions if they are to survive. In Chapter 5, “The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality in Jennine Capó Crucet’s Make Your Home Among Strangers (2015) and My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education (2019),” Michael Grafals takes on Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel and her collection of personal essays to interrogate the cosmopolitan Latinx becoming of a second-​ generation Cuban American raised in Miami. Like Norma E. Cantú, Grafals draws on Gloria Anzaldúa’s notion of nepantla and on equivalent formulations in the political theory of Hannah Arendt, who developed the notions of natality and critical thinking. Grafals argues that both Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s ideas point toward a transcendental cosmopolitanism in narratives by writers identifying as Latinx, “a cosmopolitanism that emerges from a narrative critique of older conceptions of the world, typically inherited from previous generations.” This may be a painful and uncomfortable position to be in, hence the angst, but like the figure of the cosmopolitan stranger, it enables the Latinx subject to see from two or more perspectives simultaneously and transcend essentialisms. Alejandro Ramírez-​Méndez’s “Strangers in the City: Cosmopolitan Strangers and Transnational Urbanism in the Literary Imagination of Valeria Luiselli” provides in Chapter 6 an insightful reflection on strangers and cosmopolitanism in New York City through a critical analysis of Valeria Luiselli’s Papeles falsos (2010/​2015a), Los ingrávidos (2011/​2014), and “Zapata Boulevard” (2015b). Building on the work of Georg Simmel, Elizabeth Goodstein, Zygmunt Bauman, and others, this chapter demonstrates how transnational spaces in global megacities like New York provide a space for the visibility and acceptance of cosmopolitan strangers, thus enabling a re-​understanding of subaltern and hegemonic structures in our present time. In this sense, emphasis is placed on how Luiselli crisscrosses the invisible barriers of language, culture, and nationality that dislocate the space of the American city, opening up a space of negotiation for the questioning of alternative citizenships and political membership for migration in the global city. In Chapter 7, “Hostipitality and Solidarity in Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena,” Ewa Antoszek analyzes how the documentary film Casa en tierra ajena (2016) challenges the othering of Central American migrants through an exploration of convivial solidarity, showcasing the transformation of ‘illegal aliens’ into cosmopolitan strangers. Drawing on Derrida’s concept of “hostipitality,” Antoszek examines how Costa Rican filmmaker Villalobos Vindas juggles the hostile with the hospitable, emphasizing how the former is eventually taken over by the latter. Such movement toward hope and tolerance is enabled by practices of convivial solidarity, e.g., grassroots groups providing shelter for migrants, thus transforming what used to be walls into bridges.

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16  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García The volume closes with María Jesús Castro Dopacio’s “Humanizing the Wall: Cosmopolitan Artistic Interventions on the US-​Mexico Border,” where she approaches the wall at this conflictual location from an artistic and cosmopolitan perspective through the analysis of several visual projects which render this dividing line as a great canvas on which to express a different image of the border, and where—​as in Villalobos Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena—​hospitality and solidarity can take place. Castro Dopacio focuses on Lisbeth De La Cruz’s visual and digital “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project,” Enrique Chiu’s “Mural de la Hermandad,” Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello’s installation of a seesaw across nations—​“Teeter-​Totter Wall”—​and Ana Teresa Fernandez’s “Erasing the Border” to contend that, with these transnational aesthetic initiatives, artists and audiences interact, creating a necessary conversation while restoring human dignity. The artworks studied in this chapter are framed by the proposal for a cosmopolitan imagination that underlines art’s agency (Meskimmon 2011). Drawing on the central argument of Post-​Multicultural Writers as Neo-​Cosmopolitan Mediators (Gunew 2017), which inquires how literary and cultural studies might be situated as part of the pedagogical project of (neo)cosmopolitanism, this volume concludes that the Latinx writers and artists under discussion act as mediating figures between the US nation and the broader world beyond borders. In bridging material and epistemological divides, the eight contributions included in this project emphasize the need to go beyond classical othering schemas to cast the Latinx stranger in a more positive and productive light, just like Paul Gilroy demands in his work on postcolonial melancholia: We need to know what sorts of insight and reflection might actually help increasingly differentiated societies and anxious individuals to cope successfully with the challenges involved in dwelling comfortably in proximity to the unfamiliar without becoming fearful and hostile. We need to consider whether the scale upon which sameness and difference are calculated might be altered productively so that the strangeness of strangers goes out of focus and other dimensions of a basic sameness can be acknowledged and made significant. (2005, 3) Thus, by reading the figure of the Latinx stranger through the lens of (neo)cosmopolitan theories, we believe that the chapters included in this volume can foster cultural integration in the context of ongoing racism and other forms of hatred. Picturing imaginative solutions toward the reduction of inequalities and social exclusion in contemporary societies, establishing a dialogue, a conversation (Appiah 2007), and opening lines of “undistorted communication” (Bauman 2017, 18) are the first steps toward developing habits of peaceful coexistence.

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  17

Notes 1 This research was supported by the Spanish National R&D Program, PID2021-​ 127052OB-​I00 (World-​travelling: Narratives of Solidarity and Coalition in Contemporary Writing and Performance), financed by MCIU/​ AEI/​ FEDER, EU, and by the R&D Program of the Principado de Asturias, through the Research Group Intersections (grant number GRUPIN IDI/​2021/​000101). 2 According to CNN Politics, US Border Patrol recorded more migrant deaths on the US southern border in fiscal year 2021 than in any prior year on record, according to data shared by the agency … There were 557 Southwest border deaths during the fiscal year, which ended September 30. That’s up from 254 deaths in fiscal year 2020 and 300 deaths in 2019, marking a significant increase amid a 30-​year record for border crossings. The agency data on deaths dates to 1998 … The figures, however, are not representative of all migrant border deaths, as other state and local agencies may recover bodies without Border Patrol involvement, meaning the number of deaths is likely higher. (https://​edit​ion.cnn.com/​2021/​10/​29/​polit​ics/​bor​der-​pat​rol-​ rec​ord-​bor​der-​dea​ths-​fis​cal-​year-​2021/​index.html) 3 For more information on immigration policy during the Trump era and its subsequent impact on Latinxs, see Sophia Jordán Wallace and Chris Zepeda-​ Millán’s Walls, Fences and Family Separation: Race and Immigration in the Trump Era (2021) and Raúl Hinojosa-​Ojeda and Edward Telles’ The Trump Paradox: Migration, Trade, and Racial Politics in US-​ Mexico Integration (2021). 4 MS-​13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, is a Salvadoran American criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. Despite being born on the streets of Los Angeles and a product of the US society that excluded and marginalized many Salvadoran immigrants who fled the US-​backed Salvadoran Civil War, MS-​13 has been commonly referenced by the Republican Party as a reason to advocate for stricter immigration policies. For more information, see Steven Osuna’s “Transnational Moral Panic: Neoliberalism and the Spectre of MS-​13” (2020). 5 Even though this volume draws on (neo)cosmopolitan approaches, we will favor the terms “cosmopolitanism” and “cosmopolitan” for the purpose of a more practical and simple usage. 6 Like the border, the bridge metaphor in Anzaldúa’s oeuvre is both a barrier and a point of transformation (2002, 557). 7 According to Wise and Noble (2016, 425), the Spanish notion of convivencia has a more complex meaning than the English ‘conviviality’ which tends to infer ‘happy’, ‘festive’ and ‘fun’ forms of togetherness. Convivencia as shared life, includes an emphasis on practice, effort, negotiation, and achievement. This sense of ‘rubbing along’ includes not just ‘happy togetherness’ but negotiation, friction, and sometimes conflict. It signals belonging and new forms of community as practice, as hard labor. 8 See Lippert and Rehaag’s Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives. Migration, Citizenship and Social Movements (2013) for a thorough analysis of the sanctuary phenomenon. The volume examines the conceptual and theoretical issues, including the contradictions and dilemmas, of sanctuary in the United States and in international contexts.

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  19 Flores-​González, Nilda. 2017. Citizens but not Americans: Race and Belonging among Latino Millennials. New York: New York University Press. García McCall, Guadalupe. 2018. All the Stars Denied. New York: Lee & Low. Gilroy, Paul. 2004. After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? Oxon: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2005. Postcolonial Melancholia. New York: Columbia University Press. Glissant, Édouard. 1997. Poetics of Relation, translated by Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. —​—​—​. 2006. “Drawing Lines in the Sand.” Le Monde diplomatique, November 2006. https://​mon​dedi​plo.com/​2006/​11/​13fr​onti​ers Grande, Reyna. 2022. A Ballad of Love and Glory. New York: Atria Books. Gunew, Sneja. 2017. Post-​Multicultural Writers as Neo-​Cosmopolitan Mediators. London and New York: Anthem Press. Hamington, Maurice. 2010. “Toward a Theory of Feminist Hospitality.” Feminist Formations 22 (1): 21–​38. Hinojosa-​Ojeda, Raúl, and Edward Telles. 2021. The Trump Paradox: Migration, Trade, and Racial Politics in US-​Mexico Integration. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Jordán Wallace, Sophia, and Chris Zepeda-​ Millán. 2021. Walls, Fences and Family Separation: Race and Immigration in the Trump Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2017 (1795). Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. Jonathan Bennet. https://​r.sea​rch.yahoo.com/​_​ylt=​AwrE​eNtP​PWRi​0wUA​ Xwgv​Ewx.;_​ylu=​Y29sbwNiZ​jEEc​G9zA​zEEd​nRpZ​AMEc​2VjA​3Ny/​RV=​2/​ RE=​165​0765​263/​RO=​10/​RU=​https%3a%2f%2fwww.early​mode​rnte​xts. com%2fass ​ e ts%2fp​ d fs%2fkan​ t 179​ 5 _​ 1 .pdf/​ R K=​ 2 /​ R S=​ o 1fd​ w KLU​ 9 gUo​ WW2x​zVTd​zy4t​H40-​ Keating, AnaLouise. 2006. “From Borderlands and New Mestizas to Nepantlas and Nepantleras.” Human Architecture, Journal of the Sociology of Knowledge 4 (3): 5–​16. Lemus, Felicia Luna. 2004 (2003). Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. New York: Seal Press. Levinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Lippert, Randy K., and Sean Rehaag, eds. 2013. Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives. Migration, Citizenship and Social Movements. Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge. Lugones, María. 1987. “Playfulness, ‘World’-​Travelling, and Loving Perception.” Hypatia 2 (2): 3–​19. Luiselli, Valeria. 2014 (2011). Los ingrávidos. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2015a (2010). Papeles falsos. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2015b. “Zapata Boulevard.” In Tales of Two Cities: The Best & Worst of Times in Today’s New York, edited by John Freeman, 196–​209. New York: Penguin. —​—​—​. 2017. Tell Me How It Ends. An Essay in Forty Questions. London: 4th Estate. —​—​—​. 2019. Lost Children Archive. London: 4th Estate. Marotta, Vincent. 2010. “The Cosmopolitan Stranger.” In Questioning Cosmopolitanism, edited by Stan van Hooft and Wim Vandekerckhove, 105–​ 120. London: Springer.

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20  Esther Álvarez-López and Andrea Fernández-García —​—​—​. 2017. Theories of the Stranger: Debates on Cosmopolitanism, Identity and Cross-​Cultural Encounters. London and New York: Routledge. Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Meskimmon, Marsha. 2011. Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination. New York: Routledge. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. “Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders.” Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/​5): 58–​72. Mignolo, Walter D. 2000. “The Many Faces of Cosmo-​polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism.” Public Culture 12 (3): 721–​748. Neal, Sarah, Katy Bennet, Allan Cochrane, and Giles Mohan. 2019. “Community and Conviviality? Informal Social Life in Multicultural Places.” Sociology 53 (1): 69–​86. Noble, Greg. 2013. “Cosmopolitan Habits: The Capacities and Habitats of Intercultural Conviviality.” Body & Society 19 (2 & 3): 162–​185. Noe-​Bustamante, Luis, Ana Gonzalez-​Barrera, Khadijah Edwards, Lauren Mora, and Mark Hugo Lopez. 2021a. “Half of US Latinos Experienced Some Form of Discrimination During the First Year of the Pandemic.” November 4, 2021. www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​hispa​nic/​2021/​11/​04/​half-​of-​u-​s-​lati​nos-​expe​rien​ced-​ some-​form-​of-​dis​crim​inat​ion-​dur​ing-​the-​first-​year-​of-​the-​pande​mic/​ Noe-​Bustamante, Luis, Jens Manuel Kgrostad, and Mark Hugo Lopez. 2021b. “For US Latinos, COVID-​19 Has Taken a Personal and Financial Toll.” July 15, 2022. www.pewr​esea​rch.org/​race-​ethnic​ity/​wp-​cont​ent/​uplo​ads/​sites/​18/​ 2021/​07/​RE_​2​021.07.15_​St​ate-​of-​Latino​s_​FI​NAL.pdf Nudgga, Nambi, Latoya Hill, Samantha Artiga, and Sweta Haldar. 2022. “Latest Data on COVID-​19 Vaccinations by Race/​Ethnicity.” April 7, 2022. www. kff.org/​coro​navi​rus-​covid-​19/​issue-​brief/​lat​est-​data-​on-​covid-​19-​vacci​nati​ons-​ by-​race-​ethnic​ity/​ Osuna, Steven. 2020. “Transnational Moral Panic: Neoliberalism and the Spectre of MS-​13.” Race & Class 61 (4): 3–​28. Owers, Paul. 2022. “Inflation Worries Hurt Consumer Confidence among Hispanics.” January 13, 2022. https://​busin​ess.fau.edu/​newsr​oom/​press-​relea​ ses/​2022/​inflat​ion-​hispa​nic-​consu​mer-​con​fide​nce.php Roth, Wendy. 2012. Race Migrations: Latinos and the Cultural Transformation of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Sandercock, Leonie. 2006. “Cosmopolitan Urbanism: A Love Song to Our Mongrel Cities.” In Cosmopolitan Urbanism, edited by Jon Binnie, Julian Holloway, Steve Millington, and Craig Young, 37–​ 52. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Simmel, Georg. 1964. “The Quantitative Aspect of the Group.” In The Sociology of George Simmel, edited by Kurt H. Wolff, 87–​ 174. New York: Free Press. Sundstrom, Ronald R. 2008. The Browning of America and the Evasion of Social Justice. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Urrea, Luis Alberto. 2019. The House of Broken Angels. London: John Murray. Villalobos Vindas, Ivannia, dir. 2016. Casa en tierra ajena. Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Estatal a Distancia, Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE).

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Introduction: Latinx Strangers Revisited  21 Wise, Amanda, and Greg Noble. 2016. “Convivialities: An Orientation.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 37 (5): 423–​431. Wise, Amanda, and Selvaraj Velayutham. 2014. “Conviviality in Everyday Multiculturalism: Some Brief Comparison between Singapore and Sydney.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 17 (4): 406–​430.

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1 Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action The Latina Writer as Stranger and Mediator in García McCall’s All the Stars Denied Vanessa de Veritch Woodside

This chapter explores how Latinx writers—like the cosmopolitan stranger—function from a liminal space with “subjective objectivity” (Marotta 2010, 109) to expose the dominant (or host) group to histories and experiences of immigrants, thereby countering the notion of Latinx immigrants and Latinx communities more broadly as a threat as foreign strangers. Drawing on sociological theory, Suzanne Keen’s narrative empathy theory, and Mark Bracher’s schema criticism methodology, this analysis of All the Stars Denied (2018) demonstrates how ‘in-between’ Latinx authors like Guadalupe García McCall act as cultural mediators vis-à-vis their writing to bridge the gap between the hegemonic cosmovision and that of the immigrant ‘newcomers’ by mediating their perceived strangeness through strategies that develop empathy and undermine dominant narratives of immigrants as Other. Empathic narrative techniques and textual exposure to diverse exemplars of culturally distant groups can shift readers’ mental schemas, which may ultimately lead to extratextual action in pursuit of social justice and change.

Introduction Many Latinx authors of twenty-​first-​century narratives of transnational migration have turned the public’s focus on immigration from the outward-​facing sociopolitical stage to the more intimate environment of the home and the family in their nuanced depictions of the experiences of both the female and the juvenile migrants. With a focus on families affected by immigration and various examples of how overarching structural and legal institutions and practices create situations in which other physical and psychological acts of violence will be perpetrated against them, these texts counter the dehumanization of the figure of the migrant, invoke consideration of what it means to be Latinx in the United States, and address notions of cultural diversity within and beyond borders. Moreover, they underline the importance of transfrontera alliances to DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-2

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  23 resist and overcome layers of violence associated with displacement, discrimination, and more, thereby teaching empathy and the need for cultural coalitions to effect social change. In utilizing their texts as tools for social justice, these Latinx writers contribute to a shift from public consciousness, or awareness, of immigration to public conscience or conscientiousness. Some of these writers, including those who have not themselves immigrated, have indicated that these textual appeals to the public conscience largely reflect their visceral reactions to the sociopolitical climate of heightened xenophobia and racism and a sense of their moral or ethical responsibility as ‘citizens of the world’ to take action by utilizing their narratives to ultimately prompt readers to engage in meaningful pro-​social behaviors and actions, especially in the cases of texts geared toward juvenile audiences. Ironically, Latinx writers—​like the cosmopolitan stranger—​function from an in-​between space with “subjective objectivity” (Marotta 2010, 109) to expose the dominant (or host) group to histories and experiences of immigrants, thereby countering the notion of Latinx immigrants (and Latinx communities more broadly) as a threat as foreign strangers. Vis-​à-​vis their writing, ‘in-​between’ Latinx authors like Guadalupe García McCall act as cultural mediators to bridge the gap between the hegemonic worldview/​cosmovision and that of the immigrant ‘newcomers’ by mediating their perceived strangeness through strategies that develop empathy and undermine dominant narratives of immigrants as Other. In developing narrative empathy and providing diverse and positive exemplars of individual migrants, their families, and their traumatic experiences associated with transnational migration, texts like García McCall’s All the Stars Denied (2018) function as a counter-​discourse to the political rhetoric and explosion of images in popular culture and the media that anthropologist Leo Chavez (2008) describes as manipulating public opinion so that immigrants and immigration are considered a threat to citizens’ liberties and resources. Like various coming-​of-​age novels by Chicana authors, García McCall’s young-​ adult novels also challenge dominant perspectives of the history of cultural conflict in the border region and explicitly broach the ambience of physical violence and psychological trauma rooted in broader structural and sociocultural violence inflicted on individuals of Mexican descent. Shame the Stars (2016) and its sequel All the Stars Denied (2018) depict family separation in the context of the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath—​including the violent period of Texas history known as ‘La Matanza’—​and mass deportations of individuals of Mexican origin in the 1930s. Taken together, they expose the often omitted or distorted histories of marginalized communities and contest traditional conceptualizations of immigration and the immigrant experience, more specifically, through a focus on women and youth with whom readers may develop an affective connection.

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24  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside The exposure of the stories of the Latinx immigrant stranger (and estranged stranger in one’s own land) both undermines the government’s efforts to criminalize them and draws attention to the overarching systems and structures that have created the immigrants’ displacement in the first place. Furthermore, they contest the past and present discourse that positions Latinx immigrants and their families as indelibly marked by their lack of ‘Americanness’ and consequently perceived as threatening and criminal. As Bill Ong Hing (2004, 260) asserts, De-​Americanization is a process that involves racism, but unlike the racism directed at African Americans, with its foundations in the historically held beliefs of inferiority, de-​Americanizers based their assault on loyalty and foreignness … Their victims are immigrants or foreigners even though they may in fact be citizens by birth or through naturalization. Irrespective of the victim community’s possible long-​standing status in the country, its members are regarded as perpetual foreigners. In the context of the emboldened and unbridled xenophobia and racism that emerged during President Trump’s campaign and administration, one exemplified by vehement exhortations to erect walls to keep the undesirable and threatening Other out, counternarratives that offer alternative perspectives become even more imperative because of their potential to contest the rationalization for an ‘us vs. them’ binary and its very real and dangerous ramifications. Largely because of this conceptualization of foreignness, past and present policies and practices related to Latinx immigrants, and Latinx communities more broadly, have resulted in the US government’s continued policing of the very presence of the people who are essentially here because of the government’s own doing, whether it be through its reliance on exploitative labor practices, its history of laws and foreign policies that influence the global economy and limit political and economic stability in immigrants’ countries of origin, or its determination of grounds for immigrants’ lawful entry, belonging, and removal.

Policing the Presence of the Mexican Other With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that marked the end of the Mexican–​American War (1846–​1848), Mexico’s northern border moved south to its current location, resulting in the loss of nearly half of its territory. Articles VIII and IX of the treaty, however, guaranteed that the Mexican citizens previously inhabiting the ceded land would maintain “all the rights of citizens of the United States according to the principles of the Constitution” (National Archives 1848, Article IX). Furthermore, they would “be … protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty and property, … secured in the free exercise of their

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  25 religion without restriction” (National Archives 1848, Article IX), and “free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican Republic, retaining the property which they possess in said territories” (National Archives 1848, Article VIII). It would not be long, though, before Anglo-​Saxon Americans would begin to occupy the area, utilizing racial scripts applied to other marginalized groups to contend that Mexicans should be considered culturally and socially ‘nonwhite’ and treated accordingly (Molina 2014). This shift would certainly benefit those newcomers to areas that had previously been Mexico who had intentions of benefitting from Mexicans’ dispossession of land or other capital. In concert with the wave of roughly one million Mexican migrants fleeing during the Mexican Revolution (Rumbaut 2003, 95), ethnic tensions in the border region escalated during the 1910s and 1920s. It is this chapter of rising hostility toward Mexicans, particularly evident in the actions of the Texas Rangers and other vigilante groups, that serves as the backdrop of García McCall’s Shame the Stars. Manifest in the implementation of mandatory baths, delousing, inspections, and literacy tests, “during the 1920s, immigration policy rearticulated the US–​Mexico border as a cultural and racial boundary, as a creator of illegal immigration” (Ngai 2014, 67). These procedures, however, were not uniformly executed. That Europeans and Mexican immigrants who arrived in first-​class trains were exempt suggests “racial presumptions about Mexican laborers, not law, dictated the procedures at the Mexican Border” (2014, 68). Perceptions about identity, origin, and level of threat posed by immigrants resulted in individuals’ discretionary actions regarding protocol. Ngai identifies the Immigration Act of 1924, with its authorization to create the Border Patrol, as crucial in reinforcing the interconnectedness of illegality and race of Mexican nationals. Likewise, Kelly Lytle Hernández (2010) notes the role of Border Patrol surveillance in strengthening the connection between Mexicans as a racialized category and illegality (57–​ 58). During this period, stereotypes of Mexican nationals as ‘illegal,’ criminal, and diseased began to emerge more regularly (and, incidentally, are still common in anti-​immigrant rhetoric). The government also ramped up efforts to police “women and their reproductive capabilities” as related to citizenship. In addition to a proposal to limit the inheritance of citizenship by children born abroad to American women (Sampaio 2015, 69), political conversations rationalized potential limits to Mexican women’s immigration by signaling inordinately high birth rates and the potential that these women and children would become public charges (2015, 82). In the wake of the Great Depression’s economic devastation, heightened concerns about drained resources and limited employment opportunities resulted in the scapegoating of Mexicans, who became the targets of a massive national deportation program. During this Mexican Repatriation (1929–​ 1936), over a million Mexicans and Mexican Americans, 60 percent of whom held US citizenship, were rounded up

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26  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside and forcibly removed (Balderrama and Rodríguez 2006; Little 2019). The Mexican Repatriation, during which thousands of individuals of Mexican origin were deported to a country they had never known, serves as the backdrop for García McCall’s All the Stars Denied. As is evident in the previous overview, the US government has consistently engaged in policing individuals of, or suspected to be of, Mexican origin throughout history. After all, as Sara Ahmed (2021) notes, “to be a stranger is to be under a watchful gaze, to be under scrutiny” (3), because of the public perception of the social and cultural threat, these ‘perpetual foreigners’ or ‘strangers’ presumably pose to the fabric of American life. Moreover, “when we are talking about how some are made into strangers, how some have to defend their right to be here, their right to be, we are most certainly talking about life and death” (2021, 21). This has clearly been evident in the ramifications of the association of Latinx communities in the United States with epitomizing the suspicious, strange, and estranged Other. More explicitly risky, though, are the implications of the mere presence of Latinx immigrants who embody the notion of ‘strangeness’ to an even greater degree due to inflammatory rhetoric that has flagrantly labeled them as still more threatening than members of already established US Latinx communities.

The Cosmopolitan Stranger The basis of this threat may, in part, be attributed to the perception of the immigrant as “inassimilable,” and, more pointedly, as “the unwilling migrant, or more specifically the migrant who is ‘unwilling to integrate’ [because] … to be unwilling to integrate is to be ‘too willing’ to retain an allegiance to another body” (Ahmed 2021, 14). Perhaps it is this perceived insistence on allegiance to a foreign culture that makes immigrants appear to be “stranger strangers” (14) than the standard sociological concepts of the figure of the stranger. In his exploration of the sociological perspectives on the stranger and cosmopolitanism, Vince P. Marotta (2010) broadly identifies strangers as “individuals who are socially, culturally or racially different from the host or dominant group” (107), thereby embodying Otherness. In many cases, strangers may exemplify strangeness, which “exists when those who are physically close are socially and culturally distant” (107). Although immigrants certainly exemplify the figure of the stranger, my focus here is on understanding Latinx authors as occupying the liminal space of “the in-​between stranger” (107), drawing on Georg Simmel’s and Zygmunt Bauman’s understanding of strangers as “the cultural outsiders who, in most cases are excluded and marginalized from what is usually represented as the ‘in-​group’ or ‘native group’ ” (107–​108). This stranger in an “in-​between ambivalent position” (108) problematizes the ‘us vs. them’ dialectic, destabilizing the various boundaries (physical, social, cultural) between the host or dominant group (‘us’) and the

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  27 nonmembers representing the Other (‘them’). In interrogating that which the host takes for granted, “these in-​ betweens or insiders-​ outsiders threaten the insider/​ host’s identity” (108). Nevertheless, following Simmel, Marotta explains, Strangers dialectically adopt a frame of mind which could be classified as a “subjective objectivity” which entails both being remote and near, detached and involved, indifferent and concerned. Strangers have a “bird’s-​eye view” and are not immersed in the particularities of the opposing parties or cultural groups. This “bird’s-​eye view” allows strangers to adopt and therefore understand the particular views of both parties, but be adequately detached from them to identify underlying common or universal interests. (109) Though I would argue that one cannot effectively detach from the group that marks them as a stranger within the host community, this description of subjective objectivity brings to mind the notion of being “ni de aquí ni de allá” (“from neither here nor there”) while paradoxically being or belonging to both.1 As “in-​betweeners” (Anzaldúa 2002a, 567), Latinx authors, particularly those who were born in the United States, exemplify the ‘strangeness’ associated with being both physically near and socioculturally distant, and consequently embody the stranger’s subjective objectivity. For, “living between cultures results in ‘seeing’ double, first from the perspective of one culture, then from the perspective of another. Seeing from two or more perspectives simultaneously renders those cultures transparent” (549), enabling a more objective, detached, and critical assessment of both. As Anzaldúa describes, “removed from that culture’s center you glimpse the sea in which you’ve been immersed but to which you were oblivious, no longer seeing the world the way you were enculturated to see it” (549). Conversely, as Ong Hing notes, regardless of citizenship status or multiple generations of residence in the United States, the dominant group will tend toward de-​Americanizing and perceiving socioculturally distant groups as foreigners/​strangers. In their privileged localization as ‘in-​between strangers,’ Latinx writers like García McCall are well positioned to serve as a bridge between the “liminal (threshold) spaces between worlds, spaces [Anzaldúa calls] nepantla, a Nahuatl word meaning tierra entre medio” (Anzaldúa 2002b, 1). Bridging between the host and the immigrant guest, they expose the dominant group to histories and experiences of these “stranger strangers” while also conveying the two groups’ underlying commonalities. In doing so, Latinx authors embrace the role of cosmopolitan subject. While the definitions, components, and variations of cosmopolitanism are wide-​ranging, of most relevance here are overarching Kantian notions of moral cosmopolitanism (Delanty 2006, 28) and the convergence of

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28  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside the positionalities of the in-​between stranger and the cosmopolitan self. Following Kwame Anthony Appiah (2006), one key feature of cosmopolitanism is “the idea that we have obligations to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of a shared citizenship” (xv). This moral and ethical obligation compels the cosmopolitan subject to look beyond local communities and cultures to a broader, global sphere. Marotta more specifically explores the convergences between the in-​between stranger and the cosmopolitan subject or self, noting the ability of the positionalities to embrace both the local and the universal or global. Drawing on the work of John Waldron, Marotta explains, “while the cosmopolitan self can move beyond group loyalties, local identities are not neglected. Similar to the idea of the in-​between stranger, the cosmopolitan subject can adopt a universal stance while incorporating and understanding local identities” (2010, 114), reflecting a rooted cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, Marotta comments, “similar to the in-​ between stranger—​ who is not confined by particular identities—​the cosmopolitan self has greater allegiance to international communities and organizations than to local cultures and communities” (113). Applying this to the Latinx author as in-​between cosmopolitan stranger, the impetus to write about experiences that are not their own (e.g., that of displaced Latinx migrants) for an audience to which they do not entirely belong may be borne of this sense of greater allegiance to the international, global, or universal. Alternatively, it may be their estranged condition as members of Latinx communities within the dominant/​host culture that drives them, at least in part, to establish solidarities with those about whom they write. Regardless, the Latinx author writes from the third position—​which the cosmopolitan stranger occupies—​[that] encourages a critical view of binary thinking and the essentialist identities it fosters. Understanding the insider experience (host or local) is only possible through proximity and distance, through self-​ reflexivity and through an ironic dialogical imagination. (Marotta 2010, 115) In this way, authors like García McCall bridge cultural gaps and function as cultural mediators by leveraging their unique position as cosmopolitan strangers to bring to light excluded or altered histories and experiences, some of which demonstrate how these ‘strangers’ were, in fact, previously the hosts to the Anglo-​Saxon strangers in the US Southwest. In problematizing the binary thinking of ‘us vs. them’ in the fraught context of immigration, their ‘bridging’ or mediating may also enable the broader readership (i.e., Anglo Americans) to take note of underlying commonalities and potentially dismiss essentialist identities, specifically that of the cultural outsider or stranger. To bridge the cultural gaps effectively to raise awareness and/​or effect change, Latinx authors

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  29 strategically deploy empathic narrative techniques to invoke a sense of solidarity and connectedness.

Narrative Empathy, Schema Criticism, and Social Change In depicting cultural resistance in the face of explicit attempts to eradicate Mexican and Mexican American communities during the Mexican Repatriation via structural/​ legal and sociocultural institutions that invoke physical and psychological harm, García McCall deploys various empathetic narrative strategies that may facilitate the transformation of empathy into action. Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy (2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016) offers a useful framework for analyzing such strategies for “purposes of ideological manipulation” (2013, 5). Defined as “the sharing of feeling and perspective-​taking induced by reading, viewing, hearing, or imagining narratives of another’s situation and condition” (2013, 1), narrative empathy may be incorporated at various levels: that of authors’ creative process, that of readers’ reception of the text, and that of the text itself. In pursuit of social justice and change, authors may intend to craft a text that will facilitate the alignment of readers’ “bodily sensations, moods, and motivations [that] match the character’s” (2016, 18), through the text’s “mediation of fictional representations and narrative techniques” (2011, 366), with the ultimate goal of “reach[ing] target audiences with representations that sway the feelings of their readers” (2008, 478–​ 480). Keen identifies three fundamental applications of narrative empathy, depending on the perceived readership. She explains that bounded strategic empathy addresses members of in-​ groups. Ambassadorial strategic empathy addresses members of more temporally, spatially, or culturally remote audiences. Broadcast strategic empathy calls upon all readers to experience emotional fusion through empathetic representations of universal human experiences and generalizable responses to particular situations. (2013, 6) Like various Latinx authors whose works I analyze elsewhere, García McCall has explicitly described that her key objectives in writing are to create texts with characters and other elements with which Latinx readers can identify, and to record the histories, experiences, and voices that have traditionally been erased and silenced. That being the case, we can deduce that she and others integrate bounded strategic empathy, which “addresses the maker’s in-​group, close-​by in time and space, and aspects of identity [and] relies on mutual experiences to stimulate readers’ feeling for familiar others” (Keen 2015, 20). The authors simultaneously write for a readership that goes beyond the in-​group and thus also incorporate elements of ambassadorial strategic empathy to address “targeted

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30  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside audiences with the aim of cultivating their empathy for the needy, the disenfranchised, or the misunderstood, often with a specific appeal for recognition, assistance or justice” (156–​157). They may also appeal to readers’ familiarity and sensibilities associated with universal experiences through incorporating elements of broadcast strategic empathy. From their liminal space as cosmopolitan strangers, these authors build bridges between a broader culturally distant audience and marginalized groups around whom the plot revolves. In this case, as insiders-​outsiders, the Latinx authors introduce English-​ dominant US audiences of various ethnic and racial backgrounds to the histories, experiences, and stories of Latinx immigrant families (i.e., the “stranger strangers”), bringing to light that which has been suppressed by dominant culture in hopes of contributing to the creation of a future marked by understanding and compassion rather than strife. García McCall reflects on her motivation for writing young-​adult historical fiction that broaches polemic topics of violence, ethnic conflict, and forced displacement: The calling to write about our historical footprint in these “United States” came from the discovery of hidden histories in America. Events like La Matanza (South Texas, 1915), the Repatriation Act (US, 1930s), and Project Wetback (US, 1954) have been kept out of our history books and thus remain unrevealed to the public and consequently our students. The one-​sided narratives, the askew, curated facts, are much more than plot holes in our history books; they are erasures because they do not tell our side of the story in the development of our country … I believe it is my responsibility as a US citizen to write books that elucidate us. These books and the light they shed on hidden histories can inform conversations about our present political climate so that we can start working toward creating a better future for ourselves, our children, and our children’s children. (Huang 2018) García McCall refers to a responsibility or obligation to uncover what has been swept under the proverbial rug. Publishing texts like Shame the Stars and All the Stars Denied contests literary and historical erasure of Mexican (American) contributions and tribulations, combats erroneous conceptualizations of the cultural Other, and provides an avenue for envisioning a different and better world that is marked by social inclusion of the Latinx stranger by the dominant/​host group as well as an acknowledgment of past misdeeds. With this in mind, we can conceive of narratives like All the Stars Denied as ambassadorial texts that “[go] out into the world to recruit readers/​viewers/​audiences by means of emotional fusion with current causes” (Keen 2015, 156–​157). Given recent attention to immigration, it is not surprising that Latinx authors would write texts that expose the traumas of displacement of the immigrant

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  31 stranger. They incorporate techniques that foster ambassadorial strategic empathy, which Keen describes as “time-​sensitive, context-​and issue-​ dependent” (156–​157), to cultivate awareness about current and emerging issues among a broad audience in the name of fostering allyship and engagement of the dominant/​host group in efforts for social change. Nevertheless, as the adage goes, “Del dicho al hecho hay un gran trecho” (“It is easier said than done”). In other words, reading a compelling narrative—​regardless of how absorbed in the plot and emotionally connected one is to the characters and their experiences—​does not necessarily translate into action. In conjunction with bounded, ambassadorial, and broadcast strategic empathy, Mark Bracher’s (2013) schema criticism methodology may facilitate our understanding of how and why Latinx narratives that document trauma and injustice indeed have the potential to create change beyond the confines of the front and back covers of a book. Bracher’s underlying supposition is that the reporting of data or use of sound arguments is unlikely to change people’s perspectives about a given topic or group because their erroneous beliefs or assumptions are deeply embedded in what he terms “faulty cognitive apparatuses” (10). He proposes, however, that it is indeed possible to alter readers’ mental schemas through exposure to literature that goes beyond stereotypical portrayals of marginalized groups because negatively biased mental schemas are based on essentialist understandings of said groups. More specifically, these essentialist understandings entail perceptions of individual group members as homogeneous and immutable and a disregard for consideration of how environment and circumstances may affect one’s life choices and outcomes. To change the faulty cognitive apparatuses or mental schemas, it is necessary to change or enhance four distinct types of knowledge: (1) exemplars, the specific examples of individuals; (2) prototypes, the templates that capture the composite description of general types of individuals or groups (akin to stereotypes); (3) information-​processing routines activated by a given exemplar or prototype that result in particular emotional responses and/​or actions; and (4) propositional knowledge, the metacognition that enables individuals to be aware of how they are processing information and whether context or others’ unique circumstances are a factor in their judgment of others’ actions (Bracher 2013, 13, 26–​27). Bracher focuses on literature’s potential to provide additional and corrective cognitive exemplars and prototypes—​ even if they are secondhand or fictional portrayals—​ to enhance the preexisting inventory. Consequently, these new exemplars can change how others are perceived within one’s own mental schemas that will determine decision-​ making and action pertaining to these perceptions. Applying these concepts to the perception of Mexican (American) communities, a more comprehensive collection of adequate exemplars from both textual and real-​life experiences connected with these communities in one’s episodic memory will contribute to the development

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32  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside of more adequate prototypes housed in semantic memory. Subsequent extratextual encounters with Mexican (American) communities are then more likely to trigger information-​processing mechanisms that will ultimately produce (more) appropriate emotions and actions based on the activation of the memory of the more comprehensive set of cognitive exemplars and prototypes, literary or otherwise. Moreover, the narrative portrayal of the various traumas endured fosters a greater degree of understanding of characters’ handling of their unique and often unjust situations, and simultaneously condemns the overarching institutions and social, political, and economic global forces that shaped their individual actions and behaviors. Accordingly, Bracher remarks, “to the extent that these circumstances [beyond individuals’ control] are a product of human institutions and systems … efforts to prevent harm and injustice should be directed toward changing the institutions and systems” (204). Indeed, he adds, collaborative action to effect this degree of social change will also inherently involve cognitive retraining to privilege the solidarity schema—​the concept of “individual welfare and life outcomes as inextricably interwoven with those of other” (291)—​rather than the atomism schema that obscures one’s inherent sameness and interconnectedness with all other human beings and supports the view that individuals are fundamentally separate and isolated from each other, that life is a war of each against all, and … potentiates the infrahumanization and dehumanization of the other. (15) With the cognitive shift from atomism to solidarity, readers will be more apt to adopt the stance that “we are all responsible for each other and to each other and must exercise this responsibility through collective actions in the form of policies, institutions, systems, and structures that take our situatedness, malleability, and solidarity into account” (Bracher 2013, 291). What Bracher describes here parallels the problematization of the essentialist categories that distinguish the dominant/​host group from the stranger, or better yet, the dominant/​host group from the “stranger stranger” through the intervention of the cosmopolitan stranger. Occupying the in-​between space between insider and outsider, the Latinx author destabilizes the duality (e.g., host vs. stranger, insider vs. outsider) first by subverting the notion of the Other as homogeneous, unchanging, and socioculturally distant. Texts like All the Stars Denied, then, not only document the traumas that immigrants and their families have been subjected to but also effectively employ narrative strategies that enhance the potential for empathetic reactions and contribute diverse exemplars of the Latinx immigrant experience to readers’ cognitive cache. Taken together, they may impact opinions and actions beyond the text. Readers may interrogate essentialist notions of identity with

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  33 repeated exposure to corrective exemplars that shift readers’ cognitive default from assuming the autonomy and immutability of the characters to recognizing their situatedness and malleability. This may result in a corresponding shift from a schema of atomism toward one of solidarity, which could compel readers to take action to change the harmful policies and practices pertaining to immigration. These cognitive shifts, specifically toward solidarity, align with the cosmopolitan notion of a duty or allegiance to those beyond our local communities, appealing to universal ideals of humanity and dignity. Nevertheless, it is imperative to note the unlikelihood of fully embracing this cognitive schema of solidarity and, following Dominick LaCapra (2001), that doing so could potentially result in over-​identification with characters (and, by extension, those whose experiences they portray). In this manner, authors like García McCall build a bridge between the dominant/​host group and the outsider/​ immigrant stranger, blurring the lines between ‘us’ and ‘them’ without entirely collapsing the binary through complete erasure of difference.

All the Stars Denied: Empathy, Erasures, and Extratextual Action As in Shame the Stars, García McCall incorporates multiple genres in All the Stars Denied to creatively fill in the gaps with respect to the public’s knowledge of systematic policies and practices over generations to target and deport both Mexicans and Mexican Americans with US citizenship during the 1930s. Her historical novel portrays the devastating impact of massive repatriation efforts—​ones that are generally not spoken of—​on individual families. Having only been exposed to these historical events as a middle-​aged adult, she uses her young-​adult novel to inform the next generation of readers not only about the history of Mexican repatriation, but that the majority of those who were deported were, in fact, US citizens. Many were ‘returning’ to their supposed homeland of Mexico without knowledge of Spanish (García McCall 2018, 304–​305). Throughout the novel, she informs the readership, fosters a sentiment of collective healing for past harm done, and creates empathic connections through the use of both bounded and ambassadorial strategic empathy techniques that target readers who can readily identify with the characters as members of the same group as well as an audience that is not familiar with the histories and experiences of families of Mexican descent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a Mexican American, García McCall comments, “at the heart of it all was my need to tell the truth intertwined with my frustration at the inhumane treatment of mexicanos and the demoralization of an entire group of people—​mi gente” (306). Though she identifies with the “mexicanos” about whom she writes, she does not do so entirely, maintaining a liminal status between those who have little to no connections with the Mexican (American) community beyond her text and those with lived experiences as members of families who were

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34  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside among the Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the 1920s and 1930s and essentially became strangers in their own land. Continuing the tale of the del Toro and Villa families of Monte Seco, Texas, García McCall turns the focus of All the Stars Denied to the next generation, whose lives of privilege are abruptly disrupted because of the sociocultural and legal tensions of their time and place. Rather than portraying the immigrant experience originating from the south of the border with the United States as a destination (one that is typically represented in narratives of transnational migration), the overarching story arc of these families captures the experiences of displacement as a result of being an estranged stranger in one’s own land. García McCall’s implementation of tactics of ambassadorial strategic empathy narrows the sociocultural distance between reader and character through unique framing devices that compel readers to become active participants in experiencing intense events and emotions associated with the textual representation of deportation efforts that exemplify othering and the policing of the perpetual stranger. The novel begins with a note about eco-​poetry, which is integrated throughout the text as a method for providing readers with access to the protagonist’s consciousness. In addition to periodically incorporating excerpts of Estrella’s poetry, García McCall includes fragments of more traditional entries from her fictitious journal, providing readers with voyeuristic access to the teenager’s range of emotions, and amplifies the sense of injustice after injustice developed as the plot progresses. The intercalated diary also contains Estrella’s letters to her deceased grandmother and fictionalized artifacts varying from telegrams and newspaper articles to an elementary school class roster and community meeting agenda. In addition to drawing readers in through these creative interpolations, the author facilitates the presentation of various perspectives for a more holistic understanding of the perceptions and processing of compounded traumas on the part of the characters. The use of texts within texts complements the more traditional and straightforward narrative in underlining the shifting social dynamic in the US Southwest in the wake of the Great Depression. Albeit through fiction, the text documents the historical expulsion of Mexican (Americans) from the land that may have been in their family for generations and simultaneous arrival of increasing numbers of Anglo immigrants, and individual and collective responses to this chapter of violent and traumatic upheaval. Estrella, initially portrayed as a characteristically entitled and sullen teenager, demonstrates a vague awareness of, and sadness in response to, the “desaparecidos … mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, entire families just gone—​vanished” (García McCall 2018, 1), though she appears more exasperated by the interruption of her ample leisure time to help with her two-​year-​old brother. In answer to her self-​centered response, Dulceña swiftly puts Estrella in her place, reminding her daughter of the socioeconomic privilege that she enjoys. The use of dialogue similarly

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  35 reminds the readers about the socioeconomic context within which the plot develops. Dulceña responds, I don’t think you know what ‘depression’ means … You think you have it tough because you don’t have time to go outside and write poetry, and that’s true. The world as you’ve always known it is crumbling, Estrella. But there is suffering everywhere. Real suffering … I hope to God nothing ever happens to make you regret you ever thought this was hard. Because your life isn’t hard, Estrella. (11–​13) Foreshadowing what is to come for Estrella and her family, this passage marks the socioeconomic condition from which they will precipitously fall when they too are ‘disappeared’ after speaking out against the unjust raids and roundups of anyone perceived to be Mexican, and therefore foreign and threatening strangers, in Morado County. Suffice to say, the plot includes various examples of the atmosphere of explicit ethnic tensions manifest in the constant policing of any individuals suspected of illegally intruding on the land, despite having initially fulfilling the role of host to the very individuals and governmental agencies whom their families welcomed. Throughout the novel, Estrella offers reflections on the clear hostility toward, discrimination against, and dehumanization of the Mexican (American) community inherent in the racial profiling and rounding up of community members regardless of their citizenship status. In conjunction, the interpolated texts and traditional narration develop the awakening of the protagonist’s consciousness in response to the now personal unjust attacks on her family and friends. Out of dissatisfaction with her parents and their associates’ long-​ term approach of creating change through following official avenues to present grievances and propose ordinances to protect their community at the local city council meetings, Estrella opts for direct and immediate action. She organizes a peaceful protest to raise awareness about the injustice and absurdity of deportation, as well as the emotional, social, and economic devastation resulting from family separation. This action leads to cascading repercussions, the first of which is the slinging of anti-​ Mexican epithets that convey the broader environment of social tensions. A counter-​protest develops as various Anglo community members shout, for example, “ ‘Go home, Mexicans! Go home, mojados!’ ” (73). In stark contrast to the non-​violent protesters, the counter-​protesters are protected by the police, as Anglo businessmen yell, “ ‘Arrest them, Chief! Arrest those Mexican dogs!’ ‘Get those bean eaters!’ and ‘Run those filthy dogs outta town!’ ” (73). When Estrella finally responds with “ ‘I am American! I have rights! I can speak my mind! I can speak my heart!’ ” (74), explicitly declaring her US citizenship and awareness of the rights that such citizenship should guarantee, physical violence erupts. The policemen aggressively attack Estrella and fellow protestors with clubs and arrest

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36  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside them. After this incident, the sociocultural discord within Monte Seco and its inherent pervasive sociocultural violence directed toward community members of Mexican descent intensify. When, as spokesperson for the Council of Mexican American Citizens, Estrella’s father expresses his concerns about the community and diplomatically defends the rights of his daughter and other protestors as citizens legally engaging in non-​violent acts of civil disobedience to contest culturally based hatred, his sound argument falls on deaf ears. Instead, raging against Joaquín’s perceived disrespect, Councilman Jones angrily demands his silence. In this passage, García McCall cleverly juxtaposes the poised and calm demeanor of Estrella’s father with the rage and menacing behavior of the city councilman. This emphasizes the obvious injustice(s) of the situation, inverts the notion of who embodies a threat to whom, and compels readers to dissociate from the hateful member of the dominant class and his rhetoric. Alternatively, the passage fosters the development of a positive affective relationship with Estrella and her family, and empathy with the marginalized Mexican and Tejano community. Joaquín continues with a powerful monologue addressing the discrimination and inequities that his community faces, emphasizing the contributions of generations of Mexicans and Tejanos and posing pointed questions related to the unconstitutionality of preemptively deporting any potential “liability to our country” (87) in the name of preserving the law of the land. In response to his demand for respect and legal fairness, the councilman ejects him with rhetoric rife with ethnically hostile undertones. “ ‘Do me a favor, del Toro … take your people and get out of our chambers. We have no use for you and your kind’ ” (88), he demands. When a suspicious fire then destroys the del Toro home during a raid to arrest Joaquín and disappear other family members, the reader can deduce the retaliatory basis of this act of terror. As the earlier passage foreshadowed, Estrella confronts the traumas of barely escaping her burning home and family separation, realizing, “We were being vanished. We were on our way to becoming more of the many who had simply disappeared from our community” (107). The text turns its focus to the blend of her fear, uncertainty, anger, and guilt because she views her actions as the catalyst for the family’s demise. Via the insertion of a poem describing the steady, peaceful migration of cows, García McCall draws attention to the imminent dehumanizing experiences of return to Estrella’s supposed homeland, being herded southward like cattle within the frenetic chaos of hundreds or thousands of people navigating Mexican customs and immigration processing. Offering a fictional portrayal of historical procedures for US entry, the narrator describes the degradation of “being treated like infectious beasts” (119), forced to walk through disinfecting trays for the sake of Mexico’s livestock. What follows is a series of humiliating ordeals that Estrella and her mother encounter in their attempts to prove the illegality of their deportation based upon falsified governmental documents, a

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  37 process made more difficult because of patriarchal legal structures that require a male head of household to attend to such matters. Estrella insists on the injustice and illegality of their deportation, rightfully arguing that they are neither Communists nor Mexican nationals, and that “ ‘you can’t repatriate someone who’s never been a patriate of that country’ ” (133). Governmental agencies destroyed and confiscated their land and detained the head of household, separating the family before ejecting them from their country in clear violation of the rights guaranteed to US citizens on the basis that Estrella and her family pose a threat to the individuals and organizations in control. The perceived need to police the Other trumps matters of legality and justice, and thus they contend with horrid and dehumanizing conditions, fenced in a crowded corral with other deportees and treated like animals. Privy to the family’s backstory, readers accompany the characters as they adapt to unethical and unimaginable circumstances beyond their control, and may consequently develop an even closer emotional connection with the protagonist, her mother, and her medically frail brother as they navigate one obstacle after another in pursuit of information about her father’s whereabouts, rectification of their legal situation, and fulfillment of basic needs for survival in a country where they are “homeless, starving, [and] destitute” (149). Estrella laments, “Here, in this Mexico … we are less than human. Here, we are a threat. Here, we are infected foreigners” (147–​148). Deviating from more traditional Latinx immigrant stories of trials and tribulation, García McCall utilizes the trope of the immigrant as diseased stranger to reflect the immoral and illegal treatment of the characters upon entering Mexico rather than the United States. The affective relationship between readers and characters may pave the way for readers identifying with the dominant/​host group to focus on the injustice of these practices and the need to eradicate them. This inversion in identification of who poses the threat as foreign stranger to whom may enable readers who identify as members of the dominant/​host group to dissociate from it, at least in terms of identifying more with the socioculturally distant characters’ hardships than with a government’s justifications for subjecting migrants entering the United States from Mexico to similar treatment. The narration of the various complications that Estrella and her mother face as cultural and linguistic outsiders because of their “corrupted” Americanized Spanish (228) further constructs a shared sense of indignity due to unfair circumstances, strengthening the empathetic bond between readers and characters. Creatively placing readers in the characters’ shoes, García McCall includes a fictionalized telegram from the American Embassy in Mexico City that confirms Joaquín’s presence and need for medical attention. With this clue, and the inserted letter of gratitude that Joaquín had written to the couple who helped him, the reader becomes an accomplice in solving the mystery of his whereabouts. Meanwhile, García McCall continues to develop an intimate glimpse at the emotional trauma that

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38  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside the family faces through access to Estrella’s inner thoughts via epistolary elements. One such narrativized traumatic event is the characters’ night spent in a jail cell, as though they were criminals, when they successfully return to the US–​Mexico border. Much like the novel’s plot and character development counteract the notion that Estrella and her family pose a threat as diseased and foreign intruders, the dialogue and description of the characters’ actions also contest their characterization as criminals. Through their lawyer’s emphasis on the rights they maintain as US citizens, the narrative instead highlights the illegality of the actions perpetrated against them and directs attention to the criminality of the US government’s representatives and policies. The legal action culminates in a hearing before Judge O’Riley, who, on the verge of retirement, rules based on notions of morality rather than on what he deems to be arbitrary and unjust laws. Accordingly, he acknowledges their citizenship, dismisses the charges of improper entry, and calls for their immediate release from detention. Despite the description of the family’s elation, the narrative not so subtly reminds readers of “the hundreds of thousands of people who were still destitute and unwanted in a foreign country that didn’t trust their American ways” (297), preventing readers from considering this issue—​and the broader extratextual one it represents—​to be neatly resolved. Moreover, the judge’s acknowledgement of their citizenship and the lawfulness of their presence subvert the conceptualization of these immigrants as strangers. Embodying an authority figure of the dominant group and its institutions, he validates the presence of those who appear to be strangers in their own land and restores their rightful place in the United States as members of the Morado County community. This might be interpreted as a didactic move to paint a portrait of these individuals as unquestionably a part of the American fabric, rather than a perpetual threat to it. In addition to providing exemplars that undermine dominant US culture’s typical cognitive exemplars of immigrants as dangerous strangers with questionable motives for migration, the text appeals to universal emotional responses to unethical and unjust treatment, prompting empathetic reactions on the part of readers. Deploying a variety of narrative techniques intended to foster empathy, García McCall, herself a cosmopolitan stranger of sorts, utilizes her novel as a tool to bridge the gap between the dominant/​host group and the ‘even stranger’ immigrant stranger through collapsing the dichotomy of ‘us vs. them.’

Conclusions Can reading and writing about the ramifications of the ongoing policing of undocumented immigrants (as well as those who, by law, have every right to enjoy the protections their citizenship bestows) actually effect broader social change? Utilizing techniques related to bounded,

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  39 ambassadorial, and broadcast strategic empathy, Latinx narratives like All the Stars Denied provide validation and information for readers who identify with the text, but—​more pertinent to the idea of cultural mediation by an ‘in-​between’ author—​they also shed light on the erasure and/​ or distortion of chapters of US history that illustrate the ongoing perception of the threat of foreignness and illegality as the basis for unjust and unethical practices. Leveraging her positionality, García McCall effectively develops empathic connections between readers and characters, providing a better sense of their (fictionalized) experiences, and reframing characters’ actions and attributes as situational rather than essential. As readers, we empathize with their plight and, rejecting their autonomy and immutability, instead recognize their situatedness and malleability. Furthermore, through appealing to a cosmopolitan sense of universality, she facilitates a shift from a mental schema of atomism to one of solidarity, bridging the gap between ‘us vs. them.’ Clearly, reading these texts will not be enough to change the hearts or minds of a hostile audience. However, if readers are relatively open to new information, concepts, or versions of history, strategies of narrative empathy may endow these texts with a capacity for initiating or enhancing important conversations, and potentially inspiring pro-​social, extratextual action to change pernicious policies and practices related to immigration, displacement, and family separation.

Note 1 What Bauman labels as “true hybrids” or the “third element” parallels Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2003) notion of nepantleras, “the supreme border crossers. They act as intermediaries between cultures and their various versions of reality … [and] serve as agents of awakening, inspire and challenge others to deeper awareness, greater conocimiento” (19).

References Ahmed, Sara. 2021. “Traveling with Strangers.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 42 (1): 8–​23. DOI: 10.1080/​07256868.2020.1859204 Anzaldúa, Gloria E. 2002a. “Now let us shift … the path of conocimiento … inner work, public acts.” In This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, 540–​ 579. New York and London: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2002b. “(Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces.” In This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, edited by Gloria E. Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, 1–​5. New York and London: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2003. “Speaking across the Divide: Email Interview.” SAILS: Studies in American Indian Literatures 15 (3–​ 4): 7–​ 22. www.jstor.org/​sta​ble/​ 20737​212 Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2006. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York and London: W.W. Norton.

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40  Vanessa de Veritch Woodside Balderrama, Francisco E., and Raymond Rodríguez. 2006. Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Bracher, Mark. 2013. Literature and Social Justice: Protest Novels, Cognitive Politics, and Schema Criticism. Austin: University of Texas Press. Chavez, Leo R. 2008. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Delanty, Gerard. 2006. “The Cosmopolitan Imagination: Critical Cosmopolitanism and Social Theory.” The British Journal of Sociology 57 (1): 25–​47. DOI: 10.1111/​j.1468-​4446.2006.00092.x García McCall, Guadalupe. 2016. Shame the Stars. New York: Tu Books. —​—​—​. 2018. All the Stars Denied. New York: Lee & Low. Huang, Keilin. 2018. “An Interview with Award-​Winning YA Author Guadalupe García McCall.” Lee & Low Books The Open Book Blog, November 15, 2018. https://​blog.leeand​low.com/​2018/​11/​15/​an-​interv​iew-​with-​award-​winn​ ing-​ya-​aut​hor-​guadal​upe-​gar​cia-​mcc​all Keen, Suzanne. 2007. Empathy and the Novel. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2008. “Strategic Empathizing: Techniques of Bounded, Ambassadorial, and Broadcast Narrative Empathy.” Deutsche Vierteljahr Schrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 82 (3): 477–​493. doi: 10.1007/​ BF03374712 —​ —​ —​ . 2011. “Empathetic Hardy: Bounded, Ambassadorial, and Broadcast Strategies of Narrative Empathy.” Poetics Today 32: 349–​389. —​—​—​. 2013. “Narrative Empathy.” In The Living Handbook of Narratology, edited by Peter Hühn et al. Hamburg University. Last modified September 2013. www.lhn.uni-​hamb​urg.de/​print​pdf/​arti​cle/​narrat​ive-​empa​thy —​—​—​. 2015. Narrative Form. Revised and Expanded Second Edition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. —​—​—​. 2016. “Life Writing and the Empathetic Circle.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 42: 9–​26. LaCapra, Dominick. 2001. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Little, Becky. 2019. “The U.S. Deported a Million of Its Own Citizens to Mexico During the Great Depression.” History. July 12, 2019. www.hist​ory.com/​ news/​great-​dep​ress​ion-​repat​riat​ion-​dri​ves-​mex​ico-​depo​rtat​ion Lytle Hernández, Kelly. 2010. Migra!: A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley: University of California Press. Marotta, Vincent. 2010. “The Cosmopolitan Stranger.” In Questioning Cosmopolitanism, edited by Stan van Hooft and Wim Vandekerckhove, 105–​ 120. London: Springer. Molina, Natalia. 2014. How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts. Berkeley: University of California Press. National Archives. 1848. “Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo [Exchange Copy].” National Archives Catalog. Accessed July 9, 2022. catalog.archives.gov/​id/​ 299809. Ngai, Mae M. 2014. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ong Hing, Bill. 2004. Defining America through Immigration Policy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Transforming Empathy into Extratextual Action  41 Rumbaut, Rubén G. 2003. “The Americas: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples in the United States.” In Perspectives on Las Américas: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, edited by Matthew C. Guttmann et al., 90–​113. Hoboken: Blackwell. Sampaio, Anna. 2015. Terrorizing Latina/​ o Immigrants: Race, Gender, and Immigration Politics in the Age of Security. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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2 Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo

If building and reinforcing the wall separating the United States from Mexico was one of the signature policies of the Trump presidency, the spreading of anti-​immigrant rhetoric in social media and extreme right fora illustrate the more elusive presence of a rhetorical and ideological border that accompanies the Southern border. Within this political climate, this chapter explores how Cásares’ novel illustrates different modalities of hospitality as the protagonist, Nina, administers a changing hospitable response in her encounter with the Other. In Cásares’ novel, the Other is a boy, Daniel, who is trying to reunite with his father. To the common equation of hospitality as the changing interaction between host and guest, the writer adds the presence of another boy, Orly, Nina’s grandson and Daniel’s double. This triangulation allows the writer to resituate the implications of illegal migration from a boy’s point of view. This process of defamiliarization lays down the ethical background of the story since Daniel and Orly are more prone to look at the ethics of hospitality rather than the politics of it.

Introduction In a recent interview, Cecilia Muñoz, a member of the Biden transition team who previously served in the Obama Administration, presented in very simple terms a hypothetical situation that fleshes out the dilemmas at the United States Southern border: “I would hope that if you or I had a twelve-​year-​old knocking on our doors in need of help that we would not simply slam the door in their faces” (Chotiner 2021). It is Muñoz’s way of humanizing the encounter with the vulnerable Other, of repositioning a situation frequently described as a crisis unfolding at the country’s edge, and of transforming it into an interpersonal encounter.1 That exercise at scaling down a national conflict at the country’s doors is at the heart of Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From (2019). Cásares has talked about his novel as a story about family, and about how we care for one another. Stressing the importance of family connections is Cásares’ attempt at stripping away and going beyond the politics of migration (García 2019; DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-3

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  43 Schaub 2019), and exposing what the writer calls “the most basic level of humanity,” as he expresses in a conversation with Michael Schaub: Here’s this child crying, do you turn your back, or do you actually care enough to do what you would normally do? I think most people would pick up the child, and I think most people have the capacity to feel this tragedy that’s enfolding. (Schaub 2019) However, the attempt stands out as quite a political proposition given the family separation policy that peaked in the summer of 2019, the anti-​ immigrant rhetoric permeating political speeches and rallies, as well as the mesh of theories (such as invasion and replacement) that still circulate in social media and extreme right fora. What these narratives have in common is the redrawing of different versions of a rhetorical and ideological boundary that accompanies, runs parallel to, cuts across, and bifurcates ad infinitum the physical wall on the Southern border. Within this political climate and its accompanying intersecting demarcations, this chapter explores how Cásares’ novel illustrates different modalities of hospitality as the protagonist, Nina, administers a changing hospitable response in her encounter with the Other. Nina faces the same situation Cecilia Muñoz describes above when one night she finds an unaccompanied minor, Daniel, knocking on her door. As if fulfilling Muñoz’s expectations, she does not slam the door in his face but lets him in. This is the beginning of a hospitable response where “someone, or ones, categorized as ‘outside,’ as not necessarily by right or legal contract, part of the ‘inside,’ is temporarily brought within” (Still 2010, 11). The question is what happens once ‘the guest’ is inside and how the host is changed in the process. Daniel, who is trying to reunite with his father, is the perfect counterpart to Orly, Nina’s godson, who is spending the summer with her in Brownsville. Both are guests at Nina’s house; both are separated from their (immediate) families although in entirely different ways. This creation of symmetries and doubles permeates the novel. The fact that Where We Come From presents two boys as guests in the same household resituates the implications of illegal migration from a boy’s point of view. This process of defamiliarization lays down the ethical background of the story. Both Daniel and Orly are more prone to look at the ethics of hospitality rather than the politics of it (cf. Schérer 2005); more likely to intuit the Law of hospitality, unconditional and unlimited, rather than the laws of hospitality, always conditional and limited. This is the split the novel fleshes out, an antinomy between The law of unlimited hospitality (to give the new arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compensation, or the fulfillment of even the smallest condition)

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44  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo and the laws, “those rights and duties that are always conditioned and conditional” (Derrida 2000a, 77). In fact, pinning down the illegality of Daniel’s acts according to ‘the laws’ becomes hard for Orly, who wants to know what it is like to be illegal “not because you’re doing something you’re not supposed to, but only because you want to be with your family and because they want to keep you safe” (Cásares 2019, 241). The novel unfolds and lays bare the ethical terrain, as opposed to the political one, which is embodied by Beto, Nina’s brother. While Nina brings the Other within, Beto border patrols and creates sides and demarcations. Cásares uses the modus operandi of the border and the drawing of sides and separations to go against the endless reproduction of boundaries so that readers can glimpse at the spaces in between, the commonalities, the shared worries and concerns. In what follows, this chapter maps out these intersections and assesses how, in pitting hospitality versus the workings of the border, the writer scrutinizes categories and roles, inside versus outside, here versus there, this side versus that side, legal versus illegal, the visible versus the invisible and the spectral, and hosts versus guests.

Border Traceability: Spatial and Conceptual Doublings The first doubling that appears in the novel is spatial: the big blue house at the front and the small pink house at the back. The contrast introduces the story’s distribution of spaces, what, in Jacques Rancière’s terms, we can call “le partage de le sensible”: “C’est un découpage des temps et des espaces, du visible et de l’invisible, de la parole et du bruit qui définit à la fois le lieu et l’enjeu de la politique comme forme d’expérience” (2000, 13–​14). This delimitation of spaces lays out the visual and ideological order in the novel: big house/​small house; the visible (Orly)/​the changing invisible guests throughout the novel; the legal/​illegal; English/​Spanish. The spatial order is a trace of the major wall between Brownsville and Matamoros, which is supposed to separate different contingents, even if, as the omniscient narrator acknowledges, the separation is not going to deter the needy (Cásares 2019, 9). The people who cross the bridge back and forth every day, like Rumalda, Nina’s housekeeper, do not really pay much attention to the physical separation itself: What do they care about the eighteen-​foot-​high wall and its rust-​ colored steel bars rising up from the levee and extending out from the bridge? It’ll be there when they come back tomorrow and if not it, then another one, higher and uglier. (2019, 146) For these crossers, the wall is an instance of “spectacularized power” (Brown 2010, 39) that requires performativity. Despite its verticality and its physical dimensions, the wall functions “theatrically, projecting

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  45 power and efficaciousness that [it does] not and cannot actually exercise” (2010, 25). Although the wall is an outer, if inefficient physical separation, it does work as a structure that is essential to cognitive processes. This is because borders and demarcations “allow both the establishment of taxonomies and conceptual hierarchies that structure the movement of thought” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013, 16). As powerful epistemic devices (2013, 16), borders determine our vision of the Other, the migrant, the foreigner, the different. Borders create order, separate, label, and transform people into categories that depersonalize individuals into uniform and homogeneous groups, thereby exemplifying their power to rearrange and create meaning. It does not seem a coincidence that order is part of the word border. With the tracing of the border, nation-​states create more than a visual reordering. The result of order building is clear. Order casts some parts of the extant population as “out of place,” “unfit,” or “undesirable” (Bauman 2004, 5). Bauman states that the order implicit in nation making “has claimed the right to preside over the distinction between order and chaos, law and lawlessness, citizen and homo sacer, belonging and exclusion, useful (=​legitimate) product and waste” (2004, 33). Hence Mary Pat Brady’s vision that the border “functions as more than a site, a metaphor, a location, an image, or a fantasy,” instead working “as a complex system with multiple and diverse nodes of production and reproduction” (2002, 50–​51). For Brady, the border mechanism resembles an abjection machine that carries out its own border “alchemy” (2002, 50) as it transforms people into “ ‘aliens,’ ‘illegals,’ ‘wetbacks,’ or ‘undocumented,’ thereby rendering them unintelligible (and unintelligent), ontologically impossible, outside the real and the human” (2002, 50). The ability of the wall to create such categories is clear in the way Nina’s family, her mother, Mama Merche, and Nina herself have traditionally used the word “mojado” to pejoratively refer to Jorge, Nina’s boyfriend when she was young (Cásares 2019, 19, 24); to talk about Rumalda, the woman who walks from Matamoros every Friday to do house cleaning, and, in Nina’s case, to talk about Daniel, who she refers to as her “mojadito.” The word ‘mojado’ works as an ideological and discursive boundary between those established on the American side, those who are static, versus those coming from the other side and deemed to be in movement. Thomas Nail explains that “membership in a society is assumed as primary; secondary is the movement back and forth between social points” (2015, 3). By categorizing Jorge, Rumalda, and Daniel as “mojados,” Nina’s family establishes their own particular location as central, “a static place and membership” that is “theorized first, [while] the migrant is the one who lacks both” (2015, 3), a sense of place and belonging. The rhetorical border is efficacious in creating meaning and allowing Nina’s family and herself to automatically separate themselves from a homogeneous contingent2; they define themselves as

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46  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo the representatives of central values as opposed to those at the dubious margins. Hence the efficaciousness of the wall. It exerts its power as a commanding metaphor not only as it interprets the outside, but also as it reconfigures and restructures the inside according to its own border logic. The restructuring is ideological, and it separates those on this side from those on the other; a yes or a no; a citizen versus a non-​citizen; a here versus there.

Guests, Shadows, and a Reluctant Host These two worlds, one static, one in motion, connect through Rumalda, Nina’s housekeeper and double on the Mexican side. Rumalda is part of the workforce that Americans need but do not want to see. She will pose the first moral interpellation of the novel, a favor for her daughter and her granddaughter. The young woman just wants to reunite with her husband, who is working in Fort Worth. The plan is simple and perfect: Rumalda’s daughter and granddaughter would pretend to be going over the bridge for shopping then wait in a safe house before being taken to Fort Worth. The advantages are clear in that paying a coyote on the American side would be safer. The other problem, passing through interior checkpoints, is also resolved. Simple enough. La señora would not have to do anything, other than allowing mother and daughter to stay in the pink house until the ride came (Cásares 2019, 18). It was going to be just one night, two at most. The omniscient narrator frames the proposal in terms of guests being permitted a temporary stay. The conceptualization of mother and daughter as house guests is significant, for it automatically transforms Nina into a reluctant and passive host who mediates the relation between inside and outside, as Judith Still would put it. Through her act of reluctant hospitality, Nina rewrites the discourse of the border, as the line that intermittently communicates and separates is temporarily deactivated. Very accurately, Nina feels that the request or favor redraws the boundary and casually moves the border to her house, and, more specifically, to “her kitchen table” (2019, 18). This bringing-​in does not come without conditions and restrictions, for Nina is not to meet or come into contact with the ‘guests.’ She simply administers a limited hospitality, as Derrida describes it, where she establishes the conditions and duration and maintains control over the limits of her territory “to retain power and maintain control over the limits of my ‘home,’ my sovereignty, my ‘I can’ ” (qtd. in Still 2010, 207). Nina thus opens her household and leaves the door ajar not to the unknown, but to two specific individuals. The possible consequences of this act of ‘passive’ hospitality are clear in Nina’s mind. If caught, the young woman and her little daughter would be deported back to Matamoros, but Nina would be locked up. Apart from the legal consequences, allowing someone else into the space of the self is risky, both for the host, who may end up coerced by this Other, and

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  47 for the Other, as the novel reveals in the case of Daniel. Despite the possible outcomes and the fuzziness of the act, whether mother and daughter are hosted or hidden, Nina allows them to stay in the small house quietly until they are picked up by a young woman. Before the trio departs, the woman presses a folded 50-​dollar bill into Nina’s palm for her “help” (34). The bill is crucial, for the favor thus becomes a transaction. The transformation is clear the next time the same woman calls Nina and asks for another “favor” (36). But it was not really a favor since she warns Nina there could be consequences if she refuses. In fact, Nina looks up the word ‘favor’ to make sure of its meaning (37). A favor is assistance, kindness, which fitted the first time, but it has nothing to do with coercion. Although Nina tries to talk her way out of it, her acceptance of the 50-​dollar bill sealed her fate as a reluctant cooperator in a smuggling operation. What started as a one-​time act of conditional hospitality evolves into an unwanted deal that is taken out of her hands, with larger groups and longer stays. El Kobe, who replaces the woman after her arrest, calls the migrants los pollos, the term pointing at the gradual process of dehumanization the migrants undergo. The group is later referred to as a load, and as a shipment of vegetables or lumber. There is no contact between Nina and the house ‘guests’ who receive her ‘assistance’ or ‘kindness’ after that first time, and she barely sees their faces. There are no names or individualities in the description of the different groups, just the insistent repetition of the word “shadow”: “Shadows passing into shadows. Shadows with no outlines … shadows that moved about but in truth she didn’t want to see or be seen by” (37). The identification of the migrants with shadows points to the spectrality traditionally associated with the guest. In fact, guest and ghost share a common stage in their etymologies. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, guest presents the Old English gæst, giest forms. Ghost derives from the Old English gást (also gǽst).3 There is, indeed, something ghostly about the guest. The guest is frequently the stranger that comes from outside. His or her exteriority is a constant source of fear and disquietude. In his Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Derrida claims that the absence of identity, the empirical invisibility of the Other account for its “spectral aura” (1999, 111).4 More recently, critics such as Jon Stratton and Nikos Papastergiadis have noted that at a time of unprecedented migrations and population flows, the migrant and the refugee are gradually moving toward the realm of the spectral, a new register for assessing contemporary forms of dehumanization (Papastergiadis 2013, 147, 148) and for coding “inferior subjects as unworthy of life” (Lauro and Embry 2008, 87). In a similar vein, Butler and Spivak use the term “spectral humans” to refer to those who, living in a “domain of disenfranchisement,” are deprived of “ontological weight” (2007, 15). Spectralization, in this context, refers to the situation of those contingents who, in Jon Stratton’s words, are “excluded from the rights and privileges of the modern state”; those who being displaced “are positioned legally as bare life” (2011,

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48  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo 267). There is, furthermore, a dread evoked by the migrant who is akin to the experience of confronting a zombie, the feeling of looking into the eyes of an alien being (Papastergiadis 2013, 148). From this perspective, migrants can be envisioned as the rootless “nightmare citizens” who embody parasitical behaviors and threaten “to siphon off the remaining, rapidly diminishing prosperity of the indigenous population” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999, 21). Where We Come From, however, writes against spectrality and parasitism as the novel creates a hospitable space for these alleged shadows. Interspersed with the main narrative, Cásares identifies and gives names to this apparently homogeneous mass so that each individual, one by one, is remembered. These short narratives appear in italicized passages and create another doubling in the writing, which situates the visible side by side the invisible, the voiced versus the silenced. Most of these stories chronicle desperate attempts to reunite with family members in the United States. They appear in the novel when a character is mentioned or when the omniscient narrator notices an apparently nondescript object like an empty water bottle in Otilia Hernández’s story. The checkpoint that Orly sees on his way to Brownsville, a border away from the physical wall, turns out to be an impossible obstacle for migrants such as Otilia, who dies of heatstroke. Cásares counters the haphazard trek of the migrants in opposition to Orly’s easy trip to Matamoros, walking up to a traffic light signal and pressing the crossing button, together with a group of American tourists. But the border does not stay put in the novel and may indeed come to individual characters, such as Mr. Domínguez, Orly’s history teacher, when ICE knocks on his door to inquire about the whereabouts of his former boyfriend. Interspersed with poignant stories of the crossing, the writer includes other stories such as that of Felipe from El Salvador, making his way up from dish washer to room service, and how his kids teach him English starting with the breakfast menu. In telling the stories of each character as gardener, hotel worker, restaurant worker, teacher, or cop, Cásares describes a devoted workforce that contrasts with the image of the migrant as a parasite profiting from the hospitality of the United States, the alleged parasitized host. All these stories create a communal WE that finds a space in the hospitable texture of the novel.

Shadows and Fuzzy Hosts But the character that specifically emerges out of the shadows in the novel is Daniel. He is part of one of the contingents hosted at the pink house. After the coyotes, along with the group, are arrested, the boy manages to escape, find his way back to Nina’s house, and knock on her door: “Suddenly, he appeared before her, first as a shadow and then as a boy” (63). The wording of the encounter illustrates the instant transformation of a spectral presence into flesh. Nina’s reaction when confronted with the face of the Other, at least initially, is truly hospitable. There are

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  49 no questions asked, and Nina administers what looks like a version of unconditional hospitality as described by Derrida: Absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner (provided with a family name, with the social status of being a foreigner, etc.), but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering into a pact), or even their names. (2000a, 25) After this welcoming, however, she takes him around the yard to the pink house, “where he could turn into a shadow again” (64), so that his presence is not detected by her elderly mother and her controlling brother, Beto. In fact, the novel builds its narrative tension by putting side by side an act of hospitality, Nina’s hosting of Daniel, and Beto’s relentless border patrolling within the household. Nina’s act of giving space reaffirms the spatial distribution of the household and redraws the initial demarcations between the visible/​invisible, here/​there, legal/​illegal. Granting hospitality to the Other, Mustafa Dikeç explains, is “not always liberating and emancipatory, but, on the contrary, may conceal an oppressive aspect beneath its welcoming surface” (2002, 228). Nina, as Daniel later tells Orly, welcomes the boy saying “Aquí tienes tu casa” (Cásares 2019, 179), a variation of mi casa es su casa, an example of absolute and unconditional hospitality. Yet Daniel’s understanding of it, as he later relates it to Orly, is quite different. He never calls the pink house a home, but at various points in the novel he talks about it as a hotel (180), a place of commercial hospitality, temporary and without the emotional attachments of a home, and after being locked in the pink house for weeks, he talks about the house as a cage: “Vivo en una jaula rosada” (211). The sentence encapsulates the slippery quality of alleged fixed categories, and how guests may become hostages as hosts exert their mastery over them. We can go back to Emile Benveniste’s clarification of the etymology of hospitality to assess the contradictory shifts at the heart of the concept itself. The Latin hospes is made up of the elements hosti-​pet-​s, where two different roots converge—​hostis, meaning ‘guest’ or ‘host,’ and pet/​pot, meaning ‘master.’ The literal meaning of hospes is ‘the guest-​master’ (1973, 72). For Derrida, pet, or master, unites the semantics of power, mastery, and despotic sovereignty (Derrida 2000b, 13–​14). Hostis, the other primary root of the compound hosti-​pet-​s, signifies reciprocity and compensation and applies to both host and guest alike, hence the French hôte. These two contradictory notions vie at the heart of hospitality: one defined by reciprocity and exchange, the other by despotic power and mastery. The former “can result in a feeling of recognition and respect between host

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50  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo and guest, a reciprocal relationship of power and mutual confirmation of one another’s mastery that is guaranteed by relations of debt and obligation” (McNulty 2007, xi). The latter can turn into a source of anxiety, rivalry, or hostility, in which the host’s power over the guest is conceived in a threatening manner, or in which the guest threatens to overtake the host’s place as master by usurping his home, personal property, or social position. (2007, xi) As time goes by, and as Daniel is stuck in the pink house, it becomes clear that Nina’s power chez soi is absolute. Her act of hospitality gradually transforms into a modality of violence that intends to incorporate, appropriate, and control the Other, that is, into a “possible perversion of the law of hospitality” itself (Derrida 2001, 17). Benveniste’s and Derrida’s etymological explorations clarify other aspects in the novel as well. If the narrative starts with the host as a static concept defining the guest as exterior and nomadic, as the outside versus the inside, there versus here, these conceptualizations become blurred as the novel unfolds, and the alleged hosts resemble the role of the presumed guests.5 The reconsideration of these categories reverberates throughout the novel but comes into focus when Orly, disgruntled at Nina, crosses the bridge into Matamoros, is intercepted on his way back, and Nina has to go and pick him up. His father faxes Orly’s birth certificate to the Customs and Border Protection office so the boy can be allowed back into the United States of America. What is significant is that the need for proof of identification extends to Nina. She has already showed her driver’s license, but the officer tells her he needs her “passport or passport card” (Cásares 2019, 155). Nina’s answer, “for what, if this is my country” (155), directly points at the way Latinos are viewed not only by immigration officials, but also by wide sectors of the population. They are seen as foreign, as if they are entering the country rather than being residents. It is the politics of suspicion at work. The incident adds to the traceability of the racial and cultural divide that transpires throughout the novel, manifesting itself in small details. Examples abound: Carson, Orly’s friend, thinks that Nina is the maid when she picks up the phone and he leaves a message for Orly (69). An easy enough mistake since speaking Spanish is associated with the domestic help. If Orly’s father speaks on the phone in Spanish, Carson assumes that the other person is in Mexico or in any other Spanish-​speaking country. Spanish does not have a place in the United States and is instinctively and automatically relocated south of the border. Carson also assumes that everyone with a Spanish-​sounding last name speaks Spanish (14). When Orly’s elder brother, Alex, is mowing the grass, a woman pulls over to ask how much he charges. All these instances stitch together a subtle narrative that allows us to review who is inside and who is outside, who is a host

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  51 and who is a guest. Nina may think of herself as a host but, judging from the way she is treated by the customs official, it looks as if she is more of a guest than she thinks. The border incident, along with all these small details, revises the notion of the inside versus the outside, as well as the question of who is a host and who is a guest, and reminds readers that these terms are fuzzier than we might have thought. As Derrida and Cixous explain, “One can be inside without being inside, there is an inside in the inside, an outside in the inside and this goes on infinitely” (2006, 5). This outside within the inside brings the border within in what we can call the casualization and flexibilization of the ideological wall. Cásares thus casts a critical look at the landscape of inclusion to exemplify different “degrees of internality and externality, which substitute and blur the clear-​cut distinction between inside and outside that was produced by the traditional border of the nation-​state” (Mezzadra and Neilson 2012, 68). Similarly, Beto, Nina’s brother, will have his personal moment of reckoning given his self-​ assigned role as gatekeeper as well as pest-​ controller at the property. Beto, who used to be Nina’s chaperone when she was a young woman, manages to convince her to take early retirement so she can take care of their mother. At the intersection of patriarchy and anti-​immigrant sentiment, he assigns roles and makes sure Nina sticks to her accepted social role as caregiver in a pre-​established and gendered politics of care. He is, in a way, the definer-​in-​chief and the guardian of tradition. His gatekeeping role expands when he becomes suspicious that Nina is hiding something in the pink house. One night, he sees people getting into the back of a truck, leading him to believe that Nina has opened “a hotel for mojados in her backyard” (62). The ensuing conversation between brother and sister lays out two different positions: while Beto argues that hosting mojados is illegal, Nina counterargues that she is simply trying to help. The two positions bring to the fore the discrepancy between what Derrida calls the laws of hospitality and the Law of hospitality. The Law of universal, unlimited, and unconditional hospitality clashes with the laws of conditional and limited hospitality designed to maintain the stable social order within the community. Under the laws of hospitality, the Law is illegal, “outside the law, like a lawless law” (Derrida 2000b, 79). Whereas the Law of hospitality is premised on blurring the lines between self and Other, the laws serve to mark the limits of how the stranger can be received. Those ‘laws,’ however, can be transgressed if employing undocumented workers saves Beto money. Aiding them, however, is illegal (61). Beto’s gatekeeping practices continue when Orly is at the big house during the summer. For him, the boy’s presence offers a chance to warn him against the cucarachas that are always trying to hide (121). Blending gatekeeping and pest-​control, the scene illustrates the view of migrants as an infestation that needs to be closely watched, one of the most common images spread by the right-​wing media.6 As self-​appointed exterminator,

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52  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo Beto needs to redraw boundaries in his mother’s household, restore law and order, and rid the home of shadowy parasitical presences. But Cásares includes another revealing scene between uncle and nephew. Whereas the first dialogue transpires before Orly has met Daniel, the second unfolds with an Orly who has become more aware of what it means to be considered ‘illegal’ in the United States. Beto talks about how much the neighborhood has changed, with families moving away, and new people coming and going. After which he pointblank asks Orly if he has seen any illegal people. Orly answers with a logical question: “What do they look like?” The answer, “like people” (175), points, again, at the shared humanity beyond the question of legal status. When Beto clarifies that the men, women, and children he is referring to are difficult to see because they are always hiding, his words only trigger Orly’s next question: “If they’re hiding, how do you see them?” (175). Beto’s answer reinstates the allegory that the previous scene articulated: “Because they don’t want to hide forever, not like las cucarachas. These ones want to go somewhere else” (175). When Beto is ready to leave, he gives Orly his business card so he can call him if he sees anybody who looks suspicious, thus trying to make the boy into a vigilante. But before he finally drives away, Beto continues his inspection, checking under the pink house and examining the aluminum covering inside the windows, “but all he finds is his shimmery reflection staring back at him in the foil” (176). This is a key moment in the novel that resituates the question of who is a host and who is a guest, who is legal and who is illegal, who is inside and who is outside. Significantly, in Spanish, the word huésped refers to both the host and the guest, like the word hôte in French. The fact that the same term encompasses seemingly distinct categories points at the impossibility of separating them: The hôte who receives (the host), the one who welcomes the invited or received hôte (the guest), the welcoming hôte who considers himself the owner of the place, is in truth a hôte received in his own home. He receives the hospitality that he offers in his own home; he receives it from his own home—​which, in the end, does not belong to him. The hôte as host is a guest. (Derrida 1999, 41) When Beto tries to identify the illegal guest at the pink house, he sees himself as if in a holographic image (Cásares 2019, 176). The border patroller and pest-​controller is also a crosser, a guest who has already been welcomed and given space. Like Nina in front of the border officials, Beto finds himself in the position of the guest-​Other just when he thinks he is on the verge of discovering those who do not belong. These conceptual splits redraw the initial spatial and ideological arrangement in the novel. It is not simply pink house versus blue house, the guest versus the host, the invisible versus the invisible. Categories merge as the novel

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  53 unfolds, thus creating a different geometry, a different separation of the visible, as Rancière would put it.

From ‘Mojadito Out Back’ to ‘Mijito’ Hospitality, Still writes, is more than a legal contract or verbal agreement, for it is “overlaid with crucial affective elements” (2010, 12), and the guest and the host may be utterly changed by the experience. Daniel’s presence in the pink house brings “a certain disquietude, as a derangement” (Waldenfels 2002, 63) which pushes Nina and Orly off their common tracks. It is once again the different, the xenos, that reveals the infinite crossings between categories and challenges the preestablished order, in accordance with Derrida: “The Foreigner shakes up the threatening dogmatism of the paternal logos: the being that is, and the non-​being that is not” (2000a, 5). Through Daniel, Cásares scrutinizes presumably static roles, such as legal versus illegal, the visible versus the invisible and the spectral, and hosts versus guests. The spatial distribution that was clear cut at the beginning of the novel collapses as both Nina and Orly manifest the impossibility of escaping their responsibility toward Daniel. When Nina asks Orly why he worries so much about whether Daniel is alone in the pink house, the question itself implies that one can only feel responsibility toward somebody if he or she is someone related to or part of the self, that is, if the interpellation is mediated by similarity or sameness (Cásares 2019, 188). Daniel’s surprising answer is that Daniel is “Nothing” to him. Apart from its Shakespearean overtones, the answer is a “nothing” that is everything at the same time. “Nothing” explains where this sense of relationality and responsibility comes from, something primeval that points toward a shared community that is independent of where you come from, this side or that side. For Emmanuel Levinas, there is an “impossibility of escaping responsibility, from taking charge of the other” (2009, 14). This act of responsibility stands before any other aspiration or concern. For the philosopher, “Responsibility for the other … is prior to freedom” (2009, 116). Although “Nothing” departs from any semblance of similarity or sameness as a prerequisite to reestablishing the connections with the Other,7 the novel brings to the fore the structural or inherent sameness at the heart of apparent differences. When Orly sees Daniel for the first time in the kitchen, he sees a boy doing what he himself does every morning, looking out the same window toward the pink house (131). The boy, Orly thinks at first, might be one of his cousins (131). What Orly sees is similarity in the unknown. It is the same similarity that dawns on Beto when he searches for the face of the ‘illegal’ occupier of the pink house and finds his own reflection. It is also the continuity that he finds when he finally inspects the pink house and sees the traces of Daniel’s stay, his worn-​out sneakers, his shirts and shorts neatly folded. Beto does not see the face of the Other, nor does he feel that direct interpellation, but

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54  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo he does see traces of the Other and how this invisible life redirects itself toward his own sons: And once he lets himself imagine Rudy and Roberto Jr wearing the tennis shoes it isn’t so difficult for him to imagine how crazed with worry he would be if his little boys were hiding in some place like this. (225) Just as Daniel’s presence or absence in the pink house makes Beto confront his role as host and as father, Orly questions Nina’s role as host toward a guest she refuses to see in all his complexity. As the uncontaminated voice of ethics that lays bare the contradictions at the heart of politics, Orly also addresses the pitfalls in hospitality itself. Instead of considering the relation between the host and the guest as monolithic and fixed, Orly intuits a more complex vision of hospitality, one that “implies a questioning of the authority of the host, of the ways by and through which this authority is constructed, and of the limits of this authority” (Dikeç 2002, 239). Immobilized in the pink house for close to five weeks and eating by himself, as Orly notes, there is a sense that Daniel is not a guest but is transforming into a hostage, as if the initial act of hospitality has become inhospitable to itself since it requires the total subjection of the guest (cf. Dikeç 2002, 239). This transformation harkens back to the ineradicable element of power at the heart of the host/​guest dynamic. As a host, Nina is always chez soi, administering the terms of the guest’s stay within her household. This sense of choking hospitality that overpowers and debilitates the guest reverberates in other ways too. Although Nina has promised to help Daniel find his father and is apparently making phone calls every night, she mentions the possibility that Daniel might stay. She later admits to Orly that she was afraid of who might be out there to welcome Daniel, and so was only pretending to call the numbers he gave her. She just wants Daniel in the house with her. Nina, childless, sees in Daniel the son she never had. Hers seems to be a case of compensatory hospitality that restores wholeness to the host and involves the total subjection and the unconditional incorporation of the guest into a family unit. The revelation that she was not really trying to locate Daniel’s father allows readers to reread and reinterpret Nina’s acts of hospitality and the way she sees and conceptualizes Daniel as “the mojadito out back, one who showed up like the stray cats she feeds” (240). Although modified by the endearing suffix -​ito, the use of the word “mojadito” reveals the prevalence of the rhetorical and ideological border, as well as the taxonomies attached to the term. Not until she once more encounters Daniel after he has fled the house when Beto shows up unexpectedly does she see him for who he is and is able to engage with his needs. She calls him “mijito” and hugs him for the first time (233). It is perhaps the first intuition of what unconditional and unlimited hospitality really means. It is a hospitality that Dikeç terms “Hospitality as engagement,” one mediated

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  55 by the interplay between categories: “not simply a duality of the guest and the host; the guest is as hospitable as the host in that he/​she is in engagement with the host while the host recognizes the specificities of the guest” (2002, 236). This seeing of the specificities of the guest means much more than just giving Daniel a place to hide and food to eat; it is more than risking her own freedom and her mother’s well-​being, and it is definitely more than seeing him as “her mojadito out back” (240).

Hospitality as Engagement This hospitality as engagement is a way of welcoming the Other that accepts him or her in all his or her complexity. It is not a way of folding the Other into the inside, into a form of sameness, and is not limited to giving space to the Other. In the last pages of the novel, this acceptance of the needs of the Other involves her letting Daniel go once Nina locates his father and arrangements are made for the boy to be picked up by a woman. Paradoxically, as Nina stays put, she carries out her most significant border-​crossing. Although Where We Come From depicts Nina going into Matamoros at different points of her life, none of these former crossings prepare her for her ultimate border-​crossing as she gets ready for Daniel’s departure. She does not need to walk the bridge this time, she just needs to put herself in the place of the Other, in the role of a symmetrical mother who has to part with her child: “Never in a thousand years could she imagine doing anything like this, sending this young boy off to all the dangers awaiting him in this merciless world” (247). There is no mojado side, no dry side, no static versus nomadic, no sense of belonging as opposed to non-​belonging, no hosts versus guests. Nina travels that psychological terrain as she puts herself in the place of the unknown Other. In exploring the encounter with the Other, Cásares carries out powerful crossings as he creates a conceptual geometry that shifts traditional categories. Cásares brings to the fore the fact that “we are hosts and guests at the same time in multiple and shifting ways” (Dikeç 2002, 239). Hospitality in the novel departs from fixed and monolithic identities and always remains in progress. Daniel, as someone categorized as ‘outside,’ to recall Judith Still’s words at the beginning of this chapter, is “temporarily brought within” (2010, 11), but the novel shows the opposite movement too, as Nina and Beto, initially categorized as ‘inside,’ are moved without. This ‘moving without’ involves their awareness of their role as guests versus hosts living in an inside that is already an outside. These are the conceptual intersections that Cásares maps out. It is an ideological space that does not limit nor divide. It has nothing to do with legality or illegality and has everything to do with what makes us alike, rather than what makes us different. This sense of continuity permeates the end of the novel. When Orly visits Mama Merche after Daniel departs, she falls asleep and the boy looks at her hands closely, at the veins that cover the back of her hand, how they make their way to the knuckles

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56  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo and fingers. He imagines how those veins went into his family, Nina, Beto, his father, they all came from these hands (250). Far from claiming the specificity of these family connections and the roots of where they came from, Orly reroutes that sense of place to emphasize how it evolves and changes. For him, “where they came from” is just that, a point of departure, not “where his story ends” (250).

Notes 1 In Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How It Ends. An Essay in Forty Questions (2017), the writer presents her experience as a translator for unaccompanied minors. She later creates a fictionalized version of the experience in the novel Lost Children Archive (2019). 2 This is how Nina’s mother uses the word mojados: Her mother who she had to remind practically every Friday to stop talking about los mojados when she knew the word was offensive and more so because to her they were all mojados, rich or poor, legal or illegal, whether they floated across the river in an inner cube or drove over the bridge to bring their kids to the private school. (Cásares 2019, 18–​19) 3 The on-​line Oxford English Dictionary registers different forms for guest in Old English such as giest, gist, gyst, gæst, and gest, among other variants. 4 In his Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Derrida also states: It is thus necessary, beyond all perception, to receive the other while running the risk, a risk that is always troubling, strangely troubling, like the stranger (unheimlich), of a hospitality offered to the guest as ghost or Geist or Gast. There would be no hospitality without the chance of spectrality. (1999, 111) 5 Note Michel Serres’ words in The Parasite: There are some black spots in language. The field of the host is one such a dark puddle. In the logic of exchange, or instead of it, it manages to hide who the receiver and who the sender is, which one wants war, and which one wants peace and offers asylum. (2007, 16) For the view of migrants as an infestation, see Kilgore (2018). 6 7 Alex’s messages emphasize his encounter with sameness, while Carson’s photos, evidence of his tour around Europe, illustrate the split between migrants and tourists, the epitome of forced mobility versus unrestricted mobility all over the world.

References Bauman, Zygmunt. 2004. Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Cambridge: Polity. Benveniste, Emile. 1973. Indo-​European Language and Society. Translated by Elizabeth Palmer. London: Faber.

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Hospitality and Borders in Oscar Cásares’ Where We Come From  57 Brady, Mary Pat. 2002. Extinct Lands: Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Brown, Wendy. 2010. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty. New York: Zone Books. Butler, Judith, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. 2007. Who Sings the Nation State? Language, Politics, Belonging. London: Seagull. Cásares, Oscar. 2019. Where We Come From. New York: Knopf. Chotiner, Isaac. 2021. “A Former Obama Official on the ‘Interlocking Set of Failures’ at the Border.” The New Yorker, April 6, 2021. www.newyor​ker. com/​news/​q-​and-​a/​a-​for​mer-​obama-​offic​ial-​on-​the-​inter​lock​ing-​set-​of-​failu​ res-​at-​the-​bor​der Comaroff, Jean, and John Comaroff. 1999. “Alien-​Nation: Zombies, Immigrants, and Millennial Capitalism.” Codersia Bulletin 3 (4): 17–​28. Derrida, Jacques. 1999 (1997). Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Translated by Pascale-​Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —​—​—​. 2000a (1997). Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jaques Derrida to Respond. Translated by Rachel Bowlby. Stanford: Stanford University Press. —​—​—​. 2000b. “Hostipitality.” Angelaki 5 (3): 3–​18. —​—​—​. 2001 (1997). On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness. Translated by Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes. London and New York: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques, and Hélène Cixous. 2006. “From the Word to Life: A Dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous.” New Literary History 37 (1): 1–​13. Dikeç, Mustafa. 2002. “Pera Peras Poros: Longings for Spaces of Hospitality.” Theory, Culture & Society 19 (1–​2): 227–​247. García, Carlos. 2019. “UT Professor Sheds Light on Second Form of Immigration in ‘Where We Come From’.” The Daily Texan, August 10, 2019. https://​thedai​ lyte​xan.com/​2019/​08/​10/​ut-​profes​sor-​sheds-​light-​on-​sec​ond-​form-​of-​immi ​ grat​ion-​in-​where-​we-​come-​from/​ Kilgore, Ed. 2018. “Trump Uses Language of Exterminators in Attack on ‘Illegal Immigrants’.” New York Magazine, June 19, 2018. https://​nymag.com/​ intell​igen​cer/​2018/​06/​trump-​uses-​langu​age-​of-​exterm​inat​ors-​about-​imm​igra​ nts.htmlç Lauro, Sarah Juliet, and Karen Embry. 2008. “A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the Era of Advanced Capitalism.” Boundary 2 35 (1): 85–​108. Levinas, Emmanuel. 2009 (1974). Otherwise than Being: Or beyond Essence. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Luiselli, Valeria. 2017. Tell Me How It Ends. An Essay in Forty Questions. London: 4th State. —​—​—​. 2019. Lost Children Archive. New York: Knopf. McNulty, Tracy. 2007. The Hostess: Hospitality, Femininity, and the Expropriation of Identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2012. “Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders.” Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4/​5): 58–​75. —​—​—​. 2013. Border as Method, or the Multiplication of Labor. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Nail, Thomas. 2015. The Figure of the Migrant. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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58  Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo Papastergiadis, Nikos. 2013. “Hospitality and the Zombification of the Other.” In The Conditions of Hospitality: Ethics, Politics, and Aesthetics on the Threshold of the Possible, edited by Thomas Claviez, 145–​167. New York: Fordham University Press. Ranciére, Jacques. 2000. Le partage du sensible: esthétique et politique. Paris: LaFabrique. Schaub, Michael. 2019. “Oscar Cásares on Why His Immigration-​themed Novel Was Not Inspired by the News.” Los Angeles Times, May 17, 2019. www.lati​ mes.com/​books/​la-​ca-​jc-​interv​iew-​oscar-​casa​res-​20190​517-​story.html Schérer, René. 2005 (1993). Zeus hospitalier: Éloge de l’hospitalité. Paris: La Table Ronde. Serres, Michel. 2007 (1980). Parasite. Translated by Lawrence R. Schehr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Still, Judith. 2010. Derrida and Hospitality: Theory and Practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Stratton, Jon. 2011. “Zombie Trouble: Zombie Texts, Bare Life and Displaced People.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (3): 265–​281. Waldenfels, Benhard. 2002. “Levinas and the Face of the Other.” In The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, edited by Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi, 63–​81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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3 Beyond the Wall Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels Macarena García-​Avello

This chapter explores new insights into discussions of stranger cosmopolitanism in Latinx studies by focusing on the representation of the transnational literary space of the US–Mexico borderlands in Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels (2018). Written and published during Trump’s presidency, Urrea questions stereotypes that dehumanize and relegate Latinxs and Mexican nationals to the category of secondclass citizens. Urrea’s multigenerational Mexican–American family saga delineates circular migratory processes between Mexico and the United States that transcend borders and binaries. This chapter will examine the multiple borders represented in the novel to reveal how The House of Broken Angels navigates and ultimately bridges dialectical tensions between the self and the ‘Other,’ the real and the imagined, the personal and the collective, literature and politics, as well as national and transnational forces. The outcome of this analysis could be compared to a cartography in which multiple times, spaces, and subjectivities converge in the articulation of alternative forms of understanding the cosmopolitan stranger. Ultimately, Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels offers a discursive space where tensions meet and are negotiated, leading to a dialogue between literary and political discourses.

Introduction Nativist narratives criminalizing immigrants and the resurgence of long-​ standing racial and ethnic stereotypes in the United States have shaped the way in which Latinxs have generally been perceived in American legal, economic, and political structures. Within this framework, Trump’s election in 2016 can be regarded as the epitome of an intensification of anti-​Latinx sentiments, particularly through his insistence on building a wall that opposes an increasingly globalized world. The nationalist upsurge associated with Trump is defied by the transnational flows and circuits lying at the heart of Latinx literature, which interrogates notions and approaches to otherness, or what has been conceptualized by Georg Simmel (1964) and Zygmunt Bauman (1989) as strangeness. DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-4

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60  Macarena García-Avello Vince Marotta (2010) offers a particularly useful theoretical framework for the examination of otherness in an increasingly transnational and globalized world, which leads him to connect the stranger to cosmopolitanism through emphasizing the ways in which strangers are also able to reevaluate and reflect upon their own group’s traditions and worldview. Their exposure to the otherness of the host self allows them to reassess their ‘home’ culture as less stable and fixed. What was once given is now contingent. This intellectual mobility provides strangers with the ability to transcend conventional and situated knowledge. (109) This chapter aims to contribute to discussions of otherness and stranger cosmopolitanism in Latinx studies by focusing on the representation of the transnational literary space of the US–​Mexico borderlands in Luis Alberto Urrea’s The House of Broken Angels. Written and published during Trump’s presidency, The House of Broken Angels illustrates how Latinx literature offers a discursive space where tensions meet and are negotiated, leading to a dialogue between literary and political discourses. The outcome of this analysis could be compared to a cartography in which multiple times, spaces, and subjectivities converge in the articulation of alternative forms of understanding border crossing processes inherent in the Latinx experience. Moreover, through the analysis of a multigenerational Mexican–​ American family saga, Urrea delineates circular migratory processes between Mexico and the United States that transcend borders and binaries. This chapter will be structured around each of the material and discursive borders in the novel to examine how it navigates and ultimately bridges dialectical tensions between national and transnational forces, the real versus the imagined, literature versus politics, the self and the ‘Other’—​culminating with a transcultural synthesis—​and otherness versus the cosmopolitan stranger. Urrea’s novel starts when a Mexican–​American family gathers in San Diego to celebrate the funeral of the matriarch, Mamá América, and the 70th birthday of one of her children, Miguel Angel de la Cruz, also called Big Angel, who is in the final stages of terminal cancer. During this reunion, the third-​person subjective narrator adopts the point of view of several of the characters who populate this intricate family saga, offering glimpses or snapshots of their past and present experiences in-​between Mexico and the United States, particularly of the two protagonists, the two half-​ brothers, Big Angel and Little Angel. Big Angel represents the Mexican patriarch, a first-​generation undocumented immigrant who crossed the border when he was young with his wife, Perla, and their children, in search of the American Dream. After years of hard work, he manages to ascend to the working class, making a life for himself and his family in

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Beyond the Wall  61 San Diego. Little Angel, on the other hand, was born of the union of Big Angel’s father and an American woman, who then moves to the United States, leaving behind his Mexican family. As a white American citizen, Little Angel’s experience is radically different from that of the rest of his family, which places him as an outsider, halfway between two realms: the domestic reality of his Mexican family, the one his father left behind in Mexico, and his life in Seattle, where he works as a Professor of Chicano Literature. This family’s mobility conflates the heteroglossia in the text through the representation of a multiplicity of displacements, flows, and circuits that open up a transnational literary space in which identities are closely interwoven with space and spatiality, that is, with “the on-​going production of places, to the buried and entangled relationship between time and space” (Brady 2006, 152). The plot unfolds in the borderlands where two opposing centers of hegemony collide, reminiscent of David Saldívar’s approach to paradigm of the US–​Mexico border as the “transfrontera contact zone” (1997, 13). More specifically, Urrea chooses the borderlands as the discursive space or juncture where clashing systems confront one another, originating the proliferation and interplay of alternative voices and identities deployed throughout the novel.

National and Transnational Forces in the Borderlands The depiction of the flows, circuits, and exchanges between Mexico and the United States leads to a family saga that complicates and transcends national approaches, contributing to the transnational turn that Paul Giles defined as “a blurring of definitions, a collapsing of frontiers, not a nationalistic synthesis” (2010, 34). The negotiation and continuous displacements of the novel do not result in a synthesis, but rather in a deconstruction of national paradigms that places it within a transnational framework traversed by “multiple ties and interactions linking people and institutions across the borders of nation-​states” (Vertovec 1999, 447). Urrea’s novel reveals how all the characters are simultaneously shaped by local and global forces, for their lives are heavily impacted by a globalized world, and yet they would not be understood without reference to the particular context of the US–​Mexico border history. This tension between global and local forces corresponds to Clara Roman-​ Odio and Marta Sierra’s notion of “glocalizations,” which “entail[s]‌the intensification of processes of reciprocal dependencies that began with the internationalization and transnationalization of global relations” (2011, 9). Preoccupation with immigration is portrayed as a global phenomenon that has spread around the Western world. Big Angel’s allusion to a picture of a “dead toddler facedown in European surf. Drowned and cast off like a little bag of unwanted clothes” (Urrea 2019, 103) serves as a catalyst, encouraging him to share with his brother his own reflections on immigration.1 This

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62  Macarena García-Avello particular child is connected to a larger political context where various sociopolitical borders seem to fuse: ‘Nobody wants the immigrant,’ Big Angel said. ‘He drowned, that boy.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Trying to get a new life.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Our people look like that,’ Big Angel said. ‘In the desert’ … ‘Seems like we’ve been here a really long time. (2019, 104) While Big Angel remarks on how anti-​immigrant sentiments proliferate globally, each specific context has its own set of peculiarities that unfold through narratives, which in Urrea’s novel contribute to historicizing the US–​Mexico border. The overview of the borderlands that is portrayed throughout the family saga reveals that the history of both countries, as well as the shifting borderlands, cannot be understood separately with the nation as the basic unit, but only through a transnational lens that expands “notions of national identity that are often exclusionary” (Pérez Rosario 2010, 2). The various subjectivities represented in the novel are crisscrossed by globalizing processes, and, more importantly, by the discursive and material circumstances that traverse the borderlands and the crossing experiences at the core of the different generations portrayed. The family genealogy echoes that of the US–​Mexico border, highlighting the shifting and porous nature of a boundary that has adopted different forms depending on the specific context. Consequently, Urrea’s fiction allows us to gain a better grasp of the borderlands, considering what Debra Castillo referred to as “the very real material conditions of a closed border/​barrier” (2002, 3). This family story starts when Big Angel’s grandfather, Don Segundo, is forced to cross the border following the Mexican Revolution. His ‘American Dream,’ overshadowed by segregation and discrimination in 1920s’ Los Angeles, eventually comes to an end when he is sent back to Mexico in the great wave of deportations of 1932, “joining two million mestizos rounded up and sent across the line in boxcars” (Urrea 2019, 9). As for Don Antonio, Big Angel’s father, he spends most of his life on the Mexican side, where he grows up and gets married to Mamá América, with whom he has Big Angel and his siblings. However, Don Antonio leaves his Mexican family when he moves to the United States with an American woman called Betty, who gives birth to their son, Little Angel. Some years later, Big Angel follows in his father’s footsteps, crossing the border with his wife Perla and their children, Yndio and Lalo. Big Angel and his family live for years in a house less than 15 yards from the border, which gives an insight into the representation of the borderlands at that time, though it goes through many changes in the following decades. These changes can be understood within the theoretical framework used by Tony Payan (2016) to distinguish four main stages that shaped

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Beyond the Wall  63 policies and approaches to the borderlands. Payan identifies an initial stage throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, the frontier era, in which border controls barely existed. The Mexican Revolution, along with the creation of the Border Patrol in 1924, led to a customs system, so that from the 1920s to the 1980s, immigration and mobility in general was regulated and rigorously restrained. The “law enforcement era,” from the 1980s until 2001, is based on “a law-​enforcement border system focused on illegal drugs, illegal immigration, and general economic activity, particularly contraband. Not only were the laws more restrictive, but the penalties for violating the laws regulating cross-​border activity also became more stringent” (Payan and Vásquez 2007, 231). This stage comes to an end after 9/​11, as the terrorist attacks shaped border policies in a new era where immigration was reframed into a matter of national security. In The House of Broken Angels, the dividing line between the United States and Mexico represents a porous border permeated by different types of flows and exchanges, where border residents, like the protagonists, are left with one foot on each side. Nevertheless, the various experiences narrated by the different characters are dependent on historical context. While Don Segundo crosses the border in the 1920s, at the beginning of the customs era, Big Angel and Perla witness the transition from the customs system to a law enforcement era border system where controls and border policies are heavily restrictive, but the flows and cross-​border interactions are still intense. Big Angel recalls the hectic nights filled with helicopters and sirens and running feet and break-​ins. Days watching out for gangbangers and stealthy Mexican bandits who snuck into the country to steal what little immigrants like Angel and Perla had. They beat people and stole their watches and were reabsorbed by Tijuana before anybody noticed. (Urrea 2019, 158) And it is the national security era following 9/​11 that determines the lives of the younger generations, particularly of Big Angel and Perla’s son, Lalo. The numerous circuits and movements carried out by the different generations of the novel over the years cast light on the increasing militarization of the border by the US government. The comparison between the experiences of Big Angel and his children reveals the significant ways that the hardening of immigration laws and policies, along with the intensification of controls and increasing protection and security of borders, transformed life in the borderlands in general. The novel suggests that enhanced controls at and surveillance of the border necessarily increased the number of immigrants spotted trying to cross the US–​Mexico border, referred to as ‘illegal aliens.’ The focus on the US–​Mexico border had a second and related consequence, which was the identification of Mexicans

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64  Macarena García-Avello as the prototype of the illegal alien. The novel demonstrates how stories and voices of border people become overshadowed as the region that separates Mexico and the United States turns into a militarized zone, “a space policed by governmental powers at local, state, and federal levels, meant to control and separate the peoples that happen to reside on either side of the border” (Aldama and González 2018). There appeared an unbridgeable space between the United States and Mexico, a dehumanized region where life became inhospitable, which explains why Big Angel’s improvement in his social position is accompanied by his relocation in a better neighborhood in San Diego. Big Angel and Perla’s socioeconomic progress opposes the circular movements traced by their children inasmuch as, except for Lupe, their only daughter born in the United States, the lives of all the siblings are determined by their legal status as undocumented migrants. Lalo’s paradigmatic case illustrates some of the main obstacles, as well as the most common patterns experienced by undocumented children of immigrants. After managing to avoid being spotted and deported by the Border Patrol during most of his adolescence and youth, Lalo joins the army with the expectation that this will allow him to get his American citizenship. Unfortunately, years of service in Iraq do not prevent him from being deported when he is back in the United States, causing him to cross the border a second time as an adult to be reunited with his family: He was as surprised as everyone else to find that, well, he was not actually a US citizen. Despite his best efforts, he brought more shame to the family when he was summarily deported. And now he was living in his father’s garage after creeping and running across the Tijuana River in the dark like some frigin’ wetback. (Urrea 2019, 80–​81) Border crossing shapes Lalo’s experience, along with the hybrid identity he crafts influenced by the Chicano Movement during his youth. The borderlands, on the other hand, are approached from a very different angle in the case of Little Angel. This character demonstrates the importance of transnational relationships through an emphasis on the influence of his American mother, which, paradoxically, becomes the element that alienates him from the rest of his family. Don Antonio and Little Angel’s siblings admire and resent in equal measure the feelings of superiority they see in Betty, the prototypical American woman, “the ultimate Americana … All Indiana milk and honey. Cornflower-​blue eyes” (Urrea 2019, 117). The ambivalence projected by the Mexican family toward both Betty and Little Angel symbolizes the conflicts stemming from the crossroads among two languages, cultures, nations, and, ultimately, different worlds, such that they experience, in Ilan Stavans’ words, “the tension between double attachments to place, to language, and to identity” (2011, iii). While his American mom and upbringing separate

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Beyond the Wall  65 Little Angel from the rest of his family, preventing him from achieving a stable national identity, the influence of his Mexican roots is manifested in various forms throughout the novel, including his profession as a Professor of Chicano Literature.

Literature in the Trump Era: The Real versus the Imagined Little Angel’s attempt to reconnect with his Mexican roots through his research and teaching of Chicano Literature can be compared to Urrea’s discursive reconstruction of his Mexican roots through a Mexican–​ American saga that includes recollections and experiences based on his own history. The interplay between nationalism and transnationalism conflates with the interface between text and context, which coalesces in a novel that resembles Paul Jay’s definition of a “cultural production that takes place in the liminal spaces between real and imagined borders” (2010, 1). The real and the imagined are bridged as the stereotypes and anti-​Latinx sentiments that have real and specific repercussions in the world outside the text are challenged by the imaginary realm of the novel. More specifically, Urrea’s novel offers a genealogy, a history, and framework for the Trump era where not only past and present coalesce, but also politics and literature. In the same way that the events narrated and the protagonists’ lives cannot be understood without reference to the political context, the publication of a Mexican–​American epic in Trump’s America needs to be regarded as a political act: “In a time when our politics is cultural, we take it for granted that the products of our culture will likewise be political” (Hock 2020, 3). In other words, the fact that the lives of the characters cannot be separated from the context in which they have unfolded turns the story of this Mexican–​American family into a testimony to Trump’s America. The instability triggered by the political climate generated by Trump is conveyed throughout the events that set the plot in motion: “Everything was shifting. Delineations of a new paradigm in transborder familial dynamics: a theorem” (Urrea 2019, 113). While Urrea’s family saga embodies this transnational shift, the immigration processes and lives of each of the protagonists are invariably informed by and manifest the pervasive influence of nationalist and nativist discourses that have thrived in a context in which globalization merges with a nationalist resurgence (Dionne, Ornstein, and Mann 2017). The novel reflects the dialectical negotiation between nationalist and transnational forces, a nativism firmly grounded in colonialist power structures, on the one hand, and neoliberalism, global capitalism, and an international division of labor, on the other. Even though according to Hernández, nationhood has been “radically transformed by global economic forces” (2009, 10), Urrea’s novel emphasizes how nationalism, nativism, and, more specifically, anti-​ Latinx sentiments permeated Trump’s America despite increasingly transnational and globalized processes.

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66  Macarena García-Avello The anti-​ Latinx sentiments and xenophobic attitudes represented throughout the novel contribute to our understanding of nativist discourses that paved the way for Trump’s election. It is no coincidence that, at the beginning of the novel, when Big Angel is on his way to his mother’s funeral and notices someone holding up a “BUILD THE WALL sign, facing south” (Urrea 2019, 24). The fact that the novel was written and published in the Trump era situates it in a specific context where white supremacist discourses and anti-​ Latinx sentiments proliferated through a process that Bart Bonikowski describes as “the normalization of nativist discourse. The legitimization of ethno-​nationalist forms of thought, speech, and practice is likely to further embolden white supremacist movements” (2019, 110–​126). Trump’s appeal to so many, in addition, demonstrates how nativism is not a marginal tendency but, as Héctor Amaya points out, has been a huge influence on US politics and legal frameworks to the extent of reconfiguring notions of citizenship throughout the twentieth and twenty-​first century: “Nativism is not an abhorrent expression of the US political system, but one of its roots as expressed in our Constitution and legal history” (2013, 80). The proliferation of nativist discourses throughout the twentieth-​and twenty-​first centuries led to the identification of the largest source of immigration, Latinxs in general, and Mexican nationals in particular, as not only outsiders with no right to be in the country, but more importantly as foreign threats to the nation. Within this framework, Trump is not an accident nor an exception; quite the contrary, the intensification of xenophobic attitudes—​the whitelash—​associated with the 45th President of the United States merely represents, in Yogotal Goyal’s words, “the culmination and continuation of previous policies by democrats and republicans alike … The reminder to think not just about Trump the man but Trumpism as a product of history remains valuable” (2017, 471). Trump’s continuous attacks on Mexicans were, then, rooted in existing narratives that conflated Mexican immigration with illegality and lack of personhood, which reduced members of the community to the category of the “impossible subject, … a person who cannot be” (Ngai 2004, 5). Urrea’s Mexican–​American family epic, on the other hand, goes beyond stereotypical depictions by portraying complex characters that defy the nativism and racist narratives that criminalize Latinx immigrants outside the text. The House of Broken Angels challenges the racist prejudices and stereotypes associated with Latinxs within the American context by delving into the complexity of atypical characters that cannot be easily classified.

The Self Seen as the Other/​the Other Seen as the Self Through a third-​ person narrator that adopts the multiplicity of perspectives of different family members, the novel presents a polyphony of voices that interface two seemingly conflicting forces: the

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Beyond the Wall  67 interconnectedness among the various protagonists, on the one hand, and conceptualizations of strangeness, on the other. As far as the first aspect is concerned, none of the protagonists can be fully understood on their own; on the contrary, it is in fact their relationships that are responsible for providing their existence with meaning and value. The relative adjectives of the protagonists, Big and Little Angel, point toward the centrality of interdependence, inasmuch as their meaning stands in relation to the Other. Furthermore, every character not only spends a considerable amount of time reflecting on other characters, but they all also seem particularly preoccupied by how they are regarded by others, which leads them to continuously see themselves through external eyes. The self and the Other are entangled in complex dynamics that highlight the significant part played by others in one’s perception of oneself. Anzaldúa eloquently summarizes the notion of interconnectedness when she states that each of us is “all the different organisms and parasites that live in your body and also the ones that live in a symbiotic relationship to you … You’re not one single entity. You’re a multiple entity” (Anzaldúa, qtd. in Keating 2000, 158). This attention on interdependence in the novel lays bare alternative dimensions that shed a different light on characters and the roles they represent, like the figure of the patriarch as portrayed by Big Angel and Don Antonio. Despite the episodes where Big Angel is described through the eyes of his children, as the novel delves into his conscience and exposing his circumstances, the traditional image of masculinity in Mexican culture that he embodies gradually disintegrates, paving the way for the construction of a more nuanced and complex character. The patriarch is depicted as a vulnerable human being who, besides providing for his family, needs to be taken care of by his little brother, his wife, and his children. Big Angel’s most defining trait is his interconnection to other people; indeed, he is seen to be a node in the system or network represented by the family. The position occupied by each character within the family structure traces a circularity that Big Angel summarizes when he thanks his daughter for taking care of him: “I used to be your father. Now I am your baby” (Urrea 2019, 54). Borders throughout the novel become blurred to the extent that even life and death seem to merge when Big Angel’s birthday celebration becomes conflated with his mother’s funeral. Furthermore, all the characters deconstruct stereotypical representations and racist prejudices invoked by nativist and nationalist discourses in the United States. From the beginning, Big Angel’s depiction as a reliable person and diligent worker opposes the prototype of the lazy Mexican who is always late for everything. The improvement in his social circumstances, from his humble origins as an undocumented immigrant to being part of the American working class, illustrates his own version of the American Dream. Big Angel’s apparent eagerness to accommodate with the dominant culture is illustrated through various episodes

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68  Macarena García-Avello and anecdotes, like the fact that his own children avoid speaking Spanish and the way he imagines his siblings thinking “Big Angel wants to be a gringo” (Urrea 2019). While his career choice could also be interpreted as an effort on his part to assimilate, Big Angel reflects on how his marginal position in the United States motivates him to demonstrate that he is capable of achieving the same goals as white Americans: Computers weren’t the point for Big Angel. He didn’t even like computers. A Mexican doing what these rich Americanos couldn’t do was the point. Like his father before him, with a piano, playing Ray Conniff into the night and stealing their wives right out from under their noses. (Urrea 2019, 11) The House of Broken Angels confirms that none of these attitudes imply a rejection of his Mexican roots. On the contrary, Big Angel illustrates on several occasions how some of the instances of his acculturation reveal a transcultural process with new and unexpected outcomes. However, even though Big Angel seems to embrace certain elements of the dominant culture, they are never blindly assimilated, but rather appropriated and endowed with new layers of meanings as they are imbued with tinges of Mexicanness. The transformative process stemming from the dialectical negotiation between Mexican and American forces runs parallel to the construction of a hybrid subjectivity identified as ‘mestiza.’2 The concept of ‘mestizaje’ is used in Chicano studies to refer to the crafting of a mixed-​blood identity where the ambiguities and ambivalence derived from dualisms and liminal experiences converge and interface. The House of Broken Angels materializes this subtle process in anecdotes like the colorful Talavera coffee mug with the words “El jefe,” the boss, written on it that Big Angel takes to work. He is amused by the fact that while American workers identify this mug as his particular way of asserting that “the beaner was calling himself their boss” (Urrea 2019, 8), the word ‘jefe’ actually refers to the Spanish slang for father: “If he was anything, Big Angel was the father and patriarch of the entire clan. The All-​Father, Mexican Odin” (2019, 8). This anecdote illustrates how the interstices between the different systems of value comprised by languages provide Big Angel with a bifocal perspective, what Ethington refers to as being “positioned inside the borderlands” (1996, 348). Bilingualism and biculturality are intricately interwoven in an interplay whereby power dynamics and the continuous negotiation between the dominant group and the remaining resistances of minority groups like Latinx lead to unexpected outcomes. This can be read considering Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of transculturation, which traces how subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted to them by a dominant or metropolitan culture. While

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Beyond the Wall  69 subjugated peoples cannot readily control what the dominant culture visits upon them, they do determine to varying extents what they absorb into their own, how they use it, and what they make it mean. (2008, 7) Big Angel is placed at the junction where opposing systems clash, coalesce, and interweave; that is, an interstitial space where “transnational, translingual and transcultural” (Mignolo 2000, 180) experiences intermingle. Everyday actions and acts of resistance allow the protagonist to cast light on the transformation undergone by elements of the dominant culture as they are appropriated, translated, and invariably traversed by the Mexican system of values. Of the various aspects transformed by transculturation, identity construction is probably the most significant. At the beginning of the novel, Big Angel seems to defend the conception of an individualist, free, and independent self-​made man, whose refusal to accept anyone’s help is exemplified by his categorical rejection of affirmative action: He hadn’t asked for help. His family had never accepted government checks or cheese or those silver cans of federal peanut butter. He had never seen a food stamp. He wasn’t some peasant holding his straw hat in worried hands, bowing to some master. He was Emiliano Zapata. He wasn’t living on his knees. In his mind, he was showing his long-​dead father his own worth as a son. His name said HOLA! instead of HELLO! (Urrea 2019, 12) This quotation suggests that individualist notions of success based on personal effort prevent Big Angel from identifying the structural inequalities that lie at the heart of society. Nevertheless, Big Angel’s initial individualism dissipates as the novel shows a character whose main defining feature is his connection to his family and the community he has managed to create. The influence of each individual character is overshadowed by the centrality of a community that emerges from and within the very specific context recreated by the novel. As such, the reality portrayed by the novel cannot be captured nor confined to traditional categories, but rather it interrogates the artificiality and porous nature of borders and boundaries. This ambivalence also applies on American literature, which, according to Debra Castillo, becomes “stronger, richer, more interesting when presented in its multilingual, multicultural complexity, with all its tensions and contradictions, with all its transnational connections” (2006, 262). The House of Broken Angels traces the process through which the dialectical tension between opposing forces creates new outcomes, which can be linked to Frederick Aldama and Christopher González’s description of transculturation as the movement of cultures “across nation-​ state borders, and in

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70  Macarena García-Avello multidirectional patterns of mutual transformation that ultimately create a new cultural object” (2019). Transculturation and transnationalism unfold both within and outside the realm of the text, weaving complex webs of relations that range from the specific identities represented by the characters to the most general articulation of the family epic. The synthesis of disparate threads and elements throughout the novel challenges borders and boundaries, while highlighting the centrality of what Gloria Anzaldúa defined as the ontology of “interconnectedness” (Anzaldúa 1987) in Urrea’s work. While all the protagonists illustrate the influence of other people’s perceptions on their identity construction, the following section explores how the case of Little Angel is particularly evocative. The continuous negotiations and tensions he experiences open up a space for reflection on stranger cosmopolitanism, as well as the significant differences that prevent other characters in the novel from adopting the position of the cosmopolitan stranger.

Otherness versus the Cosmopolitan Stranger Transnational tensions are reflected in all the characters, particularly in the brothers, Big and Little Angel, as well as in Lalo, in a process through which identity categories and labels are contested, deconstructed, and discursively re/​appropriated. This can be related to Bhabha’s notion of ‘cultural difference,’ which he explains as “that position of liminality … that productive space of the construction of culture as difference, in the spirit of alterity or otherness” (qtd. in Rutherford 1990, 209). Within this framework, otherness or alterity emerges at the crossroads where different cultures with opposing hegemonic centers meet and intermingle. In Urrea’s novel, what Bhabha (1994) refers to as the interstices corresponds to the conflicting forces that place the protagonists in-​between Mexico and the United States. Otherness has been defined in conceptualizations of the stranger as the ambivalent negotiation of physical proximity, on the one hand, and cultural and social distance, on the other. For theorists like Ulrich Beck (2002), a cosmopolitan outlook offers an opportunity to deconstruct Western binary and essentialist frameworks by displaying transnational and transcultural approaches. In contrast, in his approach to stranger cosmopolitanism, Vince Marotta identifies a third position, a cultural difference which “encourages a critical view of binary thinking and the essentialist identities it fosters. Understanding the insider experience (host or local) is only possible through proximity and distance, through self-​reflectivity and through an ironic dialogical imagination” (2010, 115). Otherness, cultural difference, and the stance Marotta defines as cosmopolitan stranger adopt manifold layers of meanings in The House of Broken Angels. To start with, throughout his novel, Urrea frustrates the consolidation of stable national identities. More specifically, the question

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Beyond the Wall  71 of authenticity is brought to the fore as Little Angel’s Mexicanness is continuously undermined by US influences that lead his family and siblings to identify him as a flawed and inauthentic version of Mexicanness. As Little Angel muses when he thinks about how he is seen by his family, “ ‘The American.’ What the hell. How was that an insult? But it had some inexplicable sting” (Urrea 2019, 32). Little Angel’s dialogic imagination corresponds to a hybrid subjectivity that provides him with a critical distance toward both American and Mexican nationalisms, essentialisms, and monologism. Proximity and distance toward his Mexican heritage determine his own position fluctuating between the experience of belonging and the role of the outsider. Little Angel’s ambivalence adopts different shapes at different points in his life. On the one hand, the fact that his Mexican heritage is negated by his family triggers an emotional, geographical, and cultural distance from his Mexican heritage. Within this context, Little Angel moves north to a rainy city, works at a university as a Literature Professor, and, more importantly, neither his looks nor his accent hints at his Mexican background. It is paradoxical that the only trait that Little Angel identifies as Mexican is his nose, broken by his brother during a fight, which suggests that the only trace of his Mexican heritage is the result of his brother’s violence. The anecdote of Little Angel’s nose conveys an approach to identity that is not the manifestation of essences or inner qualities, but a complex process of construction. Little Angel demonstrates how his American, as much as his Mexican, identity is performative, the outcome of premeditated choices: The sibs all thought Little Angel was cheating the system somehow. A cultural thief … But what was he going to say? Tell them all the times he had been called ‘taco bender’ or ‘wetback’? ‘Burrito breath’? They would laugh at him. Should he make lists of the Mexican girls he dated when he was a kid? Show them poems he’d written in Spanish? Spanish! His family didn’t even like speaking Spanish to him. He tried, and they insisted on answering him in English … They thought he had it made, growing up with English and Spanish together. And he didn’t have an accent in either one. And was probably rich … They had seen his class lectures on YouTube. Talking about Chicano authors they’d never heard of. (2019, 168) Little Angel undermines any trace of essentialism, casting light on the porous borders and boundaries underpinning nationalism. His reflections throughout the novel resemble Ulrich Beck’s approach to a cosmopolitan stance engaged with a dialogic imagination that “explores the contradictions of cultures” (2002, 17), which cannot be captured by binaries and the opposing hierarchies between self and Other. In this respect, the essentialism underlying nationalism is challenged by Beck’s dialogic

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72  Macarena García-Avello imagination and illustrated in Urrea’s novel through a character capable of rising beyond binary dualisms. Little Angel personifies the cosmopolitan stranger; as a college Professor of Chicano Literature with an American passport, Little Angel in a privileged position from which to analyze both cultures critically. His experience, nevertheless, differs substantially from the lives of his Mexican family members, which reveals a class and racial bias that needs to be taken into consideration when approaching cosmopolitanism. Big Angel and Lalo are depicted in a process of becoming that challenges essential and fixed national identities, highlighting them as fluid and porous categories. The outcome is the discursive space that stems from an approach to the borderlands as both “a line of division and a line of encounter and dialogue” (Benito and Manzanas 2002, 1), a double perspective that necessarily implies a transnational paradigm. The other main characters are restlessly inventing themselves on both sides of the border, which coincides with Anzaldúa’s and Pratt’s theories of the borderlands as not only a geopolitical dividing line, but a metaphor for transitory states in-​between different worlds, languages, nations, and cultures, as “disassociations of identity, identity breakdowns and buildups, and intercultural impingement” (Anzaldúa, qtd. in Román-​ Odio and Sierra 2011, 7). Nevertheless, the numerous differences between these characters and Little Angel allow Urrea to reflect on the multiple ways in which subjectivity is shaped by material and discursive factors. In this sense, different characters in Urrea’s novel embody the various repercussions of opposing hegemonic centers that meet and collide in the interstices between the two worlds represented by the borderlands. The outcome is that the protagonists, particularly Little Angel, Big Angel, and the latter’s son, Lalo, reflect and negotiate from different angles on the disparate approaches to the stranger. The different material circumstances determining their lives cause Big Angel and Lalo to face forms of discrimination never experienced by Little Angel. Despite the increasingly globalizing context within which the story unfolds, most characters rely on a system of essences that remains within the framework of the nation-​state, which invariably results in the emergence of cultural outsiders who are identified as those on the margins who do not conform to hegemonic national identities. In the case of twenty-​first-​century America, the urgency to secure borders, protecting the nation from foreign threats, also implies getting rid of undocumented immigrants like Lalo. Within this framework, Lalo embodies the permanent outsider, the ‘illegal alien’ with no right whatsoever to become a legitimate member of the nation; he is not even able to remain within the confines of the nation. The question that emerges is whether this exclusion from the native group could be compared to Georg Simmel’s category of the stranger (1964). According to Simmel, the marginality that characterizes strangers provides them with a viewpoint capable of deconstructing conventional

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Beyond the Wall  73 epistemologies. In Zygmunt Bauman’s words, the stranger is “always on the outside even when inside, examining the familiar as if it was a foreign object of study, asking questions no one else asked, questioning the unquestionable and challenging the unchangeable” (1989, 53). Both Simmel and Bauman reflect on the ambivalence represented by strangers, as they reinforce the same boundaries they contribute to disrupt. The worldview of the dominant group becomes the point of departure that serves strangers to pose questions from their position as outsiders. However, even though Simmel’s account of the stranger was proposed in a context in which cross-​cultural flows and interactions were thriving, several scholars like Levine (1977), Harman (1988), and Alexander (2004) question the explanatory value of Simmel’s category nowadays, considering that his approach to the stranger no longer works in an increasingly globalized, postmodern, and urban reality. While it is possible to identify certain similarities between Little Angel in The House of Broken Angels and Simmel’s and Bauman’s category of the stranger, this theoretical framework fails to account for the situation experienced by characters like Lalo and Big Angel, as it does not reflect the way in which race, class, and nationality determine their lives and experiences. In this sense, it is worth mentioning how Urrea emphasizes the significant contrast that differentiates Lalo’s life and circumstances from those of Little Angel. On the one hand, Little Angel is doubly situated inside and outside both nations, a duplicity that offers a prism to critically reflect on both cultures, remaining an outsider as a Chicano Professor in Seattle, and as the gringo member of his Mexican family. Despite his ambivalence, or maybe precisely because of it, he can easily navigate between languages and move and travel freely, for as an American citizen he never has to worry about his legal status in the United States. Moreover, as a white man, he does not suffer racial discrimination, and even his socioeconomic status reveals a privileged position. Lalo, at the opposite end, spends most of his life in fear of being deported. Border crossing in his case is not an act of resistance, but a form of survival through which his fragile agency strives to endure. For Lalo, the borderlands correspond to a material and discursive space, which Schmidt Camacho described as one in which distinct national localities are linked together by migratory flows, and the diaspora formed by this migration … [and since] migrants narrate a condition of alterity to, or exclusion from, the nation, they also enunciate a collective desire for a different order of space and belonging across the boundary. Their narratives imaginatively produce forms of communal life and political organization in keeping with their fragile agency as mobile people. (2008, 5) The contrast between Little Angel and Lalo prompts the central question of which subjects are allowed to cross cultures and under what

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74  Macarena García-Avello circumstances; in other words, who can adopt the role of the cosmopolitan stranger? The answer offered by Urrea’s novel highlights the importance of considering how variables like class, race, and ethnicity, as well as other material circumstances, prevent certain subjects from conforming to the category of the cosmopolitan stranger. For example, Big Angel’s economic struggles throughout most of his life prevent him from assuming the role of the cosmopolitan stranger, while Lalo’s legal status in the United States even causes him to be deported. Furthermore, The House of Broken Angels requires that theories of otherness and alterity focus on the specific context of the US–​Mexico border. These reflections on the stranger lead, in turn, to a second but connected issue related to the discursive position, which also translates into a question of authorship: who is legitimized to narrate? The construction of Urrea’s characters allows him to question the power dynamics that determine discussions on cosmopolitanism, transnationalism, and strangeness. Moreover, Urrea’s novel challenges the identification of Mexican immigrants as prototypical Others by providing them with a voice, a narrative, and the discursive position of the ‘I’ that writes and is written about.

Conclusion Through Little Angel, the narrator expresses his yearning to offer snapshots of the beauty that permeates the Mexican world: “If only the dominant culture could see these small moments, they would see their own human lives reflected in the other” (Urrea 2019, 168). The novel delves into episodes and triggers feelings that white Americans can relate to, casting light not only on the cultural specificities of Mexican–​ American families but, more importantly, on the universal relationships, emotions, and experiences that connect them to the dominant culture without overlooking their specificities. Within this framework, Urrea’s novel could be compared to a bridge, which is reminiscent of Big Angel’s recollections: “Mother had taught him that a rainbow was a bridge where angels walked down from heaven. In Spanish, it was an arco iris. This was so much more lovely than English” (2019, 27). To conclude, Urrea’s border text articulates a discursive space where alternative realities and identities that transcend conventional categories proliferate, leading to representations that allow us, in Pérez Rosario’s words, to “expand notions of national identity that are often exclusionary” (2010, 2). Furthermore, the representation of a protagonist like Big Angel, who succeeds in bridging the self with the community, runs parallel with the role of the novel as a thread that binds the individual realm with the collective, the personal with the political, as well as Latinx literature with the reality of life under Trump. The bridge in this case connects and draws the self close to others, links the real and the imagined, theory and fiction, local and global, and national and transnational forces.

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Notes 1 The novel refers to a picture of a drowned migrant child in a European beach. While the picture is barely described in the novel, this image leads Big Angel to reflect on how immigrants are dehumanized in the Western world. 2 Homi Bhabha defines hybridity as a process that goes beyond dualisms to “[give] rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation” (qtd. in Rutherford 1990, 211).

References Aldama, Frederick L., and Christopher González. 2018. Latinx Studies: The Key Concepts. New York and London: Routledge. Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2004. “Rethinking Strangeness: From Structures in Space to Discourses in Civil Society.” Thesis Eleven 79: 87–​104. Amaya, Héctor. 2013. Citizenship Excess: Latinos/​as, Media, and the Nation. New York: New York University Press. Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1989. Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York and London: Routledge. Beck, Ulrich. 2002. “The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies.” Theory, Culture & Society 19 (1–​2): 17–​44. Benito, Jesús, and Ana María Manzanas. 2002. Literature and Ethnicity in the Cultural Borderlands. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Bonikowski, Bart. 2019. “Trump’s Populism: The Mobilization of Nationalist Cleavages and the Future of US Democracy.” In When Democracy Trumps Populism: European and Latin American Lessons for the United States, edited by Kurt Weyland and Raúl L. Madrid, 110–​ 131. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brady, Mary Pat. 2006. “Double-​Crossing the Border.” In The Chicana/​o Cultural Studies Reader, edited by Angie Chabram-​Dernersesian, 150–​160. New York and London: Routledge. Castillo, Debra, and María Socorro Tabuenca. 2002. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Castillo, Debra A. 2006. “Anzaldúa and Transnational American Studies.” PMLA 121 (1): 260–​265. Dionne, E.J., Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, and Thomas E. Mann. 2017. One Nation after Trump. A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-​Yet Deported. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Ethington, Philip. 1996. “Toward a Borderland School for American Urban Ethnic Studies.” American Quarterly 48 (2): 344–​353. Giles, Paul. 2010. Transnationalism in Practice: Essays on American Studies, Literature and Religion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Goyal, Yogotal. 2017. “Third World Problems.” College Literature 44 (4): 467–​474. Harman, Lesley D. 1988. The Modern Stranger: On Language and Membership. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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76  Macarena García-Avello Hernández, Ellie D. 2009. Postnationalism in Chicana/​o Literature and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hock, Stephen. 2020. Trump Fiction: Essays on Donald Trump in Literature, Film, and Television. London: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. Jay, Paul. 2010. Global Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary Studies. New York: Cornell University Press. Keating, Anna Louise, ed. 2000. Interviews/​ Entrevistas: Gloria Anzaldúa. New York and London: Routledge. Levine, Donald N. 1977. “Simmel at a Distance: On the History and Systematics of the Sociology of the Stranger.” Sociological Focus 10 (1): 15–​29. Marotta, Vincent. 2010. “The Cosmopolitan Stranger.” In Questioning Cosmopolitanism, edited by Stan van Hooft and Wim Vandekerckhove, 105–​ 120. London: Springer. Mignolo, Walter. 2000. “Human Understanding and (Latin) American Interests—​ the Politics and Sensibilities of Geohistorical Locations.” In A Companion to Post-​Colonial Studies, edited by Henry Schwarz and Sangeeta Ray, 180–​203. Cornwall: Blackwell. Ngai, Maw M. 2004. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Oxfordshire: Princeton University Press. Payan, Tony. 2016. Border Wars. Drugs, Immigration, and Homeland Security. Santa Barbara: Praeger. Payan, Tony, and Amanda Vásquez. 2007. “The Costs of Homeland and Security.” In Borderlands: Comparing Border Security in North America and Europe, edited by Emmanuel Brunet-​Jailly, 231–​259. Ontario: University of Ottawa Press. Pérez-​ Rosario, Vanessa. 2010. Hispanic Caribbean Literature of Migration: Narratives of Displacement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Prat, Mary Louise. 2008. Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York and London: Routledge. Román-​ Odio, Clara, and Marta Sierra. 2011. Transnational Borderlands in Women’s Global Networks: The Making of Cultural Resistance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Rutherford, Jonathan. 1990. “The Third Space. Interview with Homi Bhabha.” In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 207–​221. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Saldívar, José. 1997. Border Matters. Remapping American Cultural Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schmidt Camacho, Alicia. 2008. Migrant Imaginaries: Latino Cultural Politics in the U.S.-​Mexico Borderlands. New York: New York University Press. Simmel, Georg. 1964. “The Quantitative Aspect of the Group.” In The Sociology of Georg Simmel, edited by Kurt H. Wolff, 87–​174. New York: Free Press. Stavans, Ilan, et al. 2011. The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. New York: W.W. Norton. Urrea, Luis Alberto. 2019. The House of Broken Angels. London: John Murray. Vertovec, Steven. 1999. “Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (2): 445–​462.

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4 Inhabiting Nepantla The Stranger in Contemporary Chicana Fiction Norma E. Cantú

Nepantilism, a concept Gloria Anzaldúa based on the Nahuatl word ‘nepantla,’ involves the art of being in between, that is, in the space created by two often opposing views or conditions, in a sense a transitory positionality that allows for growth. A nepantlera is a stranger who inhabits this liminal space. As such, the stranger is at once of a place and not and experiences the possibility of growth, while at the same time experiences the possibility of an abject or abused position. In Donna Haraway’s view, the chthulucene we are in, a transitory evolutionary space, is “an ongoing temporality that resists figuration and dating” and that speaks to the intertwined destinies of human beings and Gaia, our earth. Bringing these two concepts to the forefront, this chapter explores the intertwining of Anzaldúa and Haraway with the notion of the stranger as presented by Georg Simmel. Moreover, through the analysis of Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties, by Felicia Luna Lemus, and A Ballad of Love and Glory, by Reyna Grande, I show how the two protagonists, Leticia and Ximena, respectively, are nepantleras and survive by negotiating their positionality as ‘the stranger.’

Introduction In the second decade of the twenty-​first century, the US government enacted policies that exacerbated the militarization of the US–​Mexico border; such actions are not new, as remnants persist of a war that purportedly ended in 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The violence and conflicts at the “open wound that will not heal,” as Chicana philosopher Gloria Anzaldúa (2021) called the border, continue to this day. While the wound Anzaldúa refers to may be the physical division of the land and the government sanctioned violence, there is another ‘wound,’ that is the one created by the violence against the Other, the foreigner, the outsider. We must also note the violence perpetrated by the outsider against the autochthonous beings of the space that constitute the essence of that border. This very real and physical violence not only exists along the geopolitical border but also in literature. DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-5

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78  Norma E. Cantú In this chapter, I propose that literature by Chicanas can offer a balm to ease the pain of, if not outright heal, the wound. Relying on theories and approaches by scholars such as Gloria Anzaldúa and Donna Haraway, I construct my argument that Felicia Luna Lemus and Reyna Grande offer strategies that ensure survival and healing through their novels, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (published in 2003) and A Ballad of Love and Glory (2022), respectively. As defined by sociologist Georg Simmel (1950), the ‘stranger’ can exist in a fixed location, although the inherent nature of strange(r)ness assumes displacement. In this chapter, I engage this idea with Anzaldúa’s insights on bridging and nepantilism1 and with Haraway’s work on the chthulucene (2016), as she calls the era beyond the Anthropocene, and the interdependence of all beings. Because I find the idea of borderlands—​ both the physical geopolitical border and the notion of a space that is at the interstices—​full of potential, I draw on the notion of borderlands to expand what at least some aspects of the cosmopolitan stranger signify in these works, the “potential wanderer” (Simmel 1950, 402). Haraway’s notions of an all-​encompassing view allows for a distancing and a more inclusive situating of the argument, so that the stranger is at once everyone and no one. This zooming out, as it were, also engages the apparent dual logic implied in borderlands and in strange(r)ness, and as such creates a holistic and broader sentipensante (sensing/​thinking) approach where the duality no longer exists in binaries but can be located at multiple points or nowhere.2 Coupled with the discussion of border spaces, I delve into a discussion of spatial and temporal considerations linked to ideas of history and memory. Throughout the discussion, the anchor is always the figure of the ‘cosmopolitan stranger’ who may or may not reside in a specific location—​by definition, the stranger exists outside of stasis, outside of a given location. Furthermore, I aim to shed light on how the healing of the wound may happen and how literary narratives by Chicanas are engaged in such healing as they populate their narratives with characters who occupy the nepantla space that Anzaldúa refers to as tierra desconocida where transformation happens (2002, 1). A discussion of the theoretical underpinnings for my assertions allows me to then proceed to putting into conversation the idea of the cosmopolitan stranger and the Chicana feminist approach to the novels by Lemus and Grande. In these two texts, which are at the center of my discussion, we can identify that stranger—​ the protagonist—​who is not alien, and yet is. Lemus’ Leticia and Grande’s Ximena are strangers in their own land and remain outside and marginal while situated in their own space, their own geography.

Nepantilism and the Chthulucene Weaving ideas from Anzaldúa and Haraway with notions of temporality allows for a deeper discussion of concepts of time as well as nepantilism

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Inhabiting Nepantla  79 and the chthulucene. Let us consider time and space: in the present, we are on some level neither in the past nor in the future. It is this liminal time—​nepantla—​that I work through here as I seek to examine the fiction of writers who expose and interrogate the realities of our contemporary world in the past and in the present, some imagining a future as well. In this discussion of notions of time, I dislodge the Western world view of time as linear and harken back to the Aymara notion of ñawpaj manpuni, based on the precept that looking back—​to history in the Western sense—​ is also a moving forward to a future. Below I expand on this notion as I discuss the way narratives exist in time. I take this idea of the reconfiguration of history, time, and memory from the work of sociologist Leia Pinheiro Barbosa, who sees colonialism’s “permanent corporeal violence” as being linked to Indigenous and peasant movements (2019, 30).3 I too see the border conflicts as layered and recursive and thus a complication of the linearity that Simmel and Western thinkers assume. Walter Mignolo (2000, x) similarly finds that he must go “beyond the linearity in geohistorical mapping of Western modernity” as he develops his ideas of border thinking. Abandoning the artificiality of linearity opens the discussion up to a multiplicity of perspectives that transcend limits imposed by linear thinking; the nudging and tweaking of the binary logic results in a much more fluid and nuanced understanding of time and place. Building upon Anzaldúa’s notions of the border as an open wound, I posit that writers embark on the task of healing that wound of the past to establish in the present a path for the future, a future that will obviously not be free of the past but will build on the experiences of that past in a recursive fashion. Albeit not always successfully, writers’ narratives present the border as a third space as they unwind the tightly wound enigma of the border and of the subjects who live along both sides—​the US and Mexican—​of that much contested border.4 ‘Nepantilism,’ a term that has become widely associated with Anzaldúa, undergirds much of my thinking on the idea of the stranger being located in a third space, the protagonist who moves from one place to another though always remaining in a liminal space. For Simmel, this third space signifies mediation; he considers a third mediating element as a sort of synthesis in the social relational schema (1950, 147).5 And, while Anzaldúa’s nepantlera is not exactly the third element in Simmel’s discussion, similarities do exist. In a way, the third element adds a dimension to social relations that is also synthesized in Anzaldúa, although in a schema firmly rooted in indigeneity and not in the Eurocentric social fabric that Simmel uses. For Simmel, for example, it is a different notion of thirdness, a location that is neither here nor there. The stranger, for Simmel, occupies that space due to the transitory nature of their locality. The term ‘nepantla’ appears in a story in the Florentine Codex: when a friar questioned an Indian man who had converted to Catholicism about his devotion to both the Christian God and his old Gods, he answered, “I am in nepantla.” In other words, he was in a state of in-​betweenness and

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80  Norma E. Cantú holding both positions simultaneously. Looking at the etymology of the term nepantla, we can conclude that it is aptly used in that context, for it signifies a negotiation between the conquered Indigenous person who uses claims to be there and the Spanish conqueror who is unfamiliar and perhaps cannot fathom the ambiguity. It further strengthens my thesis that the characters in the two novels studied here constitute a healing through their negotiation of that in-​between space. Nepantla and its derivative nepantlera also appear in Anzaldúa’s writings; indeed, in her later work, she shifts from using mestiza to nepantlera, as some scholars have observed.6 The term, rooted in Nahuatl thought, is used to describe what might be called the interstitial space, and it is a key aspect of Anzaldúa’s configuration of the oppressed subject’s ‘movidas’ or survival strategies. In Anzaldúa’s view, nepantla exists as a bridge, as she wrote in “(Un)natural bridges, (Un)safe spaces,” the preface to the anthology this bridge we call home: Bridges span liminal (threshold) spaces between worlds, spaces I call nepantla, a Nahuatl word meaning tierra entre medio. Transformations occur in this in-​ between space, an unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-​in-​transition space lacking clear boundaries. Nepantla es tierra desconocida [is terra incognita], and living in this liminal zone means being in a constant state of displacement—​an uncomfortable, even alarming feeling. Most of us dwell in nepantla so much of the time it’s become a sort of “home.” Though this state links us to other ideas, people, and worlds, we feel threatened by these new connections and the change they engender. (2002, 1) For Anzaldúa, nepantla, the ‘liminal zone’ where we are always in flux and going from one space or time to the next, is that in-​between space where change happens. Underscoring the idea of being in that limn, that in-​betweenness, that nepantla that she referenced, allows us to move forward, confronting the past and envisioning the future. The present is nepantla. The authors that are at the center of this work recognize that, as expressed in the quote above, “transformations occur in this in-​between space, an unstable, unpredictable, precarious, always-​in-​ transition space lacking clear boundaries.” Nepantilism involves the art of being in-​between, in the space created by two often opposing views or conditions, in a sense a transitory positionality that allows for growth, a third space. It is a space that occupies sometimes disparate or opposing positionalities. While not naming it such, Chicanx writers will often use the idea of nepantla or of the liminality that occurs along geopolitical and other borders to explore issues through fiction. When studying the characters in various novels, we find that this liminal space is not necessarily tied to notions of citizenship or belonging in a legal or governmental sense; nevertheless, these subjects may be in such a space due to

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Inhabiting Nepantla  81 movement from one place to another. They experience the possibility of growth while at the same time occupying an abject or abused position. In addition to nepantla and ideas from Anzaldúa, I also draw from other contemporary thinkers to approach the idea of the stranger or the ‘Other’ in narratives where the characters occupy nepantla. The cosmopolitan stranger, then, is the world traveler, the world citizen who lives, as Anzaldúa urges in her poem “sin fronteras,” included in Borderlands (2021, 280). Borrowing Donna Haraway’s views on the chthulucene allows me to gain perspective and to zoom out to a vantage point of temporal distance to observe that we are in a transitory evolutionary space, “an ongoing temporality that resists figuration and dating” (Haraway 2016, 51) and that speaks to the intertwined destinies of human beings and Gaia, our earth. Haraway’s notions of what I would call interspecies interdependency and evolutionary processes result in change. In her discussion of radical evolutionary theories posed by Lynn Margulis, Haraway remarks that “the core of Margulis’s view of life was that new kinds of cells, tissues, organs, and species evolve primarily through the long-​standing intimacy of strangers” (2016, 60). She also notes the ways the interactions of the latter indeed create sympoiesis, “collectively producing systems that do not have self-​defined spatial or temporal boundaries” (2016, 61). While Haraway is more concerned with cells and organisms, I propose that we can look at narratives through the same lens and see the characters who exist within the fictionalized world as entities deeply enmeshed in relationships that resemble the ones Haraway describes and which she calls “holoents” (60), a term she coins “so as not to privilege only the living but to encompass the biotic and abiotic in dynamic sympoietic patterning” (60), in other words, a more holistic approach. Anzaldúa’s notion of nepantla and Haraway’s ideas about the chthulucene converge for me to create a lens through which we can analyze and discern the ways narratives present reality and how they can facilitate a way of seeing, a way of knowing. This sentipensante engagement goes beyond either the purely intellectual (pensante: thinking) or the affective (senti: feeling) to a holistic perception. Haraway proposes that “sympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems,” and simply says it “means ‘making with’ ” (58). For the purposes of the present study, the narratives by Lemus and Grande function in like manner as they offer a “making with” that occurs between each writer and her protagonists along the in-​betweenness of experience. Haraway’s broader definition and all-​encompassing vantage point may also allow my analysis of these two writers’ protagonists as cosmopolitan strangers engaged in a healing exercise that transcends the immediacy of the narrative and informs our understanding of who is the stranger and who is not, particularly at the border and as that liminal third space enters the discussion. Working with these two concepts—​Anzaldua’s notions of nepantla and Haraway’s ideas of the chthulucene—​ this chapter explores the

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82  Norma E. Cantú intertwining of two key questions hinted at by Anzaldúa and Haraway and that I pose, but with the focus on the transnational movements of deterritorialized migrants in the twenty-​first century and their appearance in literature: how does a deterritorialized subject position allow for a semblance of stability? How do migrant identities traverse the cultural divide and maintain root cultures while adapting to/​adopting the host culture? Fiction by Chicanx and Mexican writers approaches these questions with aplomb. In the next section, I offer a glimpse of how such authors engage these ideas; I then will single out the two novels by Lemus and Grande that are at the core of my discussion.

Chicanx Border Narratives: Writing the Stranger Contemporary novels from both sides of the border—​those of Felicia Luna Lemus, Roberto Crosthwaite, Sofia Segovia, Reyna Grande, Fernando Flores, and young adult authors such as Sylvia Zégely and Benjamin Alire Sáenz—​constitute a shift from earlier Chicanx fiction that explored the border, both geopolitical and cultural, from a contained and in some ways restricted fashion: these writers approach the border with a sense of visceral experiences along with a heightened sense of awareness of what that ‘border’ signifies. Often the borders do not exist as political boundaries between states but, rather, may refer to gender or class as well as ethnicities. The writers who do situate their narratives along the geopolitical boundary between Mexico and the United States exhibit a historical awareness of the past and how it has shaped the present, another border. The border novels from the first half of the twentieth century, such as Elena Zamora O’Shea’s El Mesquite (1935/​2000), Jovita González and Eve Raleigh’s Caballero: A Historical Novel (1996), and even Américo Paredes’ George Washington Gomez (1990)—​the two latter written in the 1930s but not published until the 1990s—​focused on the historical dispossession of the residents of the region and the way its inhabitants’ resilience and cultural loyalty helped them survive the onslaught of hegemonic pressure to acculturate, to stop being who they were. In these novels, the strangers were very obviously outsiders from the North, Euro-​Americans whose ethos clashed with the mejico-​tejano world but nevertheless adjusted to the local border way of life. By the middle of the twentieth century, writers were mostly documenting life along the border and, because the perspective had shifted, while the stranger was still a foreigner, the othering resulted in an elegant dance where the cultural and the historical intertwined. In novels like Mexican author Margarita Canseco del Valle’s Orquidea Negra (1947) and the Chicano novelist José Antonio Villarreal’s Pocho (1970), the border is present but not essential for the plot: one novel set in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, and the other in California; the protagonists face different obstacles, which they overcome. The authors, coming from different classes and geographical positions, reflect life.

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Inhabiting Nepantla  83 Richard Rubio, the protagonist of Pocho, exists in pre-​WWII California, while the characters of Orquidea Negra exist in a post-​WWII Texas–​ Tamaulipas borderlands. The mid-​twentieth-​century world of their borderlands presages issues of migration and of social justice that will surface in the works of the Chicano Movement. Writers from the twentieth century, like Rolando Hinojosa and Américo Paredes, focused on the masculine view of this world. The former in his Klail City series of narratives and the latter in his short stories and novel, George Washington Gomez, present a border that, albeit contested and immersed in cultural conflict, remains under patriarchal dominion. The ‘Other’ is often the White colonizer coming from the North, whose colonialism is the source of the conflict. But as we go to the late twentieth century, it is women authors who are most often in tune with the ‘Other’ being female and coming from the South. The conflict is no longer only attributed to the militarized zone; the protagonists live in the ‘open wound’ and seek to make sense of history and of the present. At the outset of the twenty-​first century, with particular concerns and issues of borders and of spaces in-​between, writers return to focus on the political and social dimensions that borders entail. Contemporary writers like Felicia Luna Lemus and Reyna Grande, the subjects of the present study, recognize the interstices and the complexities of borders while narrativizing history and migration: Grande’s novels and memoirs span the border in transfronteriza narratives, both autobiographical and fictional; her most recent novel is set during the war that actually creates the border, the US–​Mexican War. Lemus writes about a California queer Chicana experience, and her genderqueer protagonist moves between spaces in California. Both writers, therefore, negotiate the stranger from a different perspective. Grande and Lemus also deal with time and the ways we exist in time and space, in a way “staying with the trouble,” as Haraway would call it, as they reconfigure the process to create bordercrossing protagonists. Again, I am reminded of the ways Indigenous peoples of the Americas, what they are calling Abya Yala—​‘Continent of Life,’ from the Kuna peoples of Panama and Colombia—​and how they see time and history, not in the Western linear fashion, but from a perspective nestled within a historical time and place. Grande’s and Lemus’ protagonists struggle in their lives similarly yet differently from the political struggles of communities in Abya Yala. Yet, they also must engage with being in time and of a space. As one scholar addressing the political struggles of colonized people in Abya Yala from a sociopolitical perspective notes, “the reconfiguration of history, time and memory” is inherent in political struggle: Indigenous and peasant movements conceive history not as linear but as spiraling cycles. Thinking history in cycles allows these movements, on the one hand, to interpret distant collective

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84  Norma E. Cantú memory—​ marked by events, symbolic inheritances, figures that express colonialism’s permanent corporeal violence, the community’s beliefs and knowledges—​and, on the other hand, to present recent collective memories by which they connect to, coexist with, and confront the colonial horizon. (Pinheiro Barbosa 2019, 29–​30) As mentioned earlier, the conception of history, time, and memory, taken from this holistic perspective, questions and shifts the Western weltanschauung and reaches toward what the Aymara mean with ñawpaj manpuni, that “looking backward that is also a moving forward,” that is, simultaneously existing in the past (memory) and imagining the future, and thus creating the present (2019, 29–​30). With this disruption of the Western approach to time (and space), we can return to Donna Haraway’s notions of an expansive view of humans and our planetary context. It too is a holistic view. As she writes, “The biologies, arts, and politics need each other; with sympoiesis for more livable worlds that I call the chthulucene” (2016, 98). Her thinking about “multispecies living and dying on earth at every scale of time and space” (2016, 98) informs my position that the stranger is no longer strange(r) if there is only a vast organic essence; we are all one organism. Taking apart her positions about systemic phenomena, I interject the notions from Anzaldúa and overlay them on Haraway’s expansive perspective. In the two authors’ novels that are the focus of this chapter, we see this notion of time and of history played out differently; yet, their protagonists reside in nepantla, in that in-​between space. Each character inhabits a different border and yet both authors negotiate their own Chicana perspective through protagonists who must contend with being in nepantla, looking backward but moving forward in a present that is a nepantla. Lemus and Grande are very different writers, and their novels reflect that positionality, but what I find most intriguing is that the narratives offer characters whose lives move fluidly across time and space, creating a third space for themselves, a reality that encompasses both a there and a here and a then and a now.

Felicia Luna Lemus’ Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties Lemus’ novel Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties introduces the migration from the country to the city—​from City of Orange to Los Angeles—​and in doing so is establishing a nepantla space for Leticia, the protagonist. Leticia is also in a temporal space between the past and the future in her career post university, as she navigates her new life in Los Angeles. Moreover, her genderfluid identity also exists in an in-​between space. Lemus uses two figures from folklore to signify how a violent past and a fragile present shape her protagonist. Leticia is wont to consider the legendary figures from Mexico La Malinche and La Llorona as her

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Inhabiting Nepantla  85 companions; in fact, “Weeping Woman” (her name for La Llorona) has wandered alongside her since childhood. In one passage, she is juxtaposed with Leticia’s on-​and-​off girlfriend Edith: All that pomp and circumstance, that was just baby play compared to how Weeping Woman demanded I behave. Both of them ladies, Edith and Weeping, they could make my nose bleed with their parched hello kisses. But unlike Edith’s come-​ and-​go attention, Weeping’s special something ruled my everything. (2004, 11) Leticia lets the readers know that it has been “twenty-​some-​odd years” since her grandmother, Nana Lupe, introduced her to “my old lady Weeping,” an ever-​present being that “settled into the crevices of my body” (2004, 11), a fitting choice of words that indicates the embodiment of the cultural figure into her life, her body. The connection to the past, to the Spanish conquest, is evident as Leticia remembers the tale: Weeping Woman traveled by wind in the night, stopping at windows and howling deep and mournful wails because she was bad and wanted to take bad children to be her own. She was the Weeping because she birthed a little girl whose father was a Spaniard. She cried because she had a mixed baby, one her Indian family and neighborhood despised. That is why she threw her little girl into the river that storming night, the night when the lightning’s gleam on her baby’s hazel eyes finally drove her mad. The Weeping Woman, she cried because she is la Malinche reborn. (18) Leticia continues, explaining how La Malinche and Weeping Woman are cousins and constitute aspirational goals for they are “bad, bad, bad girls … their fierce rebel lasting power made people remember them long after they had died. They were everything I wanted to be” (19). As the narrative unfolds, we learn that Leticia has moved away from her grandmother’s house in the City of Orange where she grew up, orphaned when her parents died in an accident. When Nana Lupe dies, she is free of La Weeping as well. She has transitioned to a life in Los Angeles, leaving the past behind. But her future is still precarious and is being shaped even as the novel ends, with no sense of resolution for the young genderqueer character whose life remains firmly tied to the past, but with the potentiality of a path going forward in Los Angeles. In some sense, Leticia is in nepantla—​as are many Chicanxs who inhabit the United States’ contemporary world while also situated within their past, the Indigenous world of Mexico and the Southwest. They inhabit a space where they are both the stranger and not. She is in more ways than one the cosmopolitan stranger, situated in a new space, yet retaining

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86  Norma E. Cantú the old, constantly shifting from that past to the present and pointing to a future. When she and her girlfriend K move to what she describes as a “gingerbread” house in a part of Los Angeles called Elysian Fields, Lemus signals the future where the past—​ Indigenous and European—​ melds into a third time and space. In addition to the geographical nepantla of moving from Orange City to Los Angeles, is Lemus’ portrayal of the nepantla aspects of gender. Leticia’s nepantilism goes beyond the spatial into the conception of gender and her genderfluid identity. As affirmed earlier in this chapter, the cosmopolitan stranger is one who exists in a global sense without a fixed location, and we can claim that Leticia is such. Specifically, for Lemus, her protagonist exists in that third space akin to what Marotta calls an existential condition (2017)—​in other words, Lemus places Leticia at the crux of three axes: gender, urban/​rural, and age.7 She is a young adult trying on her adult wings, as it were, flying away from her Nana and her home in City of Orange to Los Angeles, as well as being in the throes of asserting a gender fluid positionality. Leticia’s genderqueer identity, according to Chicana literary critic Jackie Cuevas, “becomes the central aspect of her character’s identity struggles” (2008, 84). As she situates Leticia on a gender spectrum, Lemus acknowledges the in-​ betweenness of her genderqueer identity: Leticia signifies gender fluid or gender non-​ conforming subjectivity. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, for many, the differences are significant. I would venture to say that Leticia becomes a stranger to Nana Lupe, who cannot understand and confronts Leticia, questioning her choices, even as she becomes a stranger to those she meets in Los Angeles, who also deem her a stranger, an outsider. Given the way Lemus is developing Leticia’s character as one in nepantla, it is not surprising that she has Leticia questioning her positionality along that gender spectrum through her language choices: Leticia refers to herself variously as dyke, boy, boy-​girl, femme, and princess. Her style of dress acts as a signifier of that fluidity, that in-​ betweenness. She wears pearls to remind herself of the ‘princess’ her great-​grandmother believes her to be but buys boy clothes at what Nana Lupe calls “Willies”—​the goodwill/​charity shop—​and mixes masculine and feminine clothes, thus creating an even more complex identity for herself. But, as Cuevas points out, the other characters also play with gender in political movidas, strategic and yet unplanned as such, in order to disrupt expectations (2008, 84). Lemus’ protagonist can thus be seen to be in nepantla on various levels, even as she is the cosmopolitan stranger.8 As I pointed out earlier, in addition to the genderqueer identity, Leticia occupies two geographies and times simultaneously: her present—​Los Angeles—​and her past—​the City of Orange. The indigenous tales of La Weeping/​Malinche are in her past and in her present, as are the Eurocentric myths; she inhabits a cultural mestizaje. She exists in her own third space where she can be a third gender. Critic Jason

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Inhabiting Nepantla  87 A. Bartles points out that Leticia exists in a place of in-​betweenness when she moves with K to Elysian Park: Elysian Park is named for the Elysian Fields of the ancient Greeks. Unbeknownst to Nana, it has also been a major gay Latino cruising ground within the urban landscape of Los Angeles. It is located alongside Dodger Stadium within Chavez Ravine, an area whose complex and troubled history features the violent uprooting and displacement of its Chicana/​o community. In this sense the park serves as a connection between K’s Greek ancestry and Leticia’s Chicana/​o cultural heritage. (2004, 115) In addition to dress and other signifiers, Leticia’s language denotes her outsider status as well as her shift to her LA identity. The narrative strategies that Lemus employs also signal a departure from expected development. For example, Leticia often addresses the reader directly, thus establishing an informal relationship.9 In like fashion, Lemus’ non-​linear and non-​traditional narrative structure offers a parallel to the disruptions on other levels. Trace Elements portrays life in queer Los Angeles, and in so doing the gender nepantla fuses with the nepantla of space and time. As literary critic Amaia Ibarraran-​Bigalondo notes, “novels such as those by Felicia Luna Lemus, Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties (2003) and Like Son (2007), are essential for the performing and widening of gender-​based social fronteras which constrain people of non-​normative gender identities” (2018, 178). These “social fronteras” could be called borders and these characters cross them, albeit not always effortlessly. Leticia chooses to make Los Angeles home, a space where she can be free, where she can heal the wounds—​the wound of being orphaned, of being bullied, of being genderqueer. Readers arrive at the conclusion that Leticia’s nepantla is permanent: she will consistently inhabit a present that is between the past and the future, a land that is between where she came from and where she is going. Her future life in Los Angeles will be shaped by the new relationships and the new space, the gingerbread house, but she will always remain rooted to her past and to Nana Lupe. Leticia is indeed in that “tierra desconocida” that Anzaldúa wrote about in her definition of nepantla, a state that “links us to other ideas, people, and worlds” (2002, 1). Felicia Luna Lemus created a character whose borders are many and throughout the narrative positions her in situations that test and challenge her ability to bridge borders, to survive using the past and envisioning the future. In her novel, the protagonist functions as a bridge even as she herself travels across bridges between two opposites: she spans the generations between Nana Lupe and her friends, she geographically bridges the urban LA scene with the slightly less urban City of Orange of her childhood, and she bridges the gendered binary of male and female

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88  Norma E. Cantú with her genderqueer identity. In her position as a bridge, she is also the stranger who is in an in-​between space and thus able to traverse freely across binaries, although not always without grief of some sort. The most obvious bridging is the generational divide that exists between her world with Nana Lupe and her new world of friends in Los Angeles. It is the traditional cultural elements, such as the tales and legends, that assist in her bridging the two seemingly disparate positions. Even in Los Angeles, she goes back to the memory of how not only Nana Lupe, but also Estrella, her great-​grandmother, told her stories as a tool for survival. It is Estrella who tells her a tale that allows her to reconcile her own sense of worth and the bullying she is subjected to at school; she returns to the story to survive the displacement and angst that she finds in Los Angeles. The geographical divide represents yet another binary, but Lemus has Leticia rise above this apparently insurmountable division through friends and relationships. It is the connection with the people in the spaces that provide the bridge; she is living sin fronteras, as Anzaldua’s poem “To Live in the Borderlands” advocates. And finally, her genderqueer identity, where her real self manifests, is also a bridging, a coming together of two apparent opposites, melded into a new identity, one that aligns with Leticia’s true self and is signified in the clothes she wears. Lemus’ protagonist is in nepantla, and her existence across the various bridges informs the way the past and the future are bridged by the present, the nepantla state of being, where one is neither here nor there but existing in both at once. The novel is at once a twenty-​first-​century coming-of-age narrative—​albeit the protagonist is not the typical teenager, in fact not a teenager at all—​and an exploration of how one negotiates ‘adulting’ as a marginal subject. Leticia is in tierra desconocida and about to find a place to call home, about to arrive at a status where she is no longer the stranger.

Reyna Grande’s A Ballad of Love and Glory The characters in Reyna Grande’s latest novel, Ballad of Love and Glory (2022), similarly inhabit tierra desconocida and experience a war that will change their lives forever, but in an act of defiance and survival may through their love heal the wound, or at least begin to heal their own wounds. This historical novel is well crafted, chronological, sequential, with the backdrop of history and foregrounding a love story that signifies hope. In this her first historical novel, Grande weaves a tale of love amid the war between the United States and Mexico. The novel is set in the borderlands of South Texas, a nepantla geographically located in the contested terrain that is the reason for the war. The protagonists, Ximena Salome and John Riley, an Irishman who is a mercenary fighting with the US Army under Zachary Taylor, stayed in my mind long after I had read the novel: I kept thinking that we who live on the border in South Texas are the descendants of those who, like

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Inhabiting Nepantla  89 Ximena and John, inhabited these lands along the Rio Grande at the time of the war that made the Rio Grande the border between Mexico and the United States. Because I am living in the spaces where the novel takes place, where indeed the historical events occurred, I feel a certain kinship with and acknowledgement of the land. Furthermore, the idea of the past existing in the present and shaping the future in an elegant spiral dance surfaces as if from deep waters to show that, indeed, the temporal nepantla is present in the novel. Like her earlier work, Dancing with Butterflies (2009) and Across a Hundred Mountains (2006), Grande’s storytelling follows a predictable arc. Unlike the work in her autobiographical pieces, however, she allows herself to be poetic. The attention to detail is still there and so is the voice that, perhaps because I know it well, I can ‘hear’ when I read the words. As the novel opens in March of 1846, we are introduced to Ximena, whose husband, Joaquin, is killed by the Texas Rangers; widowed, she must fend for herself in the aftermath of the battles between the US and Texian forces and the Mexican population of the region. Grande weaves together stories on three levels: the military battles, the divided loyalties, and the women’s experiences. To present a tapestry that depicts a full-​fledged historical event but with threads that may not have been included in earlier weavings of the familiar tale, Grande uses history. For instance, the Irish are rarely mentioned in discussions of the border, rarely acknowledged for their sacrifice, yet their presence is indisputable. So many perished, killed in a foreign and alien land. These soldiers so far from home constitute another kind of stranger. They were certainly strangers to the land, neither accustomed to the weather nor to the language or the people. As an Irishman, John Riley is also a stranger to this land; as an immigrant, he and his fellow soldiers face severe discrimination from the Yankee soldiers and must contend with inhospitable terrain as well as aggression from their own fellow soldiers. The liminality of their position is made clearer as the novel progresses and more and more of the Irish soldiers desert to join the Mexican Army. Unlike Lemus, Grande is an immigrant to the United States herself and as such experienced much of the ‘othering’ that this population knows only too well. The wounds that she documents in her fiction tend to be personal and specific to crossing the border. When writing about John Riley, she has said that she thought of her father, who also left his homeland seeking a better life for his family (personal communication). Riley is definitely the stranger, the Other, the one who despite being honorable and decent, honoring his religion, his culture, and the ethos of his home country, must face the reality of being an outsider, of not being considered good enough. He must endure the biases and discrimination that are often foisted upon the outsider. His language is made fun of, and he must learn to live within the confines of a new world order where he is dehumanized and at the mercy of those who despise him. He yearns for his homeland yet realizes he will never return. He is in nepantla.

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90  Norma E. Cantú As for Ximena, we find out early in the novel that it is not the first time that she has had to flee her home and go south to Matamoros; after the Texas Revolt, her father had lost everything, and now it was she and her husband who would lose everything. She is displaced again and must leave Rancho Los Mesteños. While she is not necessarily a stranger to the land she travels to in Mexico, she is not entirely at home. But she is a strong woman who makes her way in the world and through the healing arts, she manages to serve and survive. Here we can return to the idea of healing and how the third space allows for the healing of the wound, either the border wound that Anzaldúa referred to or the soul healing that Grande’s protagonist undergoes. Although Ximena has for all practical purposes lost everything, she retains her love for the land and learns to see the healing power of love. The wound that has been created by the rupturing of the land through a military encounter will persist, but not in her heart. It is through her actions and her third space positionality that she can provide both literal physical healing and, with her love, a healing of the wound that results in the disruption created by cultural difference. I am reminded of Chela Sandoval, who in her book Methodology of the Oppressed calls for “Amor en Aztlan” (2000, 182) and sees how myriad approaches, technologies to use her word, operate. She writes, All these technologies together, when also joined to those of differential social movement and to those of differential consciousness, operate as a single apparatus that I call the physics of love. Love as social movement is enacted by revolutionary, mobile, and global coalitions of citizen-​activists who are allied through the apparatus of emancipation. (2000, 183) Unlike Sandoval, Anzaldúa calls for a bridge to enable the subject who is still in nepantla to get across the proverbial river, the wound. Where Sandoval on some level sees resolution, Anzaldúa sees perpetual systemic oppressions that exacerbate the individual’s questioning. After an encounter with Santa Anna in a visit to his chambers, Ximena realizes that her options are few, and she must fight for her love if she is to survive. Everything has been lost. The Irish who are killed weigh on her as does her husband’s death and that of the many who have died in the war and whom she has not been able to succor with her herbs and her prayers. Haraway’s ideas of a unified and holistic existence become evident in Grande’s attention to Ximena’s interactions with animals and with her intimate knowledge of medicinal plants. The link is through Nana Hortencia, whose indigenous knowledge Ximena inherits. In the narrative, stories hold a certain magic. As in Lemus, the figure of the grandmother, in this case Nana Hortencia, signifies the past:

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Inhabiting Nepantla  91 [Ximena] loved the time she spent with her grandmother, learning about curanderismo and the healing power of plants. She liked the stories her grandmother told of the old ways, of her ancestral tribe, the Pajalat, who had been displaced from their homeland when the Spanish arrived, stories of Nana’s childhood in the mission along the Río San Antonio, of her forced marriage to a Spanish soldier when she and her family had tried to run away from the missionaries. But Nana Hortencia didn’t linger on the sadness of those moments. Instead, she taught Ximena to focus on the wonders and magic all around her. How to listen. (2022, 41–​42) Stories indeed hold a certain magic, but so does Ximena’s life, entwined as it is with the historical events of her day. She has Nana Hortencia to guide her and teach her how to navigate this new world and her devastating losses. In despair and depressed after her husband Joaquin is killed and she and Nana Hortencia are in Matamoros, Ximena cannot cry: “It is as if her tears had hardened inside her” (113). Nana Hortencia misinterprets her inability to cry as shame and assures her, “there is no shame in crying, my niña. Even the trees know that.” She is referring to the sap of the mesquite, the trees that Ximena says, “look as if they’re crying” (113). Nana Hortencia had been there during the previous evacuation when Ximena’s family along with 200 others had fled San Antonio leaving all their lands and possessions, and she is with her now when she loses it all again. A chance encounter with Juan Seguin, who had been a hero of the Rebellion, allows Grande to fill in the history of how the Tejanos had fared in that failed uprising. It is Seguin who voices it: “Once the smoke cleared after the rebellion, we Tejanos became foreigners in our own land, and I like your father had to leave Texas and abandon all for what I had fought to become a wanderer” (103; emphasis added). Immersed in the political and military maneuvers that result in the defeat of the Mexican army, the protagonists of Grande’s novel bring hope despite the horrors and sorrows they endure. It is no accident that Ximena is a healer, and the epigraph, a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier where she is described, further reflects that she is angelic and heroic. She, like Leticia, is a nepantlera, living in the interstices, en tierra desconocida; however, she inhabits that nepantla space, makes it her own. But can a nepantlera find happiness? Is she not, by definition, always displaced, always searching? The novel traces her story for the entire duration of the war. When Joaquin is killed and when Riley is near death, we see Ximena’s strength. She navigates the precarious existence with the help of her grandmother and later the help of the priest whom she assists as well. The protagonists of both novels, Leticia and Ximena, exist in time, to be sure, but they transcend it as they engage the “technologies” Sandoval examines to better assess and shape their futures. In her new home in

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92  Norma E. Cantú Los Angeles, Leticia will leave the past behind—​la Weeping too has left her—​and Ximena will fold her memories into her heart and leave the past behind as she and John Riley go into the future, a future mired in the past and that will still hold vestiges of the violence, of the cruelty, and the sorrows of the war and of a life lived along the wound. In the two texts that are at the center of my discussion, I have identified that stranger who is not alien and yet is. Lemus’ Leticia and Grande’s Ximena are strangers in their own land and remain outside and marginal while situated in their own space, their own geography. The notion of the cosmopolitan stranger takes on a wider meaning: they are at once of the land and not. They traverse geographical spaces, and their marginal worlds cohere into a bridge, a space of confluence. As fiction writers, the onus is on us to reflect the realities of our times and to imagine, and thus create, the future, for, as Anzaldúa observes, “nothing happens in the ‘real’ world unless it first happens in the images in our heads” (2021, 157). Our task, then, is to present the images of a world where the border is no longer a dangerous contested space. Chicana novels not only have deployed several narrative strategies to tell our stories, stories of relationships, but also of dissolution, of abandonment, stories that rely on the reader’s willingness to recognize self in the narrator’s predicament, or perhaps merely in situations that mimic the real world. Lemus’ and Grande’s protagonists may occupy different locations in time—​ different centuries in fact—​but they nevertheless remain located in an interstice of geopolitical spaces, of time and space. Leticia’s movements within California across a time span that includes her Nana Lupe’s death seems to parallel Ximena’s movements in South Texas and Northern Mexico, which also include her Nana’s death. They both must move on, and both must situate their new reality within relationships, Leticia with K and Ximena with John Riley, relationships that are part of their dependence on the “intimacy of strangers” for survival, for generating new worlds.

Notes 1 “Nepantla” is a key concept in Anzaldúa’s idea of the in-​between space that mestizxs occupy; it is a place of transformation, a third space. See a discussion of the term in Anzaldúa’s work in the Critical Edition (2021, 147). Mignolo (2000) also uses the concept in laying out an analysis of the border from a cultural studies perspective. 2 Basing her work on Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda, Laura Rendón further develops this idea of sentipensante, albeit in reference to pedagogy. 3 Sociologist Lia Pinheiro Barbosa discusses this notion in her article on Latin American social movements. I take this idea of “the reconfiguration of history, time, and memory” from her work, as she sees “colonialism’s permanent corporeal violence” as being linked to Indigenous and peasant movements (2019, 30).

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Inhabiting Nepantla  93 4 For a discussion of space and border writing, see Mary Pat Brady’s Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space (2002). 5 Simmel’s discussion of the triad elaborates on the various locations the third occupies along a social schema including its role in conflict resolution. See Simmel’s “The Triad,” in The Sociology of Georg Simmel (1950, 145–​155). 6 See Borderlands, Critical Edition (2021, 147). 7 Unlike Sandoval and Anzaldúa, Simmel’s ideas of the third space point to a philosophical alienation that results in yet another binary logic while resisting the either/​ or dichotomy. Anzaldúa’s is a sociopolitical positioning while Sandoval relies on the third space for a feminism that is at the intersections of race, class, gender, and other oppressions. 8 Yvonne Yarbro-​Bejarano (2013) and Domino Renee Perez (2008) both find in Leticia an eroticism they deem a dominatrix. While critical scholarship on Simmel does not identify gender as a dimension of strange(r)ness, I believe the social dimensions of Simmel’s analysis does allow for such a conclusion, especially insofar as his heteronormative binaries seem fixed on the third element, a synthesis or third space location between opposites. 9 For a discussion of Lemus’ language use and discourse strategies, see Cuevas (2008, 84–​86).

References Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2002. Preface to (Un)natural Bridges, (Un)safe Spaces. In This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and AnaLouise Keating, 1–​5. Philadelphia, PA: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2021. Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza: The Critical Edition. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books. Bartles, Jason A. 2014. “A Queer Chicana/​o Ethics of Representation: Rasquache Camp in the Novels of Rechy and Luna Lemus.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39 (1): 105–​132. Canseco del Valle, Margarita. 1947. Orquidea Negra. Monterrey, N.L: Impresora del Norte. Cuevas, T. Jackie. 2008. “Transing Chicanidad.” In Post-​Borderlandia: Chicana Literature and Gender Variant Critique, 77–​99. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Florentine Codex, Book 12, Ch 01 | Early Nahuatl Library. May 11, 2021. enl. uoregon.edu. González, Jovita, and Eve Raleigh. 1996. Caballero: A Historical Novel. Laredo: Texas A&M University Press. Grande, Reyna. 2007 (2006). Across a Hundred Mountains. New York: Washington Square Press. —​—​—​. 2009. Dancing with Butterflies: A Novel. New York: Washington Square Press. —​—​—​. 2022. A Ballad of Love and Glory. New York: Atria Books. Haraway, Donna. 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ibarraran-​Bigalondo, Amaia. 2018. “The Thin Frontera between Visibility and Invisibility.” Atlantis 40 (1): 175–​192.

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94  Norma E. Cantú Lemus, Felicia Luna. 2004 (2003). Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties. New York: Seal Press. Marotta, Vince. 2017. Theories of the Stranger: Debates on Cosmopolitanism, Identity and Cross-​Cultural Encounters. Oxon and New York: Routledge. Mignolo, Walter. 2000. Local Histories, Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. New Haven, CT: Princeton University Press. Paredes, Américo. 1990. George Washington Gomez. Houston: Arte Público Press. Perez, Domino Renee. 2008. There Was a Woman–​La Llorona from Folklore to Popular Culture. Austin, TX: University of Texas. Pinheiro Barbosa, Lia. 2019. “The Sentipensante and Revolutionary Pedagogies of Latin American Social Movements.” In The Pedagogies of Social Movements in the Americas. Latin American Philosophy of Education Society. Lápiz 4. www.lapes.org/​lapiz-​no-​4 Sandoval, Chela. 2000. Methodology of the Oppressed. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Simmel, Georg. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Translated and edited by Kurt H. Wolff. New York: The Free Press. www.goo​gle.com/​books/​edit​ ion/​The_​So​ciol​ogy_​of_​G​eorg​_​Sim​mel/​Ha2aB​qS41​5YC?hl=​en&gbpv=​1&dq=​ georg+​sim​mel+​sociol​ogy&pg=​PR17&print​sec=​fro​ntco​ver Villarreal, José Antonio. 1970 (1959). Pocho. New York City: Anchor. Yarbro-​Bejarano, Yvonne. 2013. “Queer Storytelling and Temporality in Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties by Felicia Luna Lemus.” In Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 38 (1): 73–​93. Zamora O’Shea, Elena. 2000 (1935). El Mesquite: A Story of the Early Settlementnts Between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. Volume 4 Rio Grande/​Río Bravo: Borderlands Culture and Traditions. Laredo: Texas A&M University Press.

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5 The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality in Jennine Capó Crucet’s Make Your Home Among Strangers and My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education Michael Grafals

This chapter develops a conceptual linkage between Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of nepantla and Hannah Arendt’s cosmopolitan conception of critical thinking through a reading of Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel Make Your Home Among Strangers (2015) and her collection of personal essays My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education (2019). Capó Crucet narrates in both these texts the cosmopolitan Latinx becoming of a second-generation Cuban American, as she moves back-and-forth between her Miami Cuban enclave and Latinx positions outside of Miami. In Hannah Arendt’s formulation, subjects who undergo processes of critical thinking adopt the position of Kant’s world citizen, someone who thinks and acts in an imaginative space that is potentially public, which corresponds with Gloria Anzaldúa’s imaginative space of nepantla, where subjects undergo the anguish of changing perspectives and creating new relations with the world. The chapter concludes by further developing the relationship between cosmopolitanism and estrangement in Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s concepts to the notion of Latinangst (a term borrowed from Eliana Rivero’s Cubangst) that Capó Crucet implicitly envisions as necessary in the process of creating new cosmopolitan Latinx subjectivities.

Introduction In Gloria Anzaldúa’s writings, her concept of nepantla has the status of a conceptual knot, binding together several other concepts like la facultad and el conocimiento. Nepantla is variously described as a “psychological, liminal space between the way things had been and an unknown future” (Anzaldúa 2015, 17), as a “birthing stage where you feel like you’re reconfiguring your identity and don’t know where you are” (2000, 225–​226), and as a way “to talk about the creative act … to talk about the construction of identity [and] to describe a function of the mind” (2000, 176). A central concept in US–​Latinx critical theory, nepantla has DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-6

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96  Michael Grafals much in common with the notion of natality and the concept of critical thinking in the political theory of Hannah Arendt, both of which also act as conceptual knots in her writings. Both thinkers thought of their foundational concepts as establishing a relationship between critical thinking, narrative testimony, and the emergence of new political subjectivities. Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s concepts point toward a transcendental cosmopolitanism in narratives by writers identifying as Latinx: a cosmopolitanism that emerges from a narrative critique of inherited conceptions of the world, typically transmitted from previous generations. Turning to Jennine Capó Crucet’s novel Make Your Home Among Strangers (2015) and her collection of essays My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education (2019), I argue that Capó Crucet’s writings exemplify Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s theories of critical thinking as existential cultural critique. As Arendt argues, subjects who undergo processes of critical thinking adopt “the position of Kant’s world citizen,” someone who thinks and acts “in a space that is potentially public, open to all sides” (1992, 42), which in Anzaldúa’s writings corresponds to the imaginative space of nepantla, where subjects “undergo the anguish of changing our perspectives … leading to a different way of relating to people and surroundings and others to the creation of a new world” (2015, 17). I conclude this chapter by conceptualizing the Latinangst of unbelonging that Capó Crucet envisions as necessary in the process of creating new cosmopolitan Latinx subjectivities.

Cuban–​American Testimony/​Latinx Autohistoria Jennine Capó Crucet belongs to what has been called Miami’s second-​ generation of Cuban–​American writers. As Iraida H. López notes, generational parameters “seem right for Cuban migrants” as they call to mind “a series of key historical events and common experiences” related to the Cuban Revolution, Cold War exilic politics, and the exceptional refugee status afforded to parents of the second generation (2019, xii). For López, second-​generation writers tend to “go beyond [the] Cold War, anti-​Castro rhetoric” of the previous generation while “acquiring more of an immigrant stance in their search for a more judicious and nuanced approach to Cuban America” (2019, xxiv). This critical identification with the position of the immigrant is seen in Capó Crucet’s essay “¡Nothing Is Impossible in America!”, which gives an account of her inculcation into her parents’ assimilationist work ethic. In it, she describes the attitude toward work of parents raised by a generation of Cubans fleeing dictatorship and given the status of political refugees in the United States: “In America, you might work like an animal, but you mostly get to keep what you work for” (2019, 28). This expectation to “work like an animal” resonates with Hannah Arendt’s description of the animal laborans, a mode of labor that threatens the loss of an engaged community or polis. The individual in this mode of labor becomes

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  97 submerged in the over-​all life process of the species and the only active decision still required of the individual [is] to let go, so to speak, to abandon his individuality, the still individually sensed pain and trouble of living, and acquiesce in a dazed, ‘tranquilized,’ functional type of behavior. (2018, 322) In her book The Human Condition (1958), Arendt contrasts this mode of labor with “the revelatory character of action,” which reveals an engaged community through the individual’s “ability to produce stories and become historical, which together form the very source from which meaningfulness springs into and illuminates human existence” (2018, 324). Arendt describes the act of natality as the task every new generation has of becoming historical and intervening into the sense of history of previous generations. As theorized by Arendt, giving testimony exemplifies the creative thinking process of adopting a critical interpretation of the past, one that can keep record of a “path paved by thinking” leading toward a new future (2006, 13). Capó Crucet’s works pave just such a critical path toward Latinx natality, especially for newcoming Latinx generations. We first turn to an analysis of the essays from My Time Among the Whites, since they offer various exercises or meditations on the experience of Latinx critical thinking. Like Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Capó Crucet’s My Time Among the Whites uses the genre of the personal essay to critique the sense of history and identity of her parents’ generation. Anzaldúa and Capó Crucet both narrate how they came to create a new hybrid subjectivity out of their experience of breaking away from an inherited perspective on the world. Anzaldúa termed her essays “autohistoria” or “autohistoria-​ teoría.” She code-​ switches between Spanish and English in her description of this genre: “Conectando experiencias personales con realidades sociales [connecting personal experiences with social realities] results in autohistoria, and theorizing about this activity results in autohistoria-​teoría” ( 2015, 6). Arendt’s theory of intergeneration natality resonates with how Anzaldúa describes autohistoria: Your culture gives you your identity story, pero un buscado rompimiento con la tradición [but by discovering a break with tradition] you create an alternative identity story … [The story] enters into the dialogue between the new story and the old and attempts to revise the master story. (2015, 6–​7) Capó Crucet’s title My Time Among the Whites recalls colonialist ethnographies like G.T. Basden’s Among the Ibos of Nigeria (1921) and signals a critique of the legacy of the ‘master story’ of the white colonialist

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98  Michael Grafals gaze. Basden, for instance, positions the Igbo people as lacking in any thought that goes beyond the tribe: He is the victim of circumstance, and his policy is very largely one of drift. The will of the tribe or family, expressed or implied, permeates his whole being, and is the deciding factor in every detail of his life. (qtd. in Gikandi 1991, 28) Capó Crucet implicitly subverts this colonialist framework of cultural difference, training her focus on the capacity of Latinx subjects to think outside of both their inherited cultures and whiteness as a framework of identification that mutes engagement with cultural differences.

Nepantla and the Cosmopolitan Imagination Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s theories help bring into focus how Capó Crucet participates in a heritage of critique that is bound up with the concept of the cosmopolitan subject. Hannah Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (delivered in 1970) elaborates on Immanuel Kant’s notion of the “enlargement of the mind” in his Critique of Judgment. Arendt (1992, 43) links the process of critical thinking with the Kantian cosmopolitan subject: Critical thinking is possible only where the standpoints of all others are open to inspection. Hence, critical thinking, while still a solitary business, does not cut itself off from ‘all others.’ To be sure, it still goes on in isolation, but by the force of imagination it makes the others present and thus moves in a space that is potentially public, open to all sides; in other words, it adopts the position of Kant’s world citizen. To think with an enlarged mentality means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting. It is useful to now juxtapose Arendt’s definition of the enlarged mind of critical thinking with Anzaldúa’s description of nepantla: Perceiving something from two different angles creates a split in awareness that can lead to the ability to control perception, to balance contemporary society’s worldview with the nonordinary worldview, and to move between them to a space that simultaneously exists and does not exist. I call entering this realm ‘nepantla.’ (2015, 28) Both conceptions of critical and creative thinking describe the movement of the imagination to a representational space that transcends an ordinary worldview, creating a critical perspective that moves toward a new space of greater plurality. In Arendt’s theory of thinking developed in The Life

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  99 of the Mind (1978), entering this representational space entails a withdrawal of the self from the immediate world of appearances, the loss of a feeling of realness given by common sense, and an actualization of difference in identity (1978, 193). The subject thus takes on “the life of a stranger” (53), a term Arendt takes from Aristotle’s conception of the philosopher as bios xenikos. While acknowledging the “self-​destructive tendency” (53) thinking has on the subject’s relation to the world, Arendt theorizes the liberating effect thinking has on the faculty of judgment and the ability to enter reality more reflectively. The relation between thinking and judgment is crucial to how subjects situate themselves historically, especially in moments Arendt (borrowing from Karl Jaspers) terms “boundary situations,” when subjects struggle against the limits of their life span by reflecting on their past and future, making judgments about them and forming projects of the will through this process of critique (192). Many of the essays in My Time Among the Whites describe such boundary situations, where Capó Crucet as narrator must make her way between perspectives inherited from a previous Cuban–​American generation and US ideological fantasies that threaten the unique position of Latinx subjects. The essays often enact the experience of nepantla as Anzaldúa articulates it in the following description: What cracked is our perception of the world, how we relate to it, how we engage with it. Afterward we view reality differently—​we see through its rendijas (holes) to the illusion of consensual reality. The world as we know it ‘ends.’ We experience a radical shift in perception, otra forma de ver. (2015, 16) In her essay “Magic Kingdoms,” Capó Crucet explores her conflicted desires toward the amusement park Disney World. After she has been through college, she describes how the beloved Disney World of her childhood is transformed into a disturbingly white, patriarchal, heteronormative fantasy world. But she ascribes a redeeming quality to the now-​defunct Great Movie Ride. The ride was a slow-​moving tram that would transport its passengers to the middle of recreated scenes from classic films. The tram would then pretend to stall in one of the movies, and the tram’s guide would be replaced by a menacing movie character who would hijack the vehicle and narrate a portion of the ride in a safely threatening way before the guide finally saves the tram from the menacing intruder (Capó Crucet 2019, 48). She explains how the ride became a metaphor for her identity as a Cuban–​American writer: I got to be simultaneously part of stories I loved and part of a new story happening in real time—​ a chaotic one that stemmed from the interrupted dream of the first one. The ride was, essentially, a

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100  Michael Grafals metaphor for my existence as the American-​born daughter of Cuban refugees. (48) Capó Crucet’s metaphor describes the task of interrupting the dream of the previous generation through her identification with both the trusty tour guide and the menacing presence that interrupts the narrative. Like Arendt’s characterization of Franz Kafka, a writer who wrestled with both Jewish and European traditions, Capó Crucet’s writings also have a “peculiar duality of wanting to preserve and wanting to destroy” inherited perspectives on the world (Arendt 2007b, 14).

The Aesthetics of Latinx Judgment and the Critique of Whiteness Many of the essays in My Time Among the Whites articulate Latinx subjectivity as linked to a critique of whiteness. Whiteness for Capó Crucet does not refer specifically to white people; rather, whiteness is critiqued as an unconscious framework of identification that, while presuming a sense of cultural neutrality, implicitly centers whiteness as the ‘universal’ norm. Her essay “Imagine Me Here, Or How I Became a Professor” describes the insularity of Miami’s Cuban enclave, how even though Spanish is spoken there as much as English, Miami’s enclave implicitly centers the Cuban–​American experience. For Capó Crucet, this correlates with the framework of whiteness: “In Miami, eventually, we were the whites” (2019, 158). This claim is clarified in a previous essay: “To be Cuban in Miami was to be a kind of white, with all the privileges and sense of cultural neutrality whiteness affords” (82). But while Cuban identity is asserted as a cultural norm in Miami, the author describes her one-​and-​a-​ half generation parents as desiring a position of US American whiteness for their children (40). This is evident in her parents’ naming of Jennine after the Miss Arizona beauty queen Jineane Ford, a runner-​up in the 1980 Miss USA pageant. Her parents’ naming practice is linked to the one-​and-​a-​half generation’s desire for their children to be assimilated into US white society (29). The effect this dream fantasy has, however, is to isolate second-​generation Cuban Americans from empathizing with an extended cosmopolitan Latinx collectivity, preventing them from acting against a system where the exclusion of Latinx identity is a “fundamental premise in its initial design” (173–​174). Capó Crucet positions her writing in the gap between fantasy worlds: between the fantasy of a lost Cuba her parents’ generation built in her mind (63) and a Disney fantasy that asserts itself as a complete and whitewashed system (58). Her positioning in-​between the gaps of social fantasies closely corresponds with Anzaldúa’s description of the space of nepantla:

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  101 Nepantla is the place where my cultural and personal codes clash, where I come up against the world’s dictates, where these different worlds coalesce in my writing … Nepantlas are places of constant tension, where the missing or absent pieces can be summoned back, where transformation and healing may be possible. (2015, 2) In contrast to the space of nepantla, the framework of whiteness is seen as operating in the version of fantasy provided by Disney World, where “experience is forcefully and convincingly centered, while simultaneously, it’s coarse-​grained in a way that strips you (and your celebration) of its uniqueness” (Capó Crucet 2019, 49). For the writer, this mode of fantasy lays the groundwork for the adoption of whiteness as a mode of identification for Cuban Americans. Capó Crucet’s essay “Say I Do” has a description of an ideal wedding DJ that serves as a contrast to her description of the centering function of whiteness. The essay describes the difficulty of finding a Miami DJ for her wedding that could cater to the guests of her white groom as well as her Miami–​Cuban family. The description resonates with Arendt’s conception of judgment (which she draws from Kant’s theory of aesthetic reflective judgment1) and can be interpreted as a metaphor for the play of perspectives focalized by the narrator-​protagonist of Capó Crucet’s novel Make Your Home Among Strangers. At her wedding, Capó Crucet needed a DJ who could curate her reception so that it would become an event to view “from the outside as spectacle and, usually, with some judgment” (2019, 76). The essay then contrasts this critical engagement with whiteness with the way whiteness inhabits identity. The author describes how she often finds whites who think of themselves as “culture-​ less, as vanilla: plain, boring, American white” (80). This articulation discloses for her how whiteness entails a neutrality that renders race and culture invisible to them (76). As stated above, whiteness for Capó Crucet is an unconscious framework of identification that applies to both whites and the enclave of first-​generation and one-​and-​a-​half generation Miami Cuban Americans. After leaving for college, she comes to discover how she was the only one in her family able to “see what being Latinx meant from the outside” (82). Experiencing Latinx identity outside of Miami allows her to view Cuban–​American and US white culture from a Latinx position of judgment. This position of judgment reflects Arendt’s theory of the pariah in “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition” (1944). In it, she describes Kafka as exemplifying the faculty of critical thought that emerges in the art of a pariah: Thinking is the new weapon—​the only one with which, in Kafka’s opinion, the pariah is endowed at birth in his vital struggle against

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102  Michael Grafals society. It is, indeed, the use of this contemplative faculty as an instrument of self-​preservation that characterizes Kafka’s conception of the pariah. (2007a, 290) In Borderlands/​La Frontera, Anzaldúa similarly conceptualizes what she terms la facultad, described as “the capacity to see in surface phenomena the meaning of deeper realities, to see the deep structure below the surface,” one particularly developed in the figure of the pariah: Those who are pushed out of the tribe for being different are likely to become more sensitized (when not brutalized into insensitivity). Those who do not feel psychologically or physically safe in the world are more apt to develop this sense. (2012, 38) Capó Crucet’s essays position Latinx identity as one that develops an aesthetics of judgment that works against uncritical, ethnocentric frameworks of discrimination. As Arendt suggests in her essay “We Refugees” (1943), the critical perspective of Jewish refugees emerged from a world that brutally wielded discrimination against marginalized subjects: “We actually live in a world in which human beings as such have ceased to exist for quite a while; since society has discovered discrimination as the great social weapon by which one may kill men without any bloodshed” (2007a, 273). Latinx identity for Capó Crucet entails a critical awareness of these frameworks of discrimination.

Latinx Natality and the Theorizing of Cuban–​American Identity In her essay “Imagine Me Here, Or How I Became a Professor,” Capó Crucet writes about leaving Miami to go to Cornell University, where she discovers herself as Latinx. In her description of traveling to and from Miami, she provides an important articulation of the creative process of nepantla, as she experiences the shift from being identified as Latinx in Cornell, to being identified as Cuban in Miami: “This back-​and-​forth, and the friction it causes, marks my holidays, my trips to see my family, my fiction, my sense of who I am. It’s productive and painful” (2019, 159). Capó Crucet here links her fiction to the friction of moving in-​ between different norms of cultural identification. Like Marta Caminero-​ Santangelo’s groundbreaking study On Latinidad (2009), Capó Crucet invites us to see Latinx identity as constructed on the “boundaries of ethnicity”: stories of collective identity “are inevitably battle lines of sorts, designating an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ but which … can shift and be redrawn to suit particular sociohistorical contexts” (2009, 31). Capó Crucet’s parents’ negative perspective on the Latinx community closely corresponds with the

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  103 position of Gustavo Pérez Firmat, perhaps the one-​and-​a-​half generation’s most recognized cultural theorist. For Pérez Firmat, Latino is a statistical fiction, a figment of the imagination of ethnic ideologues, and executives and salsa singers. I am not a Latino. I am Cuban … [To] me a Latino is an empty concept. Latino doesn’t have a culture, a language, a place of origin. (qtd. in Alvarez Borland 1988, 150) Pérez Firmat’s influential Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-​American Way (1995) sees the creative potential of the one-​and-​a-​half generation in the ‘see-​saw’ movement between Cuban and American cultures, as he explains through the notion of biculturation: In my usage, biculturation designates not only contact of cultures; in addition, it describes a situation where the two cultures achieve a balance that makes it difficult to distinguish between the dominant and the subordinate culture … [Biculturation] implies an equilibrium, however tense, precarious, or short-​lived, between the two contributing cultures. Cuban-​American culture is a balancing act. (2012, 5) Capó Crucet and Anzaldúa, however, depart from theorizing Cuban–​ American identity as a “balancing act”; instead, there is a space for the Latinx in the “painful and productive” introduction of a new element transcending the hyphen, as Anzaldúa describes in Borderlands: In attempting to work out a synthesis, the self has added a third element which is greater than the sum of its severed parts. That third element is a new consciousness—​a mestiza consciousness—​and though it is a source of intense pain, its energy comes from continual creative motion that keeps breaking down the unitary aspect of each new paradigm. (2012, 79–​80) In Pérez Firmat’s description of the second generation, there is no space for the emergence of a third form of Latinidad: “Although technically they belong to the so-​called ABC generation (American-​Born Cubans), they are Cubans in name only, in last name. A better acronym would be the reverse, CBA (Cuban-​Bred Americans)” (2012, 4). Pérez Firmat’s conception of “Cuban-​Bred Americans” is at play in Capó Crucet’s novel Make Your Home Among Strangers when the protagonist’s father tells his second-​generation daughter, “You’re not Cuban … Don’t look at me like that! … You’re American. I’m wrong?” When she replies, “I was born here, yeah, but I’m Cuban. I’m Latina at least,” he responds, “Latinos are Mexicans, Central Americans. You’re not that either” (2015, 314).

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104  Michael Grafals While Pérez Firmat’s project is meant to stabilize the sense of identity of the one-​and-​a-​half generation (note his emphasis on “equilibrium”), both Anzaldúa’s and Arendt’s projects are committed to a creative motion that keeps breaking down (or in Arendt’s view, discloses anew) cultural identity. Both thinkers associate this creative disclosure of identity with a cosmopolitan subjectivity. In a 1983 interview conducted by Christine Weiland, Anzaldúa notes her outsider status among lesbian Chicana activists: But I’m sure that with the Chicana dykes I’ve met, I’m odd, an outcast. Because a lot of them are nationalists and I don’t believe in nationalism; I’m a citizen of the universe. I think it’s good to claim your ethnic identity and your racial identity. But it’s also the source of all the wars and all the violence, all these borders and walls people erect. (2000, 118) While Anzaldúa often writes about the construction of identity, it is useful to make a theoretical distinction between identity and subjectivity. Film theorist Hilary Neroni has a helpful formulation, which she draws from film theory and French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s conception of the subject and his critique of the ego: Identification is a concept that is fraught a priori because it is tied to a conception of identity as a wholeness and thus as always ideological. But identity is not the final word on subjectivity. The subject is not simply the identity that it takes up. More fundamentally, it is a desire that emerges when identity falls apart. (2016, 35) In Arendt’s The Life of the Mind, she describes the “thinking ego” in terms comparable to Lacan’s conception of the subject: The thinking activity arise[s]‌from the fact of withdrawal, inherent in all mental activities; thinking always deals with absences and removes itself from what is present and close at hand … The thinking ego, moving among universals, among invisible essences, is, strictly speaking, nowhere; it is homeless in an emphatic sense—​which may explain the rise of a cosmopolitan spirit among the philosophers. (1978, 199) Arendt’s reading of Kant’s world citizen allows a revisiting of Capó Crucet’s passage above concerning her “productive and painful” movement between college at Cornell and Miami. Latinx subjectivity can be imagined with Arendt as opening a “space that is potentially public, open to all sides” (1992, 42). In contrast, among members of her parents’

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  105 generation, the domineering logic of identity is that “a Cuban is not the same as a Puerto Rican, who is not the same as a Dominican, who is not the same as a Mexican” (Capó Crucet 2019, 159). This logic of Cuban–​ American identity forecloses the possibility of disclosing a new sense of cosmopolitan belonging. As Capó Crucet states, in college she became “Latinx [in order] to find community, to survive” (2019, 159).

Cultural Interpellation and the Experience of Nepantla Turning to her novel Make Your Home Among Strangers, published four years before her essay collection My Time Among the Whites, readers of her essays may be surprised to discover that it fails to depict a positive representation of Latinx community. Instead, the protagonist, Lizet Ramirez, becomes part of an international community of scientists. The novel’s opening page introduces her as a lab manager for a research group working on understanding the global demise of coral reef systems (Capó Crucet 2015, 1). The chapters that follow narrate Lizet’s remembrance of the times she returned to Miami during Thanksgiving and after her first semester at Rawlings, a liberal arts college in upstate New York. This span of narrative time culminates in Lizet’s decision to leave home: “leaving home” being a metaphor for moving beyond the ways her family and her Miami community had positioned her identity (2015, 351).2 Rather than building toward a discovery of a positive Latinx community separate from her Cuban–​American origins, her discovery of Latinx identity is mostly revealed negatively, in moments of anxiety and self-​ fragmentation, especially in moments of interpellation by her Cuban–​ American family in Miami and by the predominantly white students and administrators at Rawlings College. Although Hannah Arendt and Gloria Anzaldúa did not explicitly theorize using the concept of interpellation, their writings on cultural discrimination and their theorizing of a critical space of thinking for marginalized subjects do suggest ways that their theories might have addressed the phenomena. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall foregrounds the phenomenon of interpellation in his theory of cultural identity: I use ‘identity’ to refer to the meeting point, the point of suture, between, on the one hand, the ideological discourses which attempt to ‘interpellate’, speak to us or hail us into place as the social subjects of particular discourses, and on the other hand, the processes which produce subjectivities, which construct us as subjects which can be ‘spoken.’ (1996, 5–​6) While the concept of interpellation is mainly attributed to Louis Althusser’s essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1970), a phenomenological description of racial interpellation had been given

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106  Michael Grafals before Althusser’s essay by the psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (1952). Fanon describes the experience of being in France and being hailed or interpellated by “Look, a Negro!” This interpellation causes him to experience a sense of world-​alienation: “[Here] I am an object among other objects. Locked in this suffocating reification” (2008, 89). This experience of objectification was also theorized in terms of gender in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949): “[A woman] discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to freeze her as an object and doom her to immanence” (2011, 17). Fanon similarly describes the experience of assuming himself as Other: “I cast an objective gaze over myself, discovered my blackness, my ethnic features” (2008, 92). These phenomenological descriptions of interpellation help us to frame similar moments experienced by Lizet when she feels obliged to negotiate and give voice to her cultural identity. Capó Crucet’s essay “Imagine Me Here, Or How I Became a Professor” describes such moments of interpellation as spotlighting: The concept of standing in for a whole category of humans wasn’t forced on me until college … [This is] called spotlighting, though I didn’t know that when I gave this experience over to the narrator of my novel. I have it happen to her and watch her endure it. (2019, 166) This moment happens explicitly when a teaching assistant spotlights Lizet: At one point he referred to magical realism as my literary tradition and asked me to explain that concept to my classmates. He held both his hands out to me then, like I was supposed to drop my genetically allotted portion of magical realism into them. (2015, 177) But an even more traumatic positioning happens when she is accused of plagiarism for forgetting to cite a secondary source included in her bibliography. At the Academic Integrity Hearing, one of the administrators informs her that they are taking her cultural identity into account in their decision: “You haven’t been given… the tools to know better” (2015, 96). Back home in Miami, she officially receives a letter placing her on academic probation: [The committee decided] I was the product of a poor environment—​I willingly took it … I wanted to rise—​I used exactly that word in the thank-​you e-​mail I wrote to the committee after printing out the resource list—​to rise above what I’d come from. (139)

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  107 The administrators approach Lizet with what is termed a deficit model on cultural difference. Mardi Schmeichel’s research demonstrates how the concept of cultural deprivation or disadvantage became the dominant framework used to describe students of color in education from the late 1950s through the 1970s (2012). The administration’s interpellations influence Lizet’s desire to “rise above,” a metaphor that suggests a process of transcendence, or effort to transform her perspective on reality in a boundary situation, that implicates both Arendt’s theory of critical thinking and Anzaldúa’s notion of nepantla. In the novel, we see the effects these interpellations at Rawlings have on Lizet when she arrives in Miami after her first semester. When she first sees her mother at the airport, she experiences a moment of uncanny estrangement: But spotting her before she saw me in the terminal … I’d seen my mother in that moment as not my mother; I saw her as a tacky-​ looking woman, as the Cuban lady the girls on my floor would’ve seen, alone in an airport. And I did not like that I suddenly had this ability to see her that way, isolated from our shared history. (2015, 139) Her experiences with cultural interpellation and discrimination have altered her perception of her mother. Capó Crucet’s use of the word “spotting” suggests her term “spotlighting,” implying that Lizet is positing her mother mentally into a “category of humans” (2019, 166). Lizet’s self-​conscious experience of this act of perception shares many of the attributes of critical thinking in Arendt’s theory: the experience of  withdrawing from a common world of experience and the activation  of difference in consciousness (Arendt 1978, 77, 191). The ability to see her mother in this objectified way is later described as a “double vision” that inhabits her field of consciousness (Capó Crucet 2015, 345). But this negative experience also reveals a lost “shared history” to be recovered. The passage thus reflects the way the novel constructs Latinx identity not exclusively as a positive identity; rather, Latinx identity is disclosed in a nepantla space of appearance, a space that “simultaneously exists and does not exist,” a space between cultural worlds that the protagonist is trying to move into (Anzaldúa 2015, 28).

Testifying for Latinx Critical Thinking In an interview, Capó Crucet described the role of the writer thus: “Ultimately, a writer’s job is to create and shape a sensory experience that encourages compassion and empathy in the reader. That is the political act” (Jones 2017, n.p.). In the novel, many of the novel’s heightened moments of sensory experience provoke feelings of anxiety in Lizet, but they are political because they concern her negotiations

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108  Michael Grafals of identity and difference. Lizet’s narration of these experiences comes with a recognition that these moments are not simply private experiences; rather, these experiences are part of a shared heritage of Latinx identity. Arendt theorizes the concept of testimony in her preface to Between Past and Future by interpreting an aphorism from the French poet René Char on the resistance movement against the Fascists during World War II: “Our inheritance was left to us by no testament” (2006, 3). For Arendt, testimony means “telling the heir what will rightfully be his, [willing] past possessions for a future” (2006, 5). In Arendt’s interpretation of Char’s aphorism, the tragedy of the resistance movement (which formed what she calls “small hidden islands of freedom”) would be the danger of there being “no mind to inherit and to question, to think about and to remember” the resistance (2006, 6). Capó Crucet’s novel narrates Lizet’s testimony to her newfound Latinx identity. Although Lizet never explicitly finds a Latinx community in her college, she is able to give testimony to her own critical thoughts as she endures and negotiates being culturally interpellated as a Cuban–​ American/​Latinx woman. With Lizet, we witness a cosmopolitan Latinx identity emerging from a critical engagement with cultural interpellation and identification. Stuart Hall describes the importance of reflecting on cultural interpellations in the ongoing process of acting in the world: “You only discover who you are because of the identities you are required to take on, into which you are interpellated: but you must take up those positionalities, however temporarily, in order to act at all” (1995, 65). Throughout the novel, Lizet critically reflects on the inauthentic identities she performs when she arrives at Rawlings College. In one passage, when Lizet has trouble staying in touch with her boyfriend Omar from Miami, the white “girls on [her] floor” try to relate to her through stereotypes of Omar as an abusive “psycho papi chulo” boyfriend: [One of the girls] said she knew about the kinds of relationships that plagued my community, had nodded in a solemn way when I told her yes, Omar could be rough … I was happy to have something to add to those late nights in the dorm’s common room … even if I didn’t totally understand the part I was playing. (2015, 65) Lizet understands these as objectifying roles that she is enacting, but she views these positionings at this moment as necessary to feel a sense of community in that space. As she goes on to say, “[at] the very least, it made trying to make friends simpler than it would’ve been had I tried to be a more accurate version of myself” (2015, 65–​66). But retroactively, she confesses that “I had to adopt some twisted interpretation of everything that came before college to make my leaving [Omar] the right thing—​I had to believe the story I made up for other people” (66).

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  109 Lizet’s testimony allows for a subjective surplus that haunts this ‘twisted interpretation’ of her past. It is after the act of inauthentic identification, especially after the moment of interpellation, that the subject begins to articulate her identity. As Arendt states, “thinking always implies remembrance; every thought is strictly speaking an after-​thought” (1978, 78). Similarly, Hall claims that cultural identities are ultimately narratives about the recognition of identity after the event of identification: “[They are] fictions of action, the necessary fictions of politics. They are also a kind of recognition after the event. All the identities I can think of in my life have been after the event” (1995, 66). Lizet’s testimony “after the event” takes on the form of what Anzaldúa theorized as “psychic confession”: psychic confession [gives] form and direction, provides language to distressed and confused people—​a language that expresses previously inexpressible psychic states and enables the reader to undergo in an ordered and intelligible form real experiences that would otherwise be chaotic and inexpressible. (2015, 39) Lizet is not able to enter that dorm common room with an “accurate version” of herself, but her inner confession after the event traces a felt absence of a more authentic Latinx identity. For Arendt, action is described as “[the] disclosure of the ‘who’ through speech,” and through this speech act there emerges “the unique life story of the newcomer, affecting uniquely the life stories of all those with whom [she] comes into contact” (2018, 184). Lizet’s narration after the event bears witness to a newcoming Latinx subject that remains beyond the moment of identification, a spectral form of Latinidad that emerges within critical thought, where the subject remains to question, think about, and remember her uncanny encounters with cultural identity.

Theorizing the Latinangst in Latinx Cosmopolitanism Cuban–​American cultural theorist Eliana Rivero coined the term Cubangst to describe “the mixture of confusion, ambiguity, uncertainty, denial, anguish, and/​ or paradoxical love-​ hate feelings toward things Cuban (and/​or American) that may occur in the emotional evolution of a Cuban American” that she finds often in Cuban–​ American literature (2009, 111–​112). Borrowing from Rivero, I suggest the term Latinangst to foreground the experience of cultural anxiety in Capó Crucet’s novel. Lizet’s Latinangst concerns her moving into a cosmopolitan Latinx subjectivity, one that threatens to betray the Cuban–​American hyphen—​present especially in Pérez Firmat’s discourse on Cuban–​American identity. The theme of betrayal is highlighted in the last sentence of Capó Crucet’s novel, when Lizet votes in Miami in the 2000 presidential election: “I

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110  Michael Grafals wish I’d known, as I pushed through one choice over the other, how little it mattered which side I ended up betraying, how much it would hurt either way” (2015, 388). Anzaldúa similarly expresses the anxiety of writing beyond a Mexican–​American hyphen: “Writing produces anxiety … Being a writer feels very much like being a Chicana, or being a queer—​ a lot of squirming, coming up against all sorts of walls” (2012, 72). The term Latinangst is helpful in analyzing how Make Your Home Among Strangers relates to other canonical Latinx narratives. For instance, in Piri Thomas’ Down These Mean Streets (1967), the first-​person protagonist, trying to disclose an Afro–​Latinx identity ahead of his time, has an epiphanic moment of self-​recognition near the end of his memoir: “I couldn’t stop trembling inside. I felt as though I had found a hole in my face and out of it were pouring all the different masks that my cara-​palo face had fought so hard to keep hidden” (1997, 321). Thomas’ memoir reaches a climax of self-​recognition not through the narrator consolidating his identity; rather, this moment of Latinangst signals the opening of a new subjectivity beyond Thomas’ previous masks of identification. The concept of Latinangst corresponds with Eliana Rivero’s description of Cubangst as a “becoming painfully aware of my own morphing as a Cuban … [experiencing] the shock of trying to integrate several ways of being into one consciousness” (2007, 203–​204). Rivero uses the term Cubangst to describe an “individual state of limbo” that compels Cuban Americans “toward a space of consistent, if not urgent, questioning about their actual psychic relationship” to Cuban identity, a phenomenon Rivero herself experiences after her first return trip to Cuba (197–​198). For Rivero, this state of mind entails a “struggle to (re) capture (and at times paradoxically reject) a familiar feeling of belonging that is no longer rooted in consciousness” (197–​198). In Capó Crucet’s novel, Lizet struggles with feeling that she betrayed her Miami family, who do not understand her desire for higher education: “[Their] idea of me had no room for what I was doing with my life [and this] made me want to fold in half” (2015, 161–​162). Her feelings of unbelonging, accentuated by her alienation from her Miami community’s involvement with the Ariel Hernandez (fictionalized Elián González) protests, lead her to develop a chronic “double vision” of reality, one that she experienced when meeting her mother at the airport, but one that soon begins to turn on herself: “I would always use that double vision against myself … this double vision became the only way through which I saw anything” (345). Lizet’s experience of Cubangst or Latinangst appears to activate in her a new mode of critical thinking, in line with Arendt’s notion that thinking entails the experiencing of duality or a “split between me and myself” (1978, 187). Arendt describes how conscience and a sense of judgment become by-​products of the activation of this two-​in-​one in thinking (1978, 193). Lizet’s narrative testimony reflects on her process of judging the boundary situation she finds herself in during the course of the narrative, as she leaves her cultural home to transition into becoming

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  111 a Latinx research scholar in an international community of scientists (Capó Crucet 2015, 192). Near the conclusion of Make Your Home Among Strangers, Capó Crucet narrates Lizet’s initiation into scientific research, which establishes a relationship between research and testimony. When Lizet takes her first laboratory course with her future mentor Dr. Kauffman, her professor advises never to use a pencil to erase mistakes in research, since mistakes are vital to the research process. For Lizet, these instructions provide an epiphany that offers her a way out of the angst of her first semester at Rawlings, guiding her toward a new cosmopolitan scientific community: “The forgiveness built into this basic research philosophy … everything led to this moment in this lab” (2015, 254). This is a moment of natality as testimony in Arendt’s terms, a moment that compels the initiation of a new form of subjectivity. In Arendt’s theory of action, she describes the importance of forgiveness and making promises for the anticipation of the future: The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic uncertainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. The two faculties belong together in so far as one of them, forgiving, serves to undo the deeds of the past, whose ‘sins’ hang like Damocles’ sword over every new generation. (2018, 237) For Arendt, the faculties of forgiving and promising are related to the act of giving testimony. It is relevant that Lizet has this epiphany on her first day of biology research. A chief characteristic of human life for Arendt was that it is “always full of events which ultimately can be told as a story, establish a biography; it is of this life, bios as distinguished from mere zōē, that Aristotle said that it ‘somehow is a kind of praxis’ ” (2018, 97). Through reading Make Your Home Among Strangers, we disclose a fictional biography of a Latinx subjectivity undergoing a theoretical practice of reflecting on the past and willing a new cosmopolitan future. My methodological claim is that Arendt’s theories of critical thinking, narrative testimony, and natality together help to re-​engage important concepts in US–​ Latinx critical theory, like Anzaldúa’s nepantla and Rivero’s Cubangst, concepts exemplified in Jennine Capó Crucet’s narratives of cosmopolitan Latinx becoming.

Notes 1 See Maurizio Passerin D’Entréves’s “Arendt’s Theory of Judgment” for an explanation of Arendt’s use of Kant’s theory of esthetic reflective judgment as a basis for developing her theory of political judgment (2000, 250). See also Eli Friedlander’s Expressions of Judgment: An Essay on Kant’s Aesthetics for

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112  Michael Grafals a lucid interpretation of the implications of Kant’s distinction between “determinant judgment” and “reflective judgment” (2015, 16–​17). 2 This span of narrative time also coincides with the arrival and departure of Ariel Hernandez, who is a stand-​in for Elián González. Elián was a five-​year-​old Cuban refugee found floating in the sea in an inner tube near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thanksgiving Day, 1999. Like Ariel, Elián became the focus of a highly publicized international custody and immigration dispute between his Miami relatives (with the support of an anti-​Castro Cuban American community) and his Cuban father, whom Fidel Castro publicly supported. The US federal government eventually ruled in favor of Elián’s father. In a highly publicized raid on the Miami relatives’ home, federal agents with automatic weapons seized Elián and placed him in his father’s custody. Capó Crucet comments on the role of Elián in her novel: The events of the González ordeal all coincided with my breaks when I was home from college, a year of events that I had to turn into a novel in order to write through the media’s inaccurate and incomplete portrayal of frenzied Cubans throwing themselves at the feet of a young boy-​turned​symbol. (2015, 123) Ariel-​Elián plays a significant role thematically in the novel and in the concerns of this essay, especially with the concepts of interpellation and natality. However, space here does not permit an analysis of the representation of Elián González in the novel. For other engagements with Elián in Cuban–​American literature, see Ana Menéndez’s Adios, Happy Homeland! (2011) and Chantel Acevedo’s “The Child Hero’s Lament” (2019).

References Acevedo, Chantel. 2019. “The Child Hero’s Lament.” In Let’s Hear Their Voices: Cuban American Writers of the Second Generation, edited by Iraida López and Eliana Rivero, 67–​78. Albany: State University of New York Press. Althusser, Louis. 2001 (1970). “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus (Notes toward an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by Ben Brewster, 85–​126. New York: Monthly Review Press. Alvarez-​Borland, Isabel. 1988. Cuban-​American Literature of Exile: From Person to Persona. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Anzaldúa, Gloria. 2000. Interviews/​Entrevistas, edited by AnaLouise Keating. New York: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2012 (1987). Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza. 4th ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. —​—​—​. 2015. Light in the Dark/​Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality. Durham: Duke University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1943. “We Refugees.” Menorah Journal 31: 69-​77. —​—​—​. 1944. “The Jew as Pariah. A Hidden Tradition.” Jewish Social Studies 6 (2): 99-​122. —​—​—​. 1978. The Life of the Mind. Volume 1. New York: Harcourt. —​—​—​. 1992. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, edited by Ronald Beiner. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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The Cosmopolitanism of Latinx Natality  113 —​—​—​. 2006 (1961). Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin. —​—​—​. 2007a. The Jewish Writings, edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman. New York: Schocken Books. —​—​—​. 2007b (1968). Introduction to Illuminations, edited by Walter Benjamin, 1–​55. New York: Schocken Books. —​—​—​. 2018 (1958). The Human Condition. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Basden, George Thomas. 2013 (1921). Among the Ibos of Nigeria. Whitefish: Literary Licensing. Beauvoir, Simone de. 2011 (1949). The Second Sex, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-​Chevallier. New York: Vintage. Caminero-​Santangelo, Marta. 2009. On Latinidad: U.S. Latino Literature and the Construction of Ethnicity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Capó Crucet, Jennine. 2015. Make Your Home Among Strangers. New York: Picador. —​—​—​. 2019. My Time Among the Whites. New York: Picador. Fanon, Frantz. 2008 (1952). Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press. Friedlander, Eli. 2015. Expressions of Judgment: An Essay on Kant’s Aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gikandi, Simon. 1991. Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction. London: James Currey. Hall, Stuart. 1995. “Fantasy, Identity, Politics.” In Cultural Remix: Theories of Politics and the Popular, edited by Erica Carter, James Donald, and Judith Squires, 63–​69. London: Lawrence & Wishart. —​—​—​. 1996. “Introduction: Who Needs ‘Identity’?” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, 1–​17. London: SAGE. Jones, T.C. 2017. “Interview with Jennine Capó Crucet.” Gulf Stream Magazine, May 23, 2017. https://​gulfs​trea​mlit​mag.com/​interv​iew-​with-​jenn​ine-​capo-​ cru​cet/​ López, Iraida. 2019. “Introduction: Looking Back While Forging Ahead.” In Let’s Hear Their Voices: Cuban American Writers of the Second Generation, edited by Iraida López and Eliana Rivero, xi–​xxviii. Albany: State University of New York Press. Menéndez, Ana. 2011. Adios, Happy Homeland! New York: Grove Press. Neroni, Hilary. 2016. Feminist Film Theory and Cléo from 5 to 7. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Passerin D’Entrèves, Maurizio. 2000. “Arendt’s Theory of Judgment.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, edited by Dana Villa, 245–​260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pérez Firmat, Gustavo. 2012 (1995). Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-​American Way. Austin: University of Texas Press. Rivero, Eliana. 2007. “In Two or More (Dis)Places: Articulating a Marginal Experience of the Cuban Diaspora.” In Cuba: Idea of a Nation Displaced, edited by Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, 194–​214. Albany: State University of New York Press. —​—​—​. 2009. “Writing in Cuban, Living as Other: Cuban American Women Writers Getting It Right.” In Cuban-​American Literature and Art: Negotiating

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114  Michael Grafals Identities, edited by Isabel Alvarez Borland and Lynette M.F. Bosch, 109–​125. Albany: State University of New York Press. Schmeichel, Mardi. 2012. “Good Teaching? An Examination of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy as an Equity Practice.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 44 (2): 211–​231. Thomas, Piri. 1997 (1967). Down These Mean Streets. New York: Vintage.

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6 Strangers in the City Cosmopolitan Strangers and Transnational Urbanism in the Literary Imagination of Valeria Luiselli Alejandro Ramírez-​Méndez

Cities and metropolises have always permitted a certain degree of mobility to strangers. It is within their urban landscape that strangers can move from one national setting to another, between the multicultural interstices and thresholds that allow them to survive the forces of assimilation and segregation. By providing a reflection on the complex vision of strangers and cosmopolitanism north of the US–Mexico border, this chapter reevaluates the cultural pluralism of and the claim for visibility from Mexican communities inhabiting urban spaces in the United States, such as Upper Manhattan in New York. By analyzing Valeria Luiselli’s creative production, Papeles falsos (Sidewalks, 2010), Los ingrávidos (Faces in the Crowd, 2011), and “Zapata Boulevard” (2015), this chapter demonstrates how transnational spaces in global megacities like New York provide a space for the visibility and acceptance of cosmopolitan strangers, thus enabling a re-understanding of subaltern and hegemonic structures in our present times.

Introduction In the middle of New York, there is an invisible street that crisscrosses the incommensurable geography of the city; a nonexistent path that traverses neighborhoods and blocks, buildings and households, institutions and communities, in its long transnational trajectory; a mere caprice of the mind that reorganizes multicultural and multiethnic environments, while allowing a certain degree of visibility and presence to the evanescent arrival of newcomers, strangers, and immigrants who want to make New York their home. The street is called “Zapata Boulevard.” And even though it is impossible to find it on the maps that are for sale on newsstands on the street or in the guidebooks amassed on shelves in old bookstores, it is the project of the Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli, who believes that perhaps one day a street like this can help to raise awareness of the forgotten and overlooked voices and faces that also belong to the Upper Manhattan landscape. DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-7

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116  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez In Delirious New York (1978), the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas acknowledges that New York City has become subject to a “collective experiment” which is constantly shaping and reshaping its metropolitan area as part of an impulsive drive of people to place and impose the fantasies, plans, and desires into the urban space. In this sense, the city has evolved more like “a factory of man-​made experience, where the real and the natural [have] ceased to exist,” rather than traditional, rational, follow-​the-​rules growth (10). Among “architectural mutations” that defy the limits of design, skyscrapers that challenge the heights, or “utopian fragments” that confine living space to minimal compact areas, there are also the abandoned illusions, past dreams, and forgotten memories that are inherent parts of the urban experience (Koolhaas 1994, 10). As Koolhaas suggests, “each block is covered with several layers of phantom architecture in the form of past occupancies, aborted projects and popular fantasies that provide alternative images to the New York that exists” (1994, 9). Luiselli’s street is perhaps one of these alternative instances in the development and reconstruction of the urban geography of New York, one more layer in the reorganization of the sociocultural imagination that allows a space of expression and representation in the city. Cities and metropolises have always permitted a certain degree of mobility to strangers. It is within their urban landscape that strangers can move from one national setting to another, between the multicultural interstices and thresholds that allow them to survive the forces of assimilation and segregation. For scholars such as Agnes Heller (1999), David Harvey (2009), and Rosi Braidotti (2013), a certain sense of inclusiveness and equity is important to make cities and metropolises places where alternative citizenships can proliferate successfully in a globalized society. But in the twenty-​first century, the mobility of newcomers, migrants, and strangers in major global centers in the United States, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York, is threatened by the advance of neoliberal migratory policies. The survival of Mexican and Mexican–​ American individuals in these urban landscapes rests not only on the construction of strong community bonds, but also on a practice of cultural visibility that makes possible the ever-​growing expression of subjectivities that transcend the limits of national, binational, and transnational contexts. By providing a reflection on the complex vision of strangers and cosmopolitanism north of the US–​Mexico border, this chapter reevaluates the cultural pluralism of and the claim for visibility from Mexican communities inhabiting urban spaces in the United States, such as Upper Manhattan in New York. By analyzing Valeria Luiselli’s creative production –​Papeles falsos (2010),1 Los ingrávidos (2011),2 and “Zapata Boulevard” (2015c)–​, this chapter demonstrates how transnational spaces in global megacities like New York provide a space for the visibility and acceptance of cosmopolitan strangers, thus enabling a re-​understanding of subaltern and hegemonic structures in our present times.

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Strangers in the City  117

Mexican Harlem: Strangers on the Move In her essay “Zapata Boulevard” (2015c), Valeria Luiselli ruminates on the sudden increase of Mexican communities in the northern part of Manhattan. Her text is part of the book Tales of Two Cities (2015), an anthology that includes writings by Zadie Smith, Victor Lavalle, and Junot Díaz, who contemplate alternative ways of looking at the subculture of New York City. This young Mexican writer describes her everyday life in Hamilton Heights, mapping through her memories, anecdotes, and words the quotidian sites and actions of the people who are reshaping Spanish Harlem in the twenty-​first century. However, her chronicle of this side of town centers in the presence of Mexican communities, among other well-​ established Latinx groups in Hamilton Heights, such as Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, who are increasing in number and cultural significance in the streets of Upper Manhattan year by year. For Luiselli, ‘mapping’ is an activity that restores the silent presence of individuals or minority communities within the larger picture of a place, and, through her account, she provides a real understanding of the ethnic diversity sprawling along sidewalks and inside buildings. But it also helps to regroup what seems to be dispersed within the chaos of a space such as New York City, to bring scattered objects, different stories, and diverse communities closer: “To draw a map of a space is to include as much as to exclude. It’s also a way to make visible what is usually unseen” (Luiselli 2015c, 199). This sense of allowing visibility within the blurred and contested space of cultural representation, of bringing to the surface and into proximity voices and discourses that have been erased and silenced, excluded, and forgotten by the dominant speech is what makes the art of mapping so important. As a Mexican writer trying to understand her own transnational position in the middle of a gargantuan American metropolis, Luiselli finds herself engrossed by the multitude of stories blooming in the urban landscape. And she has, like every writer striving to bring into the light what is in the shadows, a compulsion to trace the steps and memories of Mexican Harlem, a growing community in the cartography of migrations in Upper Manhattan: I often find myself seeking out the history, the histories, of Mexican Harlem. The taciturn, silent presence of Mexicans on this side of Harlem remains uncharted. It’s relatively recent migration, compared to many others, so its invisibility is somewhat understandable. It’s also a silenced history, toned down by its own makers, who are often illegal and prefer to remain unseen and unheard. Even when summer comes and the Caribbean residents move out of their tenement apartments and into the street … Mexicans stay indoors; they don’t claim any right to use the street, to inhabit this, or any other place. (2015c, 200)

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118  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez The quest for visibility within the urban landscape takes a drastic position within Luiselli’s words, especially when she suddenly realizes that the streets are populated by strangers who claim the right to be part of the city and be recognized as an integral element of the urban machinery. These strangers, who are normally obliterated from the official history and the collective memory of Hamilton Heights by the dominant forces of institutionalization, find the means to reappropriate the urban space through their everyday life practices in the street and on the sidewalks. Luiselli’s text becomes an important testimony to all those voices and stories that also call for a space of representation. In his groundbreaking essay “The Stranger” (1908), Georg Simmel explores the intricate nature of the stranger and their “psycho-​cultural” and geographical position within society (2016, 176). As Simmel suggests, talking about the stranger implies per se a paradoxical situation: the stranger is part of the community, but for some inexplicable and ambivalent reason, they remain an “outsider” or a “counterpart” for most people in the group (2016, 176). That unstable distance between ‘closeness’ and ‘apartness’ with regard to the main body of the community places them on the threshold between pertaining and not pertaining to the community, between its acceptance and disapproval. In this sense, the thin line along which the stranger walks allows them to have a certain perspective and view of the circumstances that complete insiders can never understand. The same can be said of Luiselli’s “Zapata Boulevard,” where Mexican communities are still placed on the ambivalent threshold between closeness and apartness within the ethnic stratification of Harlem subculture. Her written testimony, however, also provides a way to offer social presence and visibility to the invisible and the silent, the outcast, and the outsiders who inhabit this neighborhood. This chronicle of her life as a foreigner and a stranger in this place channels all of those who still remain in the ambivalent territory of ‘closeness’ and ‘distance’ and validates how their everyday practices in the surrounding area provide evidence of their collective presence. As such, still a newbie in this northern part of Manhattan, Luiselli focuses her attention on her daily experiences in the streets with the locals, creating an intimate and passionate map that includes not only the history of these streets and this neighborhood where she and her young daughter now live, but also of the faces of and her interactions with the people that change her way of perceiving the reality of America; people such as Martina, the mother  of one of her daughter’s classmates, who is originally from the Mixteca, a region in south Mexico that includes the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Puebla, or Alfredo, a street vendor in Convent Avenue who speaks with Valeria Luiselli every day as she is on her way to the City College of New York (CUNY) at Hamilton Heights: I know that he’s from the Mixteca, in Oaxaca, and he knows I’m from Mexico City, a chilanga. This information sets us apart as it

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Strangers in the City  119 brings us together. We are somehow foreigners to each other, brought closer by a deeper sense of foreignness. (2015c, 207) All these people, all these familiar faces from different regions and areas of her country, become part of her everyday life experiences while walking through the different blocks of the Big Apple. With her writing, Luiselli crisscrosses the invisible barriers of language, culture, and nationality that dislocate the space of the American city, and she creates transnational bridges that interconnect and reconnect distant geographies left behind years ago. Bordering the liminal zones of ‘closeness’ and ‘distance,’ of ‘detachment’ and ‘engagement,’ the stranger can easily exercise and grasp an authentic understanding of and attitude toward the social environment. Simmel calls it “objectivity,” a kind of “bird’s-​eye view” that allows the stranger to experience and discern the reality of things with less bias and more freedom than any people or individual inside or belonging to the group (2016, 177). It is a positive engagement that operates in the mind of the stranger and provides clearness and lucidity about the intricate web of relations surrounding them: Objectivity is also a kind of freedom. The objective person is not constrained by predispositions that would prejudice his [sic] perception, his understanding, or his judgement. Such freedom allows the stranger to experience close relationships as if from a bird’s-​eye view, but it also has its dangers. (2016, 177) Like Martina and Alfredo, along with many of the other individuals inhabiting Hamilton Heights and other multiethnic neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan, Luiselli is a foreigner too, a stranger trying to acknowledge her own self within the labyrinth of the city as part of a recent migration that wants to make New York its home. And her unique perspective—​that kind of objectivity that Simmel considers unique to the position of the stranger—​allows her to experience with total freedom the complex social environment that presents itself in front of her eyes, a cornucopia of multiethnic possibilities in the urban landscape. Vince Marotta suggests that the unique nature of the stranger provides not only an “objective stance” toward the host, but also a critical perspective on different political and sociocultural positions in the community (2010, 109). For Marotta, the objectivity associated with Simmel’s stranger reveals a frame of mind that permits a certain detachment from the “particularities of the opposing parties or cultural groups,” while allowing a unique understanding of their points of view without being fully immersed in their particular context (109). In Simmel’s texts, this characteristic of the stranger is often expressed as a thirdness, or a

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120  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez third-​party position. As Elizabeth Goodstein points out, the conciliatory transcendence of thirdness in Simmel is a way of overcoming traditional dichotomies, making room for coexistence and reconciliation within difference (2012, 239). The unique mobility of the stranger in the liminal space between two social realities provides a “synthesis of closeness and distance” that organically connects them with people in a wide range of possibilities that transcend geographical limits or “the particularities or biases of community” (Simmel 2016, 177). For many scholars, such as Zygmunt Bauman (1991), the stranger resides in an ambivalent position that is neither close to nor distant from society, one who questions the cultural and physical boundaries that are taken for granted by locals (58). Marotta acknowledges this ambivalent position and suggests that it is an “epistemological advantage” for the “in-​between stranger” who wants to remain in the middle of social and cultural milieux without the full immersion within one particular or restrictive point of view (2010, 109). In the introduction to Tales of Two Cities, John Freeman ponders the incongruent relation between scale and reality in the mind of those who inhabit the tumultuous geography of any urban area, “the idea of imagining a city bigger than what exists in reality, so that it can properly be itself. What would it take to do this?” (2015, xv). Freeman shows that the disproportionate magnitudes of imagination prowling around the fantasies of individuals reveal the expansive nature of the metropolis: New York is not one, but many cities living, like the dwellers of each of them, in proximity one beside the other. Multiple experiences of New York create multiple perspectives for approaching the same metropolitan area. Some build upon an appreciation of the local vibe that stands for the authenticity of the place; others are shaped by the global interaction that expands limits and opens the gates to a cosmopolitan experience of the city landscape. David Halle notes that, in contrast to this expansive perspective, key figures in Urban Studies such as Jane Jacobs, Sharon Zukin, Kenneth Jackson, and William White tend to have a more traditional approach and, rather than acknowledge the richness in multiplicity and diversity, they prefer a more compact and homogenous configuration of New York in which the hyper density of the central part of the city, especially Manhattan, is the desirable and iconic manifestation of a rich city life (2003, 20). However, this perspective of New York lacks any real understanding of the expansive nature of a metropolis shaped by multicultural neighborhoods, transnational communities, and immigration population with strong ties with their countries of origin. As a novelist and a scholar living and writing about metropolises such as Mexico City and New York, about the transnational difference between her homeland and her new home, Luiselli navigates circumstances that pinpoint her position as a stranger within the complex map of transnational spaces, of cosmopolitan geographies. In this sense, she places herself in the in-​between of the social and cultural milieux she inhabits, allowing that third-​party position to guide her in the depiction

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Strangers in the City  121 of the blossoming environment of Upper Manhattan, in the ever-​growing reality of a city that is always reinventing itself. But Luiselli does not stop there. “Zapata Boulevard” is just one piece in the complex depiction of her positionality as an ‘in-​between stranger’ trying to make sense of the transnational complexity evolving around her. In most of her production, she explores American urban environments, trying to find the lost and invisible presence of strangers like herself and trying to portray a perspective of the city that has been misplaced in the dense compactness of the New York imaginary.

Ingrávida and Cosmopolita: A Stranger Lost in the City Los ingrávidos (2011) is Valeria Luiselli’s first novel. In most of her work—​Papeles falsos (2010), La historia de mis dientes (2013),3 Los niños perdidos (2016)4—​Luiselli’s starting point is the contemplation of the social dynamics of strangers, outcasts, and immigrants in big cities such as Mexico City and New York. As is the case in “Zapata Boulevard,” her creative work mainly focuses on how her characters—​usually strangers or outcasts—​interact with the urban landscape they inhabit. Sometimes this interaction allows them to modify or reinvent the space in a peculiar or unusual way, creating singular and intimate relations with the places in which they dwell, leaving traces of their lives and actions attached to the streets, buildings, or rooms they inhabit. In Los ingrávidos, the Mexican writer presents a split narrative which develops in the streets and public spaces of Mexico City and New York. The story is mainly narrated by two characters, two strangers who learn to navigate, in different time periods, the complicated organization of a city that they barely know: the first is a young woman without a name living with her husband and two children in Mexico City who is constantly recalling her early years as an editor in New York; the second is the Mexican poet Gilberto Owen, who recounts his experiences in the roaring environment of Harlem at the beginning of the twentieth century where he hung out with writers such as Federico García Lorca and Louis Zukofsky. These two narrative lines intertwine through small textual fragments, creating a mosaic of different scenes and voices that mixes the present and the past, Mexico City and New York. Her book revolves around the nuanced differences between Mexico City and New York, between ‘this city and the other city.’ Through this central motif, Luiselli organizes the structural order of the sequences in which the Mexican female protagonist in Los ingrávidos relates her experiences as a complete stranger who is constantly moving between different transnational spaces, creating textual markers that make evident the intertwined fragments of her life in New York and her life in Mexico City: “En esa ciudad vivía sola en un departamento casi vacío … En esta casa vivimos dos adultos, una bebé y un niño mediano” (Luiselli 2014a, 11–​12; emphasis added).5 The opposition and repetition of this

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122  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez meta-​literary mantra (that empty apartment, that city/​this house, this city) creates parallelisms and contrasts between the distinct styles of life that she experiences in these two geographical landmarks, in two different time periods. Sonia E. Alvarez, when talking about Latinidad in the geopolitical/​geo-​cultural context of the Americas, suggests that the experience of the transmigrant is far more complicated than a mere crisscrossing of contrasting territories in the North/​South continuum; it implies a whole reposition and relocation of the subject (in this case a female subject) within transcultural and translocal flows that modify their own perspective of the world: “Many such crossings are emotionally, materially, and physically costly, often dangerous, and increasingly perilous. Yet cross-​border passages also always reposition and transform subjectivities and worldviews” (2014, 2). ‘This’ and ‘the other,’ ‘this city and the other city,’ not only strengthen the oppositional differences that determine transnational distances between two different places (Mexico and the United States, in this case) that persist inside the mind of the protagonist, playing dialectical roles in the geopolitical map of her loneliness, but they also highlight oppositional realities that materialize themselves in changes in her body and the everyday life emotions that she feels as a stranger lost in the transnational labyrinth of her story, in the intimate space–​time continuum that repositions her life as a woman who lives, enjoys, and experiences New York and Mexico City in two different stages of her adulthood. Luiselli’s narrative creates a complex map, a transnational cartography that pinpoints the experiences and emotions of this female protagonist to two contrasting urban settings. This is significant because it makes ‘this’ and ‘the other’ the cardinal directions of an urban mapmaking whose geographical arrangement is demarcated and delineated by the woman’s positionality. New York and Mexico City are not only instances of her nomadic journey through two different urban dynamics and landscapes; they are also part of the changing process of her female body in the transit between two different and ethereal geographies. In other words, her experience of urbanity is not only dictated by the contrasting chronological conditions implicated in the dialectic of present and past, but also by a series of biological and physical concerns that resymbolize her understanding of the social space: marriage and being single/​containment and freedom/​family and solitude. If, for her, New York represents the past, Mexico City represents the present; if New York symbolizes freedom, youth, and vitality—​“Era joven, tenía las piernas fuertes y flacas”6—​Mexico City represents isolation, maternity, and the deterioration of her self-​esteem: “En esta casa tan grande no tengo un lugar para escribir” (Luiselli 2014a, 11–​13).7 These perspectives complement each other in her life cycle; they interact as pieces within the biological structure of the translocal/​transnational voice of the character. City, as the organizing concept in her life, is thus experienced at a deeper level

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Strangers in the City  123 through the (female) body and the self, and as a stranger trying to navigate two different urban realms, while the life cycles of her body also allow her to find her social and gender identification with the urban landscape. By making her a stranger navigating the complex terrains of transnational cities, Luiselli pays utmost attention to how solitude and isolation also affect the behavior of her protagonist. Living alone in New York, working in a small publishing house, she acknowledges all the time she spends by herself translating texts or making research in libraries. All this time in isolation, staying late in her work while avoiding contact with other people, makes her realize how alone she is in this city and how that affects her feelings: “Cuando alguien ha vivido solo durante mucho tiempo, el único modo de constatar que sigue existiendo es articular las actividades y las cosas en una sintaxis compartible: esta cara, estos huesos que caminan, esta boca, esta mano que escribe” (Luiselli 2014a, 12–​13).8 But as conflictive as these sentiments might be, they do not necessarily have a negative connotation for Luiselli’s character: even though she appears sometimes to be isolated and distant from other individuals or urban communities within the urban network, her condition as a transmigrant makes her feel free in various places in which she feels a foreigner—​a Mexican student lost in the Big Apple, a returnee trying to have a family in Mexico City. In “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” Jeremy Waldron points out that there is a certain degree of isolation that permeates the cosmopolitan subject. If we analyze the condition of the cosmopolitan subject from a communitarian view, we find that he/​she can usually be represented as a “lone and alienated figure” within a social context (1992, 766). Waldron bases this perspective on the study of Salman Rushdie’s behavior as the epitome of the cosmopolitan experience. The author of The Satanic Verses (1988) decided to deliberately isolate himself from the Muslim community after the controversy of the book and the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini. Even if the case per se seems extreme, it allows Waldron to rethink the possible destiny of those who embrace a cosmopolitan approach: isolating oneself from friends and family, running from place to place without finding a safe place to relocate. In this sense, “the cosmopolitan rejection of a specific community evokes a sense of isolation” (Waldron 1992, 766). And in a certain way, this is exactly what happens to Luiselli’s character, who chooses a specific way of living and approaching her solitude by remaining in New York in an apartment that is barely furnished, far away from her acquaintances in Mexico, but enjoying her independence by walking through the streets without any concern. Her isolation becomes a means of self-​determination and freedom. She embraces her solitude by distancing herself from the world she inhabits; the freedom she has as a stranger gives her the possibility of moving and acting without social restrictions or cultural prejudices. This

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124  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez clearly resonates with Jean-​Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1782), where he reflects upon the ostracism, solitude, and isolation he experienced at the end of his life: So now I am alone in the world, with no brother, neighbor or friend, nor any company left me but my own … So now they are strangers and foreigners to me; they no longer exist for me, since such is their will. But I, detached as I am from them and from the whole world, what am I? (1979, 27) Cast out from society, rejected by his peers, Rousseau found a way to express his condition by embarking on a mental journey, which is more like a philosophical wandering through the promenades of Paris. It is this deliberate isolation that pushes cosmopolitan subjects, such as Rousseau, Rushdie, and including Luiselli’s character, to rethink their own solitude. Luiselli also stresses the unique circumstances through which her protagonist experiences the United States while being on her own: she is young and independent, and that provides her with a certain mobility within the range of possibilities that a nonlocal might have in an American conurbation. Luiselli emphasizes how this same pattern of isolation and solitude is also experienced by some of the characters that her protagonist meets during the year she lives in the city. People who, despite their unique relation with an interest in New York, despite their jobs or way of living, appear to be in a transitional stage of their lives. They are all itinerant travelers in an ever-​changing metropolis: White, an editor in a small publishing company; Detective Matías, a Latino detective in the Bronx; and Gilberto Owen, a Mexican poet who has left his nation. Suddenly, Luiselli realizes that the city is full of strangers and that these different degrees of isolation become a constant reminder of the immense loneliness and solitude that engulfs anyone who lives and socializes in a place such as this. Luiselli’s narration ponders upon not only what isolation from the community means for a cosmopolitan subject, but mostly how their deliberate isolation inflicts a sense of strangeness on people. In an Aristotelian conception of community, the subject achieves fulfillment through their social and political interrelation in the polis, in the closeness that results in interdependence and social bonds: “The life of belonging to a polis is not only a grudging dependence, but a positive and essentialist embrace of interdependence” (Waldron 1992, 767). But the stranger must rethink himself/​herself in the ambivalent ‘closeness’ and ‘distance’ that exists in relation to a community, especially in a space such as the American city, where the possibility of isolation falls on systemic circumstances like segregation or gender inequality.

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Strangers in the City  125 Thus, her time in New York as an outsider makes her not only a stranger, a Mexican woman translating poetry in a small publishing house who wants to make her life far away from her native country, but also someone who can easily disappear in the middle of the city. Because the almost invisible and imperceptible nature of her presence in the streets—​the condition of being an “ingrávida” (literally, a weightless person, that is, someone who has no weight in society) and a Latina—​ reformulates her own position in the urban landscape: “Era muy fácil desaparecer. Muy fácil ponerse un abrigo rojo, apagar todas las luces, irse a otro lugar, no regresar a dormir a ningún lado. Nadie me esperaba en ninguna cama. Ahora sí” (Luiselli 2014a, 27).9 Her apparent lack of responsibility, social attachment, or obligation in this alien land distances her from other people, making it easier to remain far away from the social dynamics happening in the city. Margaret Jacob (2016) points out that, as early as the eighteenth century, the French philosopher Denis Diderot had already understood that cosmopolitans were “strangers nowhere in the world.” The sense of ‘no man’s land’ and ‘detachment’ that characterizes the state of mind of the cosmopolitan subject is determined by a certain degree of openness and involvement in other cultures and perspectives of the world that is already present in Simmel’s definition of the stranger. That sense of rootlessness and isolation provides the connections between the stranger and cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, there is a certain flexibility that allows the stranger, including Luiselli’s protagonist, to bestride the universal and the particular without feeling fully attached to either, to avoid binaries that place the subject within restrictive limits.

Strangers and Ghosts: The Ethereal Presence of the Cosmopolitan Stranger Luiselli’s approach to the topic of the stranger correlates with another of her mayor topics in her narrative, i.e., the subject of ghosts. For her, ghosts are disembodied presences that touch the fine thread of the plot in a narrative, but they are also ethereal essences that symbolize and denote the isolation and detachment that people may experience in the American city or in any other urban landscape. Certainly, Luiselli’s ghosts are incorporeal, weightless, ethereal figures that inhabit and transit the urban spaces of the story. The title itself, Los ingrávidos (people who have no weight in society) alludes to the unstable and ghostly nature (ingravidez) of the protagonist and some of the other characters whose lives and actions transition from one reality into another (past/​present, indoor/​ outdoor, male/​female, New York/​Mexico City). These weightless, silent inhabitants whose existence is completely obliterated by the colossal weight of the behemoth city represent an absence within the continuum of the urban landscape. They are perceived as holes of indetermination, language failures in the development of the plot: “En todas las novelas

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126  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez falta algo o alguien. En esa novela no hay nadie. Nadie salvo un fantasma que a veces veía en el metro” (Luiselli 2014a, 72).10 This perception of the stranger as an absence in a space, or as textual holes that are left in the narration as a byproduct of what has been lost, is the inherent nature of Valeria Luiselli’s ghosts. Interviewed by Jennifer Kabat in BOMB (2014), Luiselli explains that ghosts are “a metaphor for language that’s full of holes, while the holes themselves are suggestive of abandoned places and writing that fails to describe anything accurately enough” (2014, 102). The stranger and the ghost are presence and absence at the same time. They occupy the same space as everyone else, but due to their fluid nature, to that conceptual emptiness on the border between detachment and engagement, they remain distant. They inhabit the interstice of the cultural milieux, a space that seems abandoned to anyone else who is firmly immersed in a political or sociocultural position within an established community, but that is full of meanings and possibilities for those who remain outside of it. Just like the ghost, the stranger haunts the place with their memory and actions. And even when she or he is gone, something still remains from their transit through the urban space, an energy that haunts the imagination of those who experience it. The stranger and the ghost have the unique quality of remaining in the urban space despite the mutable transformation and the ever-​changing phenomenon of city life. Traces of their presence are still palpable as part of the historical continuum of a neighborhood, or as isolated pieces in the cultural production of a community. Luiselli suggests that the writing process and the creative action of cultural and artistic productions decontextualize the everyday life practices of the social space, allowing new areas of expression. Through the scaffolding and the interstices of language, the process of writing a novel, such as Los ingrávidos, or a collection of essays, such as Papeles falsos, restores and repairs cultural instances and semantic values that have been forgotten by the dominant or hegemonic narratives in an urban context. Sometimes an important event for a community that has been lost in time can be revitalized through the words of a writer or the performative actions of an artist. In “Relingos,” Luiselli pays special attention to the act of writing itself as the inverse process of restoration. Instead of restoring and refurbishing the big picture of a dominant narrative that has been privileged through  the passage of time, the writer centers their attention on those minimal and unnoticed fissures where the narrative of the underprivileged and minority persist, those holes that make room for new perspectives toward the same phenomenon: Restaurar: maquillar espacios que deja en cualquier superficie el taladro del tiempo. Escribir es un proceso de restauración a la inversa. Un restaurador rellena huecos en una superficie donde ya existe una imagen más o menos acabada; el escritor, en cambio, trabaja a

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Strangers in the City  127 partir de las fisuras y los huecos. En esto se parecen el arquitecto y el escritor. Escribir: rellenar relingos. (Luiselli 2015a, 78)11 The architect-​ writer crafts and constructs their work in the in-​ between, in the cracks left behind by diachronic moments in the language and historical instances in the city. In these conceptual holes, new and fresh interpretations can appear, new theoretical formulations can be accommodated, new ruminations around the multicultural environment of a barrio, a neighborhood, or the overcrowded streets of the urban landscape can be expressed. Luiselli connects in this way the writing process with the coproduction of social space, with the way writers reimagine the possibilities of the urban space in their narratives, because language, as the Mexican writer implies, is an open and fertile terrain for creativity and the imagination, where writers, artists, and activists can place their ideas, shape them, and make them bloom. But language also has the potential of being refurnished, reconstructed, and renovated as any single metropolis. In “Paraíso en obras,” Luiselli suggests that “Wittgenstein imaginaba el lenguaje como una gran ciudad en perpetua construcción. Como las ciudades, el lenguaje tenía barrios modernos, espacios en remodelación, zonas viejas. Había puentes, pasajes subterráneos, rascacielos, avenidas, calles estrechas y silenciosas” (2015a, 70).12 Based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, she provides a playful reinterpretation of how the parts of speech are packed with colorful places to navigate: language is an urban geography that, like any other city in the world, suffers the constant renewal and revitalization of its network. In this sense, language production is not a homogenous and standardized process, but a case of recurrent changes whose effects can be outlined on a map. Literature, in this case, is where the events of language can be traced, like in a big atlas or on a master plan, where the records of deviations and nuances can be registered in vivid colors. Here, with blueprints in hand, the architect-​writer takes control of the situation, reconstructing the façade of language with their unique approach to the subject matter. Their sense of direction within the intricate and polysemic topography of language allows them to find the cracks where nodes of indetermination provide temporary relief and shelter to those narratives and individuals who have been forgotten in the dominant discourse. Between these cracks, holes, and fissures, ethereal figures such as the stranger and the ghost can show up, haunting the discursive process with the instability and the indetermination of their nature. Between the cracks, the stranger can find a place to inhabit, even if the passing of time demolishes everything else. From the in-​between, traces of their lives remain active in the work of writers and artists, like holographic moments in the space–​time continuum of the urban space as they become true witnesses of the course of events that took place in a moment of urban history.

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128  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez Ghosts and strangers in the narrative of Luiselli have that peculiar “bird’s eye view” that Simmel suggested, a third position or in-​ betweenness that allows a certain flexibility within a political or social context and which cannot be acquired or achieved through a mere local perspective; that epistemological standpoint needs to be transcended in order to understand the limitations of locals and natives, and this is when the cosmopolitan stranger appears within the vast literature of cosmopolitanism. While locals and natives remain fixed in particularistic limits, cosmopolitan strangers can access a “total perspective” that transcends epistemological frameworks due to their flexibility and mobility: “Cosmopolitan strangers have the intellectual mindset to float between the local and the global, between the particular and the universal, and thus transcend the politics of location” (Marotta 2010, 118). As Marotta implies, cosmopolitan strangers are not “ahistorical social actors” (2010, 118); they are not detached from the social and cultural position that they inhabit and experience and do not live in an abstract space absent of social interactions. On the contrary, they can be fully engaged in the social world, perceiving the social changes and dynamics of their environs due to their privileged position, active actors in the re-​understanding of boundaries and limits in society.

Zapata Boulevard: Spaces of Social Negotiation, Integration, and Acceptance In the middle of New York, there is an invisible street that runs parallel to the growing presence, stories, and dreams of Mexican immigrants in the Big Apple. Luiselli calls it “Zapata Boulevard.” It is one of those spaces which are the product of the fissures and cracks left behind by dominant and hegemonic narratives of the city. Invisible to the eye, it distorts the continuum of the city thanks to the transformative power of writing and imagination, and it provides space for strangers to reclaim a position within the chaos of the urban dynamics. Luiselli names this boulevard after the mythical figure of Emiliano Zapata, as a symbol of the national legacy that Mexican communities share despite the inherent difference between social classes or points of origin. Zapata’s image embraces the ideals of political and economic emancipation for rural peasants and low-​income workers across Mexico, but in the context of Mexican immigrants living in the United States, it also represents liberation against the oppressive system that discriminates against them, as well as the possibility of building a political consciousness that allows them to be recognized within American society. But it is perhaps Zapata’s most famous political slogan, “La tierra es de quien la trabaja”/​“the land belongs to those who work it,” that allows a rethinking of the place that Mexican communities have within the American cultural landscape, not only in the sense of land reclamation and rights, but also in the quest for visibility and cultural representation within the different spaces of the United States.

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Strangers in the City  129 In Cosmopolis II, Leonie Sandercock departs from the notion that “movement and migration” are crucial components of what we can understand as the human condition. Her empirical assumptions derive from the idea that, in the age of globalization, urban landscapes and cities are profoundly engraved by a sense of multiplicity that brings diversity and variety to social dynamics. The persistent presence of multiethnic, multiracial, or multicultural communities interacting within the city limits makes evident how pluralism and globalization have become part of the urban experience. The emergence of these multiethnic, multicultural conditions creates new spaces of interaction within the cityscape where we can access “the possibility of living alongside others who are different” (Sandercock 2013, 1). In this sense, the quest for equality in the use of land, which the Mexican caudillo Zapata advocated during his life, becomes the peaceful act of claiming visibility within the social space of the city that Luiselli wants for this community in Upper Manhattan. However, despite this progressive attempt to allow multiethnic interaction within the social space, the “forces of global integration,” and their constant restructuring of the urban geography, are creating a “new world disorder” that is becoming a threat for all those who inhabit cities all around the world (Sandercock 2013, 3–​4). This political and economic menace intensifies the anxiety and fear of multicultural communities, as does the constant threat of right-​wing or anti-​immigrant parties. It is for all these reasons that writers like Valeria Luiselli and scholars like Leonie Sandercock stand up for the re-​understanding of cities as sites of political struggle that allow the recognition and enfranchisement of those who belong in the city, something that Sandercock calls “the dream of cosmopolis.” In the notion of cosmopolis, she finds a methodology for city-​planning that permits the coherent and peaceful coexistence of the different parts, while allowing the articulation of plurality, diversity, and otherness within the urban landscape: A construction site of the mind and heart, a city in which there is genuine acceptance of, connection with, and respect and space for ‘the stranger’ (outsider, foreigner, …), in which there exists the possibility of working together on matters of common destiny, of forging new hybrid cultures and communities. (2013, xiv) Luiselli is constantly ruminating on the importance of acceptance within the urban landscape, thinking about creating utopic spaces of possibility for diversity and otherness. For example, in “Mancha de Agua,” she meditates on the creative potential of tracing alternative routes as a means to subvert traditional and instituted paths within a map. Contributing to the discussion started by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus (1980), she suggests that maps are more than abstract constructs that outline the division of territories: they are useful tools of negotiation

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130  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez that allow the free movement and interpretation of its users. By creating alternative routes on a map that are not officially inscribed on it, any common person, any map enthusiast, or any kind of casual cartophile can make explicit feelings, emotions, and ideas blossom within the unconventional path they have created: “Necesitamos del plano abstracto, de la bondad de las dos dimensiones, para deslizarnos a nuestra conveniencia, para tejer y destejer recorridos posibles, planificar itinerarios, desdibujar rutas” (Luiselli 2015a, 26).13 In “Zapata Boulevard,” she becomes a cartographer who creates intertextual maps that undo (“destejen”) possible paths within the urban landscape of New York, and blur (“desdibujan”) routes within traditional perspectives of the ethnic distribution of Upper Manhattan only to allow new possible outcomes and interpretations for strangers in the city. Then, she presents an unreal cartography in which all these ideals and wishes of Mexican visibility within the urban landscape of Upper Manhattan emerge in the form of a fictional street, Zapata Boulevard: Perhaps one day there will be a Zapata Boulevard, invisible, like there is an almost invisible Martin Luther King Boulevard. It would start on Convent Avenue, inside a house, in a kitchen, above a refrigerator, on a wall where the pictures of Malcom X and Emiliano Zapata hang next to each other. Then it would meander gently at the foot of Sugar Hill toward 145th Street, where it would run down past Edgecombe Avenue and Jackie Robinson Park, past Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, across the rather empty straights before the Harlem River wetlands, and finally intersect with Malcom X Boulevard, exactly where the bridge that connects Manhattan to the Bronx begins. (Luiselli 2015c, 208–​209) From the intimacy of her house on Convent Avenue to the border zone between Manhattan and the Bronx, Zapata Boulevard crisscrosses the Harlem geography in a hypothetical way, traversing history and materiality, ethnicity and nations. What Luiselli proposes in her essay is just a speculative topography of an imaginary street that embraces, at the same time, dreams of a Mexican spatiality taking form in the American urban landscape and the transnational consequences of an ethnic minority claiming its right to belong and find representation within the big city. As discussed above, her intellectual attitude toward the world generates a certain degree of rootlessness and isolation that sometimes question the notion of belonging within a particular place, a lack of commitment that sometimes is part of the critique that communities place upon the cosmopolitan or the stranger. However, in our current society, framed by global neoliberalism and a transnational system, recognizing or endorsing belonging in an age of mobile subjectivities, migration, and displacement can be even harder than it seems. As Vince Marotta suggests, “cosmopolitans are those at home in a homeless world” (2010, 112).

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Strangers in the City  131 Movement, then, plays an important part in engagement with others, in the construction of social relationships that allow cosmopolitans to express themselves and to generate communication: movement of people across and beyond borders and nation-​state limits that reorganizes and rearranges their whole perspective of the world. Finally, what Luiselli is doing is opening up a space for negotiation, an instant for questioning alternative citizenships and political membership for migration in the global city. In this sense, something as utopian as this inexistent and invisible “Zapata Boulevard” reevaluates the identity construction of cities in the twenty-​first century, questioning traditional postures toward national origin or citizenship. Here it is important to remember what the Greek philosopher Diogenes Laertius (1972) thought about belonging to a particular place: “I am a citizen of the world.” Kosmou polite (citizen of the cosmos) implies not only a sense of one’s individual position and location of oneself within the complicated global geography, but also an instance of assuming and accepting a responsibility toward every individual around the globe, a certain respect and compassion for strangers all around the world that starts from the individual, the family, and the community and moves toward the universal. Even if that speculative street of Zapata Boulevard runs invisibly down the middle of the Manhattan grid, it still becomes a monument or a testimonial to commemorate the silent presence of a community finding its way far from home, allowing respect and compassion toward the Other. Thus, the active role of the imagination in the cocreation of a city or an urban space also opens the possibility of theoretical spaces where strangers can claim visibility, of passages that dislocate the continuum of the American city and become sanctuaries for the lost memories of those who still inhabit the in-​between, for those who are still strangers in the chaos of a city.

Notes 1 Sidewalks (2014c), translated by Christina MacSweeney for Coffee House Press. 2 Faces in the Crowd (2014b), translated by Christina MacSweeney for Coffee House Press. 3 The Story of My Teeth (2015b), translated by Christina MacSweeney for Coffee House Press. 4 Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions (2017), translated by Lizzie Davis for Coffee House Press. 5 “In that city I lived alone in an almost empty apartment. … In this house there are two adults, a baby girl, and a little boy” (Luiselli 2014b, 1–​2). 6 “I was young, I had strong, slim legs” (Luiselli 2014b, 1). 7 “In this big house I don’t have a place to write” (Luiselli 2014b, 4). 8 When a person has lived alone for a long time, the only way to confirm that they still exist is to express activities and things in an easily shared syntax: this face, these bones that walk, this mouth, this hand that writes. (Luiselli 2014b, 2)

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132  Alejandro Ramírez-Méndez 9

It was very easy to disappear. Very easy to put on a red coat, switch off all the lights, go somewhere else, not go back to sleep anywhere. No one was waiting for me in any bed. They are now. (Luiselli 2014b, 18)

10 “All novels lack something or someone. In this novel there’s no one. No one except a ghost that I used to see sometimes in the subway” (Luiselli 2014b, 69). 11 Restoration: plastering over the cracks left on any surface by the drill of time. Writing is an inverse process of restoration. A restorer fills the holes in the surface on which a more or less finished image already exists; a writer, in contrast, starts from the fissures and the holes. In this sense, an architect and a writer are alike. Writing: filling in relingos. (Luiselli 2014c, 77–​78) 12 “Wittgenstein imagined language as a great city permanently under construction. Like cities, language had modern areas, spaces in the process of renovation, historic zones. There were bridges, underground passages, skyscrapers, avenues, narrow silent streets” (Luiselli 2014c, 68). 13 “We need the abstract plane to move around easily, to ravel and unravel possible journeys, plan itineraries, sketch out routes” (Luiselli 2014c, 26).

References Alvarez, Sonia E. 2014. “Enacting a Translocal Feminist Politics of Translation.” In Translocalities/​ Translocalidades: Feminist Politics of Translation in the Latin/​a Américas, edited by Alvarez Sonia, Claudia De Lima Costa, Verónica Feliu, Rebecca J. Hester, Norma Klahn, Millie Thayer, and Cruz Caridad Bueno, 1–​18. Durham, London: Duke University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1991. Modernity and Ambivalence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. “Becoming-​world.” In After Cosmopolitanism, edited by Rosi Braidotti, Patrick Hanafin, and Bolette B. Blaagaard, 8–​27. New York: Routledge Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minneapolis Press. 7 Diogenes Laertius. 1972. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Freeman, John. 2015. “Introduction.” In Tales of Two Cities: The Best & Worst of Times in Today’s New York, edited by John Freeman, vii–​xvi. New York: Penguin. Freeman, John, ed. 2015. Tales of Two Cities: The Best & Worst of Times in Today’s New York. New York: Penguin. Goodstein, Elizabeth S. 2012. “Simmel’s Stranger and the Third as Imaginative Form.” Colloquia Germanica 45 (3/​4): 238–​262. Halle, David. 2003. “The New York and Los Angeles Schools.” In New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society and Culture, edited by David Halle, 1–​48. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Harvey. David. 2009. Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Strangers in the City  133 Heller, Agnes. 1999. A Theory of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Jacob, Margaret. 2016. Strangers Nowhere in the World: The Rise of Cosmopolitanim in Early Modern Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kabat, Jennifer. 2014. “Valeria Luiselli.” BOMB 129 (Fall): 102–​107. Koolhaas, Rem. 1994. Delirious New York. New York: The Monacelli Press. Luiselli, Valeria. 2013. La historia de mis dientes. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2014a (2011). Los ingrávidos. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2014b. Faces in the Crowd. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press. —​—​—​. 2014c. Sidewalks. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press. —​—​—​. 2015a (2010). Papeles falsos. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2015b. The Story of My Teeth. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press. —​—​—​. 2015c. “Zapata Boulevard.” In Tales of Two Cities: The Best & Worst of Times in Today’s New York, edited by John Freeman, 196–​209. New York: Penguin. —​—​—​. 2016. Los niños perdidos. México: Sexto Piso. —​—​—​. 2017. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press. Marotta, Vince P. 2010. “The Cosmopolitan Stranger.” In Questioning Cosmopolitanism, edited by Stan van Hooft and Wim Vandekerckhove, 105–​ 120. Dordrecht, New York: Springer. Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques. 1979 (1782). Reveries of the Solitary Walker. London: Penguin. Rushdie, Salman. 1988. The Satanic Verses. New York: Penguin Random House. Sandercock, Leonie. 2013. Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities in the 21st Century. London, New York: Bloomsbury. Simmel, Georg. 2016. “The Stranger.” The Baffler 30: 176–​179. Waldron, Jeremy. 1992. “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative.” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 25 (3/​4): 751–​793.

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7 Hostipitality and Solidarity in Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ Casa en tierra ajena Ewa Antoszek

In line with the main themes of the volume, the chapter analyzes antiLatinx exclusionary practices as well as examples of solidarity with migrants challenging these practices, as presented in Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ film Casa en tierra ajena (2016). The processes of othering of immigrants from Central America are examined from the perspective of Derrida’s concept of hostipitality and contextualized in the post-9/11 transformations of the US–Mexico border, including anti-immigrant legislation in the United States, growing militarization of the US–Mexico border, and changes taking place in the transit country of Mexico, which have contributed to the transformation of Mexico into a buffer zone, or the creation of the great south border. The examples of solidarity that challenge these practices of othering illustrate the transformation of illegal aliens into cosmopolitan strangers. These practices aim to reverse the dehumanization that the migrants experience during their journeys and in the United States, provide them with safe spaces to tell their stories, and establish contact zones that facilitate dialogue and cooperation. They also refer to the long history of migrations in the region, thereby suggesting an alternative approach to migratory movements.

Introduction In The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (2013), Leo R. Chavez examines the process of constructing Latinx immigrants as strangers and illegal aliens through the lens of the Latino Threat Narrative that deems Latinx immigration as different from other immigrant groups and thereby particularly perilous to the illusory stability of the US nation-​state (Chavez, 2013). Within this Latino Threat Narrative framework, Chavez investigates the historical and legal foundations of anti-​Latinx sentiment in the United States, the specific imagery of Latinx immigrants this has created, and the media’s role in the perpetuation of these stereotypes and Latinx discrimination. What Chavez does from an anthropological perspective is aptly illustrated in Ivannia Villalobos Vindas’ film Casa en tierra ajena (2016), where she DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-8

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  135 presents issues related to forced migration from the Northern Triangle. Based on Carlos Sandoval García’s book, No más muros. Exclusión y migración forzada en Centroamérica (2015), but not being an adaptation as such, the film complements the official history of migration from Central America, focusing on three major aspects that are discussed in three sequential parts. Adopting a regional approach, Villalobos Vindas examines both similarities and differences between migrants from individual countries in the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) with regard to the reasons behind their migration—​including push and pull factors—​the increasingly restrictive immigration policies that affect migration from the south, and finally the growing role of grassroots initiatives of solidarity illustrated in the film by shelters for migrants along the US–​Mexico border.1 The production not only reflects the complex character of migration from Central America to the United States but becomes a pretext for the director to discuss other issues, i.e., the multiple ways in which Latinx migrants are othered, as well as counter processes aimed at alleviating Baumanian ‘cosmic fear’ of the Other (2017). My purpose in this chapter is twofold: first of all, I want to analyze the process of the othering of immigrants from Central America as represented in Casa en tierra ajena (henceforth Casa), identifying the factors that allow for the victimization of Latinx as ‘illegal aliens.’ Likewise, I aim to ground the creation of the ‘stranger process’ within the context of Derrida’s concept of hostipitality and relate these transformations to the changes occurring at the post-​9/​11 US–​Mexico border, namely what I call the appearance of the expanding southern border. Then I will examine the examples of conviviality presented by Villalobos Vindas in Casa as an answer to fencing off communities and states as well as an alternative to practices of exclusion.

The Latino Threat Narrative, Anti-​Latinx Sentiments, and Hostipitality Villalobos Vindas refers to the patterns of Latinx othering throughout the documentary although the two first parts, “El derecho a no migrar” (“The right to not migrate”) and “El derecho a tener derechos” (“The right to have rights”), address the issue in detail. The anti-​ Latinx sentiments presented in Casa are in line with the foundational elements of Chavez’s Latino Threat Narrative, which identifies Latinx immigrants as a threat to the US economy and the well-​being of (nonmigrant) people and their standard of life on the basis of their illegal status in the United States, their alleged unwillingness to adapt, or, conversely, their possible attempt to reclaim the Southwest. The potential for anti-​Latinx sentiments triggered by the Latino Threat Narrative is further aggravated by media coverage of immigration-​ related issues and events (Chavez 2013). Such attitudes inevitably lead to the dominant culture’s rendering of the Latinx immigrant as an illegal alien, invading the illusory integrity

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136  Ewa Antoszek of the nation-​state, and thereby threatening its status quo. At the same time, those very strangers seem to be needed on occasion to rescue the US economy, performing jobs not popular with US citizens, and then being welcomed again when they are needed, only to become redundant the moment the market saturates or fluctuates. Analyzing these processes, Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis provide examples of various ways in which the United States profits from the southern border, including the benefits it has received from the Bracero Program and its legacy, the maquiladoras, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and from noninstitutionalized forms of work involving migrant workers crossing to the country from Mexico (2006). Mike Davis also describes those fluctuations in Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US City, where he compares the function of the US–​Mexico border to a dam which can both allow the influx of immigrants when needed and prevent it when it is useful to the United States, thus creating “a barricaded border and borderless economy … simultaneously” (Davis 2000, 27). Such an approach of interchangeable invitation and restraint toward (Latinx) migrants is illustrated in Jacques Derrida’s idea of hostipitality, which he defines in his essay of the same title (2000a). He paves the way for a discussion on l’étranger—​the foreigner (which, as the translator notes, can be also translated as the stranger) in Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, where he analyzes the ethics of hospitality (Derrida 2000b, ix). In “Hostipitality,” Derrida (2000a) enters into a debate with Emmanuel Levinas and questions the possibility of unconditional hospitality as a practice, thereby redefining the assumed dynamics of host–​ guest relationships and indicating the inescapable presence of hostility in hospitality. With the concept of hostipitality, as Aleksandra Bida argues, Derrida oscillates between the approach of Levinas and that of Heidegger to hospitality and mediates the approaches of these two philosophers in a way that relates the self and the other through the impossibility of absolute hospitality (completely unconditional welcome) toward a potential balance of sharing with others and also protecting oneself in order to be able to continue doing both. (2018, 123) Striving toward an ideal, Derrida recognizes the challenges, or even impossibility, of an unconditional welcome in practice, as well as the resultant tensions such encounters between host and guest generate. What is more, the tensions become exacerbated under specific preexisting conditions and lead to the domination of the hostile over the hospitable, thereby aggravating the process of othering. Such are the conditions of migrants from Central America presented by Villalobos Vindas in Casa. The film reveals the complexity and long-​ lasting history of marginalizing and othering of Latinx immigrants that

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  137 oftentimes has already started in their countries of origin and can also be related to both the social situation in the states of the Northern Triangle and their geopolitical position. For example, analyzing push, or expelling, factors in Part One, the director refers in a detailed way to the genocide of the Maya-​Ixil group in Ixil, Guatemala. The situation of the native people in the community of Ixil has worsened since the 1970s with the advent of oil companies wanting to acquire their native land for exploitation. Their opposition to this meant the group met with harsh persecution, implemented via policies of “leveled land” (Casa 7:10) or “scorched earth” (Avendaño Quesada 2017, 501), which led to violence, rapes, and the killing of these native people. The perpetrators of this extermination have remained unpunished, in spite of the attempts to bring justice to the people murdered in subsequent massacres—​the sentence handed down to President Efraín Ríos Montt responsible for the policy of terror in Guatemala was revoked almost immediately after his trial. Needless to say, this policy led to the forced migration from Guatemala of those who were in no position to withstand these persecutions. Villalobos Vindas provides similar examples from a Garifuna Community in Barra Vieja, Honduras (Casa 2016, 19:40), Huehuetenango, Guatemala (Casa 2016, 26:03), and San José del Golfo, Guatemala (Casa 2016, 29:09), where the original occupants of the land were driven from their homeland due to various industrial projects of either big national business or international companies. What connects those stories is not only the character of the push factors forcing the inhabitants to migrate to the North, but also the persecution they suffer in their own countries, where their oppression contributes to the marginalization and othering of these groups. It can be concluded that in the cases discussed by Villalobos Vindas, the process of othering begins ‘at home’ and is the result of discrimination against native people and poor people from rural areas. Skin color and/​or social status render their problems invisible to the authorities and leave them defenseless, which only aggravates the process of migration. Many of these migrants have hardly any financial means to survive the journey North, which leaves them helpless in the case of emergency. They oftentimes do not speak Spanish, let alone English. As such, they are vulnerable and prone to predators—​coyotes, criminals, or even the authorities in the transit countries, who take advantage of migrants and usually abuse their authority on the basis of the assumption that they are protecting their country from illegal aliens, or simply exercising their power to act as they want in the face of those who cannot defend themselves. If the migrants manage to complete the journey al otro lado (to the other side, meaning to the United States), their situation does not improve significantly. Provided they find a job, they may have more economic stability; yet, since they usually work illegally, that stability is also illusory, as in fact each day they go to work, they may lose their job or be deported. Moreover, it always comes at a price as the Latino Threat Narrative sees

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138  Ewa Antoszek it—​they are perceived as a threat to the US economy, taking jobs from US citizens. Their skin color and limited linguistic proficiency alienate them even further. This alienation, Chavez argues, is a product of the Latino Threat Narrative, namely the Latinx migrants’ alleged inability to assimilate (Chavez 2013), which contributes to the image of the Latinx as an illegal Other who, while sometimes needed and valuable, most of the time is considered suspect and is thus feared.

The Criminalization of Salvadorans: Maras, Deportations, and the Third Border Fear is also the driving force behind the practices of exclusion that specifically target Latino men, and Chavez includes the criminalization of Latino men as part of the Latino Threat Narrative (Chavez 2013). Seen through this lens, Latinos are perceived as potential criminals who, by their sheer presence, threaten the law and order of the host country. Villalobos Vindas addresses this issue in terms of problems with urban gangs (maras) in El Salvador which is sometimes linked to people’s decision to migrate. The director does not deny the problem exists; conversely, she talks about the destruction and violence that the gangs generate in the community in El Salvador. Villalobos Vindas interviews people whose families were directly impacted by such gang violence that resulted in murders of family members or the separation of families, which in turn led to their forced migration to the United States. While the director gives space to those involved to recount their stories, at the same time she endeavors to identify factors that have contributed to the current situation and consequently Casa shows that the story is far more complex than its mainstream media renderings. Villalobos Vindas attributes the increased presence of gangs in El Salvador and the subsequent migrations to the interventionism of the United States in the region in the twentieth century. As she points out, the United States was spending $1.4 billion annually “to combat leftist movements in Central America” (Casa 2016, 8:42). The conflict in El Salvador resulted in approximately 70,000 deaths in 12 years and, in most cases, the people who died “had nothing to do with the war directly” (Casa 2016, 8:57). In the course of the conflict, many Salvadorans left the country and migrated to the United States, frequently leaving behind the most vulnerable community members, which has ultimately resulted in irreversible demographic changes in the region. The fact that there are so many missing men—​which Villalobos Vindas illustrates through a series of snapshots of families consisting solely of women and children—​means that those who stay are even more defenseless and exposed to greater levels of violence. The director also indicates another issue that is often omitted: the history of deportations of those Salvadorans who were gang members in the United States and who took back these structures to El Salvador. These deportees were removed from the United States at the end of the

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  139 twentieth century and transferred gang arrangements to El Salvador. Owing to this phenomenon, the maras have developed significantly and constitute a threat for both those living in El Salvador permanently and current deportees. As Piotr Plewa argues in his analysis of migration from El Salvador, in spite of the National Policy for the Protection and Development of Salvadoran Migrants and their Families that was put in place in 2017, current deportees are still more prone to “extortion and violence upon arrival in El Salvador” (Plewa 2021). Plewa quotes the Human Rights Watch statistics that “at least 138 Salvadorans were killed in 2013–​2019 and 70 more were victims of violence” mostly at the hands of gangs in their own country (Plewa 2021). Aside from that, as Plewa notes, many of the recent deportees have limited Spanish competence or have often left other family members in the United States, which encourages them to return there. For these reasons, they are considered strangers in El Salvador and are subjected to exclusionary practices, similar to those they have experienced in the United States. Another paradox of this story is that those (mainly) men who want to escape from gang membership and are persecuted because of that in El Salvador become scapegoats under the Latino Threat Narrative in the United States, which portrays them as illegal aliens and criminals. As a result, Latinx migrants experience the effects of what Mike Davis calls the “third border,” which follows them within the United States, policing “daily intercourse between two citizen communities” (2000, 61). In this case, once again the hostile prevails over the hospitable in terms of the hostipitality they experience, which alienates them even more in each of the communities.

Dehumanizing Strangers: Disposability and Exclusion Finally, the process of making strangers out of migrants is aggravated by a particular approach to migrants, that is, treating them as a mass rather than individual people. Villalobos Vindas refers to this particular way of othering on numerous occasions in the film—​indeed, it is a recurrent motif in Casa. It appears in the testimonios of these migrants from the Northern Triangle who have gone through the ordeal of the journey and in interviews with those looking out for them as they travel to the United States, including Father Pedro Pantoja, who speaks about the issue of the migrants’ maltreatment in several sections of the documentary. In one of the interviews, Pantoja recognizes that the prevailing attitude toward them is “that these migrants don’t matter, they’re disposable” (Casa 2016, 14:28). Such an approach is only possible when both the people and their experiences are dehumanized and that is often reinforced by the discourse deployed to talk about migrants and migration. The terminology used on so many occasions by politicians, journalists, and ordinary people when they refer to the infamous caravans, surges, or masses of migrants only reinforces practices of dehumanization and thereby leads

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140  Ewa Antoszek to further exclusion. Francisco Cantú, a former Border Patrol agent and the author of The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border (2018), alludes to this process and notes that “when you look at the media coverage around immigration, immigrants are always represented as this indistinguishable mass of people … that’s threatening the nation, or that’s surging and overflowing at our borders” (“Francisco Cantú: ‘The Line Becomes a River,’ ” 5:37). It is, of course, easier to reject or deny basic rights to a mass or a caravan than to individual people with their often traumatic stories. In Villalobos Vindas’ film, the migrants themselves talk about the ways in which they have experienced dehumanization and exclusion. In Part Two, which features a detention center in Mexico, the migrants relate the perils of their journey, including the ride on the infamous train transporting the migrants, La Bestia, in Mexico. The interviewees describe the violence, rapes, and extortions that have befallen them on the journey to the North, particularly through the transit countries. With their stories, they map the dangers of the trip through these countries, marking the locations where local criminals attack migrants. At the same time, they emphasize in their stories how the growing surveillance and militarization on the US–​Mexico border pushes border crossers to find more and more dangerous routes, where many of them get lost, become disoriented, and die, due to severe weather conditions, hunger, and thirst. What also becomes apparent in those testimonies is the omnipresent feeling of powerlessness the migrants experience. They feel unable to report crimes or violations committed against them, even though some are actually perpetrated by police officers or representatives of other authorities, because of their status of the Other—​which follows them through the transit countries, Mexico in particular (Casa 2016, 50:30). They know that as noncitizens their capacity to fight for their rights is limited and thus most crimes and offences against migrants in transit are never reported, which only exacerbates the already difficult situation they find themselves in. Speaking of those perils and ordeals, the migrants discuss how these experiences affect them and their children personally, and they also acknowledge their long-​lasting influence and the burden they will have to carry for life as a result. Dehumanization and othering thus result in lifelong trauma, or what Laura Brown describes as “insidious trauma” (qtd. in López 2014). Tiffany López uses this term in her analysis of the incarceration of Latinos in the United States, and she offers a reading of the concept as signaling forms of violence that, because they are viewed as an ongoing feature of a social landscape or occur in marginalized communities, do not get readily recognized or identified as traumatic, and therefore remain invisible to the dominant culture, particularly those who set the registers for recognition, diagnosis, and treatment. (2014)

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  141 Applied to the phenomenon of forced migration from Central America, the concept accounts for the invisibility of what might be called the Latinx migrant predicament and in turn also condones exclusionary practices that target this specific group of migrants. The processes of othering discussed above are reinforced by legislative changes in US immigration law, the militarization of the US–​Mexico border, and the growing role of Mexico in containing people migrating from Central American countries to the United States. The Introduction to this volume mentions Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 and the executive order “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” as examples of anti-​immigrant legislation, but there is a longer history of anti-​immigration legislation in the United States. Leo R. Chavez, for example, mentions state-​ level “draconian anti-​ immigrant legislation” in individual southern and southwestern states in the 2010s (2013, 1). He also enumerates the most important immigration-​ related reform legislation passed by Congress, the House of Representatives, or other institutions, starting from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), the Immigration Act of 1990, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, HR 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, and the 2006 immigration reform passed by the US Senate (2013, 8–​ 9). All these legislative measures have a common denominator: their aim is to stifle migration to the United States through manifold means, including restrictions on the number of people coming from certain countries, the maintenance of the illegal status of an immigrant regardless of how long they have lived in the United States, the insufficient assistance to immigrants, the facilitation of deportations of immigrants, and the development of border surveillance to prevent people from entering the United States (2013, 8–​10). All of these measures also serve to reinforce exclusionary anti-​ Latinx practices, which have intensified in recent years, particularly after 9/​11 since, as Zaragosa Vargas states, “the war on terror provided the justification for this war on immigrants” (2017, 376). That “war” in turn has been reflected in the subsequent failures of various initiatives aimed at assisting immigrants in the United States, including the DREAM Act, the DACA program, the CAM Refugee/​ Parole Program, and the DAPA program (Vargas 2017, 377, 398, 404, 405). Jeffrey Toobin calls these suspensions in legislature or failure of it the “American limbo” (2015, 30) and examines how this adversely impacts on immigrants who are already in the United States and who face discrimination, family separations, and deportations on a daily basis. Vargas combines the analysis of those failed initiatives with an examination of the role of other programs that scapegoat immigrants, including Operation Streamline and the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (2017, 383, 400). Vargas’ argument is that those programs have broadened the extent of anti-​immigrant activities all over the country, as they have encouraged the implementation of

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142  Ewa Antoszek “restrictive immigration policies and police enforcement” at local and/​ or state levels (2017, 383). The main goal of these policies is both to discourage new people from migrating into the United States and to police the undocumented immigrants who already live there, oftentimes forcing them to leave the country. In this way, practices of exclusion gain legal grounding and ultimately become even more potent.

The Creation of the Great South Border: Policing Migratory Movements The potency of anti-​immigrant restrictions is reinforced through the phenomenon of the great south border, which has led to the whole territory of Mexico becoming a border-​like zone. The process has been reinforced through numerous “U.S.–​Mexico migration agreements” (Plewa 2021) that aim to control and curb migration from Central America. Laurence Armand French and Magdaleno Manzanares address the question of the expanding US–​Mexico border in their North American Border Conflicts: Race, Politics, and Ethics (2017), where they discuss the increasing militarization of the border and its effects. They argue that in the aftermath of 9/​11 Mexico has been ascribed the function of the “buffer zone” (2017, 157) to control and police migratory movements from Central America. As a result, “from that date on, all three Mexican presidential administrations have engaged in one way or another in turning Mexico into a de facto buffer zone between the United States and Central America” (2017, 160). The need to develop that buffer zone has increased as the number of people trying to emigrate to the United States from the south has grown, along with simultaneous failures to control those movements. Consequently, what in fact started as an initiative to limit the numbers of unaccompanied minors crossing the border has with time developed into an anti-​Latinx crusade with “Mexico in a more prominent role than before, both in terms of national security and immigration concerns” (French and Manzanares 2017, 165). As a result, “in 2015, there were more Central Americans apprehended and deported by Mexican authorities than by American officials” (2017, 165). Plewa also refers to these changes, quoting more recent statistics about migrants from El Salvador, according to which, “in 2019 El Salvador received 37,300 returnees from the US and Mexico combined” (Plewa 2021). It should be noted here that these changes would not be possible without a particular discourse being deployed to describe migrants from Central America in Mexico which renders the migrant in transit as an illegal alien who poses a threat to Mexican security as well as that of the United States. Consequently, as French and Manzanares argue, the anti-​immigrant cooperation between the United States and Mexico has advanced on the basis of allegedly common objectives with regard to immigration from Central America and the American assistance to help control the transit of migrants through Mexico (2017). The creation

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  143 of the great south border is thus grounded in the rhetoric of fear of the Other, which, as history proves, is a great motivator for anti-​immigrant movements where the hostile once again takes precedence over the hospitable. Both internal legislation in the United States and agreements with Mexico seem to have determined that this anti-​immigrant trajectory will continue for years to come. These issues are also mentioned by the interviewees in Casa, particularly in the context of the omnipresent violence in transit countries, which is often sanctioned by local authorities. In Part Two of the documentary, as analyzed above, both the migrants and those who assist them through their journeys discuss the unprecedented cases of abuse, rapes, extortions, and kidnappings in the transit countries that aggravate the already tenuous position of the migrants. In most cases, the crimes are not investigated—​indeed their purpose appears to be to generate fear and, as, Father Pedro Pantoja notes, “let them [the migrants] get the message” (Casa 2016, 41:58) and discourage other people from traveling across Mexico and to the United States. Father Pantoja also reveals how violence is perpetrated by both organized crime gangs and the police alike, resulting in subsequent massacres of migrants in transit, including “the massacre of the 72 in 2010” (Casa 2016, 41:27), “the massacre of Tamaulipas Two in 2011” (Casa 2016, 1:33), following the first massacre in Tamaulipas, and “the Cadereyta massacre” in 2012. Moreover, Pantoja confirms that these crimes remain unpunished, with the authorities minimizing them or disregarding them completely. The situation is aggravated through both official agreements between the US and the Mexico governments and the unofficial steps undertaken to deter the migrants. As Father Pantoja says, “the United States and Mexico are a coalition. Mexico acts slavishly through a deception that they swallowed for some reason: ‘If you slow down this starving caravan of people, I will let your Mexicans enter’ ” (Casa 2016, 43:09), which obviously is not reflected in the real situation on the US–​Mexico border, yet encourages the Mexican authorities to accept this rhetoric and implement radical measures against migrants. Another interviewee in this section, José G. Valdez, supports Father Pantoja’s observations with the example of the financing of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration by the United States, which allows the Institute to develop new ways of policing migrants (Casa 2016, 44:20). Both Father Pantoja’s and Valdez’s accounts and remarks are confirmed by testimonies of individual people who have undertaken the journey to the North and who have either experienced maltreatment and oppression on their way or have been witnesses to such crimes. Once again, these analyses and accounts testify to the complexity of the processes of othering, which range from acts of dehumanization to the legalization of exclusionary practices. The creation of the great south border as part of this process of making strangers out of Latinx migrants reflects the proliferation of sheer anti-​immigrant sentiments that accompany the creation of Mbembe’s “society of enmity”

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144  Ewa Antoszek (2019), which deprive people of their rights as humans and relegate them to hostile spaces, both literally and metaphorically.

Hospitality versus Hostility: Conviviality and Solidarity in Casa en tierra ajena However, while the hostile apparently prevails in Villalobos Vindas’ documentary, there are also moments when the hospitable takes over Casa’s narrative. There are several aspects in Casa that can be interpreted as practices of conviviality both at the level of the film’s production and the stories it relates to. In the Introduction to this volume, the authors compare various critics who provide their definitions of conviviality or convivencia, concluding that, regardless of who proposes a given definition of a concept, conviviality assumes dialogue and interaction in the aftermath of, or as a result of, an encounter with the different, the Other. This interaction can either lead to dialogue or trigger tensions, which aligns with the core of Derrida’s concept of hostipitality with its inherent hesitation between the hospitable and the hostile. Yet, in conviviality, the hope is always for the prevalence of the former rather than the latter, albeit that can be only accomplished through negotiations between the parties involved. In the context of Casa, I argue that conviviality is facilitated by solidarity, as solidarity opens up various spaces for dialogue and exchange, transforming what used to be separate locations into contact zones. Villalobos Vindas creates such contact zones in multiple ways in her documentary while depicting those that appear as a result of practices of solidarity. In this way, the director attempts to challenge exclusionary practices that create unwanted strangers out of migrants and to provide alternative possibilities of encounters with them, encouraging dialogue, exchange, and inclusion. Villalobos Vindas does that initially at the level of the film’s structure when she decides to include testimonies of former and current migrants as well as those of activists who fight the detrimental effects of forced migration in multiple ways. Consequently, Villalobos Vindas provides space for those whose stories have hitherto been untold, silenced, or disregarded. It is important to note here, as Andrea Herrera maintains, that it is not that the director gives them a voice, since they already have their voices, but she gives them the opportunity to have their voices heard (Antoszek 2022). This is particularly significant in the context of the exclusionary practices that the migrants experience, as outlets such as Villalobos Vindas’ documentary are one of the few ways in which their stories can come to light, instead of being ignored and suppressed. Moreover, as a transmedia documentary, Casa has been designed with narrative content distributed across multiple platforms as part of an expansive, non-​repetitive storyworld. As such, interactive components may be enabled via Web 2.0 technologies,

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  145 particularly in the context of social concerns that stimulate discourse &/​or invite content contributions. (Nash, in Ogden 2020, 133) The additional platforms that accompany the film include a “didactic animation,” a “YouTube channel,” a “website,” a “Facebook account,” and three additional shorter trailers on YouTube that complement the official trailer (Villalobos Vindas 2017, 91). Owing to these multiple channels of distribution, the stories in Casa can reach wider audiences and also get viewers more involved, as they can opt for the medium they prefer or complement the information they have obtained from the documentary with additional facts included in other media. Thus Villalobos Vindas not only provides space for people to tell their stories but also facilitates a more effective and extensive proliferation of those stories. What is more, in interviewing activists and recording migrants’ testimonios of the journeys they have taken, Villalobos Vindas transforms the stories that are usually only made known through statistics and official reports into personal accounts. She thereby turns otherwise nameless and somewhat abstract records into personal narratives that relate to people’s real and often traumatic experiences. The director presents those stories as human ones and, in solidarity with the migrants, provides an outlet for the voicing of these human and traumatic accounts to be heard. She has decided to intertwine statistical information and documentary footage with accounts of individual men, women, and children to whom she puts faces. Moreover, some of the interviews are shot with backdrops of the terrible images from massacres and persecutions in the speakers’ home countries, which is particularly striking for the viewer. Other stories are illustrated by snapshots of the journey to the North, including rides on La Bestia in Mexico or life in detention centers there. Villalobos Vindas also introduces into the documentary a leitmotif of a group of migrants who start their journey in the first scenes of Part One and continue their trip al otro lado throughout the length of the film. These people are similar in ages to the migrants interviewed in the film, and their journey can be interpreted as a reference to all those undertaken by numerous migrants daily. It also acts as a reminder of those who risk their lives, or even die, on their journey in search of a better life and who are still excluded and persecuted as the Other. To bring them back into the discussion—​as humans, not as numbers or figures in charts—​ is an important act which demonstrates solidarity with those who are marginalized. It also facilitates a more constructive dialogue on migration by providing a more comprehensive picture of this phenomenon. Such a dialogue is also promoted by Father Pantoja, who is an advocate of solidarity with migrants. He talks about the maltreatments and oppression they experience on several occasions in the film, as analyzed earlier in this chapter. He raises these issues to draw attention to exclusionary practices and oppression that befall the migrants, but first and

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146  Ewa Antoszek foremost, he wants to give them back their humanity. During all the meetings and workshops that he has with them, he wants them to realize they deserve to be treated with respect, compassion, and understanding. To challenge the practices of othering, Father Pantoja also advocates for solidarity with the migrants, both with authorities and ordinary people. His activism for the cause is best illustrated by a very moving scene when he walks the Stations of the Cross with the migrants around the neighborhood where Casa del Migrante de Saltillo—​one of the shelters for migrants—​is located. During this walk, Father Pantoja likens the fate of migrants to that of Christ, and the difficulties they encounter on their journey to Christ’s last journey to his place of crucifixion at Golgotha (Casa 2016, 1:12:35). To make this comparison even more powerful, the text of the prayers has been altered in such a way that at each Station they illustrate an issue related to the migrants’ lot. Father Pantoja also calls for a revision of history such that migrants are included in this new version, thereby once again showing the need for solidarity with people who have been systematically and systemically marginalized and made powerless (Casa 2016, 1:14:07). Villalobos Vindas illustrates the message of solidarity by intertwining scenes from the Stations of the Cross with images of people helping migrants, people who “give them hope that they are not alone, that love and human solidarity still exist, so they may know people with open hearts who embrace strangers with compassion” (Casa 2016, 1:16:00). The walk is concluded with a prayer for solidarity and hope (Casa 2016, 1:11:56), which reinforces Villalobos Vindas’ call in Casa to connect and create bonds rather than divide and separate.

Convivial Solidarity and Grassroots Activism in Shelters for Migrants Finally, in Part Three, “El derecho a la esperanza,” Villalobos Vindas depicts other forms of solidarity with migrants that, I argue, are part of grassroots activism. These acts of solidarity are illustrated in this section by the shelters for migrants located on the Mexican side of the border, along the most popular routes to the North, whose aim is to provide assistance to, and rest and recuperation for, people traveling al otro lado. Villalobos Vindas features three such shelters: Casa Mambré, functioning in Comitán, Chiapas since 2012; Casa del migrante in Piedras Negras, established in 1994; and the Casa del Migrante de Saltillo, in Saltillo, mentioned above. The director interviews both migrants who are staying in the shelters and people working there as volunteers. It is important to note that the migrants do not avoid difficult issues in the interviews, mentioning all the problems they encounter on their journey, but at the same time they focus on the positive aspects of their stay at these shelters. They are always treated with respect and provided with the help they need, including often medical assistance owing to the conditions of their

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  147 journey. They can also speak freely about their experiences on the journey and obtain psychological help. Such a hospitable welcome illustrates solidarity with the migrants and facilitates interactions on multiple planes: it is easier to communicate and cooperate in the atmosphere of respect and support which the shelters provide. These interactions are also encouraged through the direct involvement of the migrants in the functioning of the shelters. As such, they are invited to help out in the houses, perform household chores, and assist other visitors, which makes them feel useful and needed. In this way, in the shelters, they can regain, at least to some extent, what they have lost during the journey. And even if not all of them manage to cross the border to the United States, the period of rest at the shelter, where they are accepted for who they are, inspires hope; the hope and solidarity that lie at the core of those shelters are also reinforced by religious motivations. When interviewed, volunteers refer to the aspect of solidarity with the weak and the excluded that is part of a Christian doctrine. Those acts of solidarity are performed by people who do not have substantial means themselves and are often criticized in their communities for helping migrants. Nevertheless, they continue to help, regardless of the obstacles and ostracism they face. It can be concluded that the acts of solidarity that Villalobos Vindas depicts in Casa are an invitation to challenge practices of othering and exclusion on both sides of the border. They help facilitate encounters and they also inspire actions on the US side, ranging from individual people who walk along the routes commonly used by the migrants and leave provisions, water, or medication, to organized groups, including the New Sanctuary Movement. As an example of grassroots activism, such initiatives are much more powerful and successful in propagating encounters and dialogue, as they derive from the willingness of ordinary people to meet, help, and learn to live with difference. Those initiatives contribute to the appearance of new contact zones, which in turn facilitate the creation of inter-​community bonds. Convivial solidarity accompanied by other anti-​exclusionary practices, including the border artivism analyzed in another chapter of this volume, questions and challenges omnipresent exclusionary practices, thus propagating the Baumanian fusion rather than fission mentioned in the Introduction (Bauman 2017), or choosing the hospitable over the hostile. Building bridges rather than walls should be a logical and legitimate choice, particularly in the context of migrations that lie at the core of the Americas. Laura E. Pérez, analyzing Yreina D. Cervántez’s painting Tierra Firme, argues for “ubiquity among most peoples of some form of migration, or … ‘the timelessness of movement’ ” (2007, 161), thereby emphasizing the naturalness of migrations within the Americas. Her argument is supported by many Latinx artists, authors, and activists who work for the cause of challenging the othering and exclusion of both migrants and members of the Latinx diaspora in the United States.

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148  Ewa Antoszek As the editors note in the Introduction, it is impossible to eradicate all the walls and erase the borders completely, but mediating figures, such as Ivannia Villalobos Vindas and other Latinx activists who rewrite histories, raise awareness, and propagate dialogue, help to challenge the (baseless) convictions that people share about other people, who through the practice of conviviality are no longer perceived as complete strangers.

Note 1 I conducted a comprehensive analysis of the film in “Hospitality and the Expanding U.S.–​Mexico Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016),” published by the European Journal of American Studies (2021). I also refer to some of the examples and conclusions I made in the article throughout this chapter.

References Antoszek, Ewa. 2021. “Hospitality and the Expanding U.S.-​Mexico Border: Casa en tierra ajena (2016).” European Journal of American Studies 16 (1). https://​ doi.org/​10.4000/​ejas.16653 —​—​—​. 2022. “An Interview with Andrea Herrera.” 2022. Colorado Springs, CO. July 2022. Avendaño Quesada, Florencia. 2017. “Casa en tierra ajena. Un documental sobre migración forzada en América Central. Producción: Ivannia Vilallobos Vindas y Carlos Sandoval García. Dirección: Ivannia Vilallobos Vindas. Basado en libro No más muros. Exclusión y migración forzada en Centroamérica de Carlos Sandoval García. Costa Rica: UCR UNED-​CONARE, 2016, 80 MIN.” Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos 43: 499–​503. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2017. Strangers at Our Doors. Cambridge, UK and Maldon, MA: Polity. Bida, Aleksandra. 2018. “Derrida and ‘Hostipitality.’” In Mapping Home in Contemporary Narratives. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 119–​131. Cantú, Francisco. 2018. The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border. New York: Riverhead Books. Chacón, Justin Akers and Mike Davis. 2006. No One Is Illegal: Fighting Violence and State Repression on the U.S.-​Mexico Border. Chicago, IL: Haymarket. Chavez, Leo R. 2013. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Davis, Mike. 2000. Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US City. London, New York: Verso. Derrida, Jacques. 2000a. “Hostipitality.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 5 (3): 3–​18. —​—​—. 2000b. Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. French, Laurence Armand, and Magdaleno Manzanares. 2017. North American Border Conflicts: Race, Politics, and Ethics. Boca Raton, FL: Taylor and Francis.

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Hostipitality and Solidarity  149 López, Tiffany. 2014. “Insidious Trauma and Mass Incarceration.” The Magazine of UC Riverside. https://​maga​zine​arch​ive.ucr.edu/​2037 Mbembe, Achille. 2019. Necropolitics. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Ogden, Michael R. 2020. “Interactive/​Transmedia Documentary: Convergence Culture MeetsActuality Storytelling.” Interin 25 (1): 121–​138. PBS. “Francisco Cantú: “The Line Becomes a River.” www.pbs.org/​wnet/​amanp​ our-​and-​comp​any/​video/​franci​sco-​cantu-​the-​line-​beco​mes-​a-​river Pérez, Laura E. 2007. Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Plewa, Piotr. 2021. “Migration from El Salvador to the U.S.: A Background Brief.” https://​igs.duke.edu/​news/​migrat​ion-​el-​salva​dor-​us-​bac​kgro​und-​brief Sandoval García, Carlos. 2015. No más muros. Exclusión y migración forzada en Centroamérica. San José, CA: Universidad de Costa Rica. Toobin, Jeffrey. 2015. “American limbo: While Politicians Block Reform, What Is Happening to Immigrant Families?” The New Yorker, July 27, 2015: 30–​35. Vargas, Zaragosa. 2017. Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Era. New York: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Villalobos Vindas, Ivannia, dir. 2016. Casa en tierra ajena. Universidad de Costa Rica, Universidad Estatal a Distancia, Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE). —​—​—​. 2017. “Ruta de producción Casa en tierra ajena. Documental sobre migración forzada en Centroamérica.” Revista Espiga 16 (1): 88–​103.

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8 Humanizing the Wall Cosmopolitan Artistic Interventions on the US–​Mexico Border María Jesús Castro Dopacio

The construction of the wall by the US administration has brought about plural and paradoxical effects: on the one hand, its aim has been to increase national security while hindering immigration; on the other hand, many visual artists have perceived the wall itself as a great canvas to express a positive image of the border. This chapter analyzes various artistic manifestations from a cosmopolitan perspective that, based on an ethics of hospitality, transforms a divisory wall into an inclusive and welcoming one. Projects such as Lizbeth De La Cruz’s visual and digital mural, Enrique Chiu’s massive “Mural de la Hermandad,” Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello’s installation of a seesaw across nations named “Teeter-Totter Wall,” and Ana Teresa Fernández’s “Erasing the Border” are cultural productions recently created in public spaces along the borderline. Artists and audiences interact in these aesthetic initiatives toward the achievement of encouraging hopeful dialogues. Human dignity is restored in these transnational artworks while a militarized geographical space is being deconstructed, gaining some humanitarian values in the exchange.

Introduction The intensification of the construction of the wall by the US administration has brought about a plurality of paradoxical perspectives that further divide the nation and its citizens. Since the initial 1990 14 miles of fencing between San Diego and Tijuana and over recent years, many hundreds of miles have been built, adding to the barbed wire that the Treaty of Guadalupe-​Hidalgo put up in 1848. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the aim of this physical infrastructure has been to “gain operational control of the border,” i.e., increase national security while “disrupting criminals and smugglers” (US Department of Homeland Security Press Releases 2020). In view of this radicalization of the concept of the Other, of the stranger, many alternative responses that celebrate interconnection and community spirit have been brought to life by artists who perceive the wall as a great canvas where they can convey a positive DOI: 10.4324/9781003276043-9

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Humanizing the Wall  151 image of the border, as a counter-​narrative that expresses hope through the possibility of changing the world by means of creativity. This chapter will analyze various artistic manifestations from a cosmopolitan standpoint that, based on an ethics of hospitality and solidarity, transforms a dividing wall into an inclusive and even a welcoming one. Methodological approaches like Walter Mignolo’s idea of planetary conviviality, Kwame Anthony Appiah’s call for a global conversation, Jacques Derrida’s view of ethics as hospitality toward and coexistence with the experiences of the Other, together with contemporary art scholar Marsha Meskimmon’s proposal for a cosmopolitan imagination that underlines the agency of art will constitute the epistemological backbone that holds together the artworks studied here. Innovative projects, such as Lizbeth De La Cruz’s visual digital mural, Enrique Chiu’s massive “Mural de la Hermandad,” Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello’s installation of a seesaw across nations that they named “Teeter-​ Totter Wall,” and Ana Teresa Fernández’s attempt to erase the border with her painting, are some of the cultural productions that have recently been created in public spaces along the borderline. They exemplify rooted cosmopolitanism in the Mexican–​American context through their reflections of the specific negotiations between the local and the universal in their aesthetic expression. This strand of cosmopolitanism assumes that local solidarities and allegiances have a greater global resonance in other far-​away contexts. Transcending the particularities of these local communities, the artworks selected for this study posit the need for a certain degree of global ethical commitment. In After Cosmopolitanism, Rosi Braidotti, Patrick Hanafin, and Bolette Blaagaard put forward the notion of ‘cosmopolitics,’ which suggests that cosmopolitanism is inextricably linked to a material reality, that is, to the social and political context: In this view, cosmopolitanisms should be concerned with specificity rather than generality, groundedness rather than abstractness, engagement rather than distance, and interaction rather than reflection. It becomes a cosmopolitics by adopting embedded and embodied perspectives that take our actual situated location as starting point, rather than a timeless and placeless perspective. We need to engage, both individually and collectively, with the real-​life problems that the global world confronts us with. (2013, 4) In fact, a common denominator for all these artworks, despite the diversity in their technical approach and aesthetics, is relationality. In the public space, both artists and audiences interact in these free and accessible aesthetic initiatives to encourage dialogue—​a strategy that turns out to be counterhegemonic in view of the terror policy enacted at the border.

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152  María Jesús Castro Dopacio

Face to Face with Immigration and Deportation: “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project” As sociologist Vince Marotta explains, strangeness exists when those who are physically close are socially and culturally distant (2011, 107). The visual narratives examined here acknowledge the stranger in a broad sense—​immigrant, refugee, deportee, foreigner—​and actively confront the radicalization of the “process of estrangement” that has been taking place on the border (Ahmed 1999, 343) in recent decades. As such, the term ‘intervention’ used in this chapter is intended to designate, as the Cambridge dictionary signals, “the action of becoming intentionally involved in a difficult situation, in order to improve it or prevent it from getting worse” (2022). The commitment of the artists discussed here sends out an unambiguous message, responding through their craftsmanship to the call of Guatemala-​born, now San Diego-​based, professor and architect Teddy Cruz to recover the agency of communities in spaces of intervention that need to be activated through art (2017, xiii). By means of affirmative agency, they open their work up to collaboration with the community, which, in turn, gives their artistic creations additional layers of meaning. Thus, they manage to bring into the public space a subversive “locus of enunciation,” in Walter Mignolo’s words (2007, 158), which had previously been silenced and which contributes to a better understanding of the US–​Mexico border as well as of the site-​specific artworks themselves. In Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination (2011), Marsha Meskimmon explains that artworks articulate meaning beyond the logic of representation by pushing the boundaries of imagination into what she considers art’s agency: “This is a critical shift from asking what artworks show us about the world to asking how they can enable us to participate in, and potentially change, the parameters through which we negotiate that world” (6). Lizbeth De La Cruz’s interactive digital mural follows this trend (Figure 8.1). The first phase of “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project” was created in August 2019 with the collaboration of 15 volunteers at a time working alongside lead muralist Mauro Carrera. As part of her doctoral dissertation at UC Davis, with this mural De La Cruz intends to awaken people’s consciences to immigration and deportation, issues intimately related to her own personal experience, as her father crossed the border at this very location decades before. De La Cruz’s idea was to combine the visual element with storytelling in a public space: six portraits, together with the first-​person narrations of deported people and Dreamers, were initially recorded and given QR codes, which were then pasted on the Mexican side of the fence alongside the painted faces.1 Even though the COVID-​19 pandemic slowed down the process of painting the mural itself, the Project was finalized in the summer of 2021, as detailed on the artist’s website (lizbethdelacruzsantana.com/​ about). Fifteen faces have finally been portrayed on the wall. The digital

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Humanizing the Wall  153

Figure 8.1 Lizbeth De La Cruz, Playas de Tijuana Mural Project, 2021.

archives are part of two community-​based digital storytelling projects that De La Cruz participates in: “Humanizing Deportation,” coordinated by University of California at Davis Professor Robert Irwin,2 as well as DACAmented: DREAMs without Borders -​Digital Storytelling Project, whose program director is Lizbeth De La Cruz (https://​liz​beth​dela​cruz​ sant​ana.com/​about-​the-​proj​ect). The thread that weaves together the myriad portraits and digital narratives in this mural is the question, “Who are the real childhood arrivals to the United States?” The artist declared that her intention is “to transform the public perception of deportability through institutional and societal engagement” (De La Cruz web). Given the fact that the digital mural is available online, De La Cruz amplifies the reach of her artwork and hence a wider number of spectators can take a stand and position themselves in relation to the wall. She thus creates a positive ripple effect, as she hopes to build cosmopolitan networks of support that will question the ethics of policies around immigration and ultimately contribute to reformulate them. This kind of interaction, which can be carried out at a global scale, responds to what Kwame Anthony Appiah interprets as responsibility toward others, the very basis of morality in our global tribe (2007, xi). By contesting the violence of the border and the native resident/​undocumented stranger dichotomy, Lizbeth De La Cruz applies an ethics of hospitality to re-​ascribe meaning to strangers:

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154  María Jesús Castro Dopacio “Since they are empty signifiers, neither heard nor seen, in need of recognition, they only acquire meaning upon their encounter with ‘us,’ the Self” (Fotou 2016, 19). The mural contributes to awaken consciousness toward Others, often not considered as human beings, since their legitimacy depends on the authority of the Self. Following Sneja Gunew’s reasoning, “when it comes to articulating the ‘democratic people’ in relation to the nation, those who are excluded from the nation (on whose behalf these debates concerning morality occur) are precisely not permitted to participate in legislation concerning human rights” (2013, 136). By painting individuals and narrating their stories for this mural project, volunteers initiate a path toward a more inclusive society that aims to reduce the invisibility of others and the inaudibility of strangers. Questions about identity are aroused through this artwork that longs for a shift in attitudes that will end up transforming relationships and seeing childhood arrivals with new eyes. In her attempt to challenge the image of the undocumented (De La Cruz 2017, 280), De La Cruz makes use of digital storytelling to create an alternative cultural space that restores human dignity to the subaltern. By giving them voice through the techniques of digital narration, the artist brings into focus a collective imaginary with issues ranging from the empowered accounts of DACA recipients, such as Jairo Lozano in “Vocalizing my Dreams without Borders”; a Dreamer mother, Montserrat Galván Godoy, separated from her two daughters, who are US citizens, after being deported back to Mexico in “Mother Lioness against the Wall,” and Karla Estrada’s “Scars of Family Separation,” which gives an explicit account of her work as an activist helping people avoid deportation. Apart from her strategy of giving these people visibility, De La Cruz resorts sometimes to invisibility to protect privacy, which is ultimately a critique of the sociopolitical context: to safeguard their integrity, photographs in the video have sometimes been blurred, testament to the insecurity and vulnerability that constantly threatens the lives of the undocumented. Lizbeth De La Cruz as the artist-​mediator helps in the re-​appropriation of these people’s images and, by extension, of their identities. The cathartic effect of storytelling as a creative outlet humanizes immigrants while developing the empathy of audiences/​viewers and connecting them to these communities. In this sense, storytelling is both self-​affirming and community-​ validating, two necessary premises for prospective social change. Karla Estrada, as a former DACA recipient, now a permanent resident, stands out in her fight for a better future for her people: “If we do not help our own community to save their wounds, we will always be behind the wall, behind the border of that pain” (2017, n.p.). Montserrat Galván Godoy articulates her story with the help of a book written for her two daughters, her creativity allowing her to use it to illustrate her own plight as a Dreamer mother separated from her family. By using metaphors like bad hyenas (the US government), a lioness (the mother),

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Humanizing the Wall  155 a storm (domestic violence), “cachorritas” (daughters), the jungle (Mexico), and big jungle (the US), she aims to make her personal story more readily comprehensible for her children. De La Cruz grants her the position of seer, with her interpretative gaze awakening a deep sense of empathy in viewers. The contradictions the border generates are fully embodied by Andy De León’s personal trajectory—​a military veteran deported to Mexico in 2010 and repatriated to the United States in 2021. Tania Mendoza is another Dreamer mother who, after being educated in the United States, was separated from her parents upon receiving a deportation order, as she relates in “Dreaming in the Shadows.” Her lack of official authorization to live in the country has made her live “like a fugitive,” the constant state of fear permanently reminding her of her status as an outsider. After she got detained, since her temporary permit of residence had expired, she was fooled into signing her own deportation to Mexico. Jairo Lozano’s “Vocalizing My Dreams without Borders” also corroborates this anxiety over being undocumented from a very early age. As a DACA recipient, he has managed to obtain both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree that eventually grant him the privilege of working in a job as a counselor where he can help youngsters he identifies with, using music to open up dialogues, “giving them an outlet for expression, for healing and processing everything they experienced in their lives” (Lozano 2017, n.p.). In September 2019, the last portrait of this first stage was installed on the mural. It depicts one of the artist’s best friends, Isaac Rivera, a deported childhood arrival. Initially, the lack of a story behind this painting posits an ethical stand on the artist’s part, whereby she asks viewers to accept and understand the situations of silenced people whose stories will not get told because of their legal status or an array of other problems. In this sense, Isaac Rivera’s portrait inscribed “the power of not” in the mural, as it represents the muted voices of all those immigrants who have not succeeded or whose survival may be at risk for speaking up. His silence speaks volumes. Silenced narratives do indeed deserve a space in which to be honored in the context of the US–​Mexico border. Acknowledging the increasing volume of migrant deaths and violations of human rights that occur along the borderline is necessarily a must. Nonetheless, “An American Story” was recorded sometime later and now three videos offer the personal story of Isaac Rivera. Nine additional portraits and personal stories were added to the “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project” in the summer of 2021.3 Deportation is the main focus of this second phase, which depicts permanent residents,4 another US military veteran, and childhood arrivals who have all been deported. There is only one exception, John Guzman, a former deported childhood arrival who is still currently a permanent resident. The 15 faces and digital stories that Lizbeth De La Cruz integrated in the mural have also been made accessible to a larger virtual community on her website: they have thus attained mobility through cyberspace,

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156  María Jesús Castro Dopacio transferring the material specificity of border subjects to the digital world. As a group recollection of lived experiences, these first-​person testimonials serve as a tool for empowerment and liberation in two ways: for the narrators themselves and for audiences. In Digital Storytelling Cookbook, Joe Lambert, who was one of the founders of StoryCenter,5 claims that stories change how others think and feel, while simultaneously allowing the teller to learn from the story that they tell: “Story is learning, celebrating, healing, and remembering. Each part of the life process necessitates it. Failure to make somebody honor these passages threatens the consciousness of communal identity” (2010, v). It is precisely this communal identity that these stories are helping to transform by doing away with the partial, stereotypical images of deported migrants that are produced by the dominant discourse, and by presenting voices that would have been silenced had it not been for the wide visibility of audiovisual narrative. In this multi-​media world, a blurring of genre boundaries takes place as storytelling, visual art, and performance skills are brought to the fore in these videos. This twenty-​first century format that defies labels decolonizes mainstream genres by reclaiming oral tradition artforms, which used to blend storytelling with performance as a way of interacting with the world. When describing the methodology of the “Humanizing Deportation” community-​ based digital storytelling project in which Lizbeth De La Cruz participates, the website makes it clear that this new form of ‘vernacular creativity’ allows communities to speak for themselves. They have named the genre “testimonial audiovisual shorts”: “It is not documentary film, nor ethnography, nor investigative journalism” (De La Cruz web). Valuing and legitimating their voices, the project helps to heal some of the traumas behind each deportation experience, consequently providing a cathartic effect on the tellers. After all, “storytellers are the authors and directors of their own videos, owners of their intellectual property rights” (De La Cruz web). In her article “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital,” Lizbeth De La Cruz accounts for the decolonial twist in this authorship by explaining that using structures of power such as mass media that oppress and marginalize such people, an alternative image of the undocumented is constructed that challenges the one created by the government and its apparatus (2017, 280). In much the same way, De La Cruz’s goal with her own dissertation as a PhD candidate in Spanish Latin American Literatures and Cultures at the University of California, Davis, is to be able to truly inform public perception.6 Andrea Cornwall and John Gaventa pinpoint civil society’s new participatory processes as being key to helping create mutual better understanding where previously mistrust, suspicion, and distance had prevailed (2001, 34). Lizbeth De La Cruz created a space for citizen engagement, acting as an intermediary who holds others accountable and therefore turns them into active participants. Art(ivism), in this

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Humanizing the Wall  157 way, serves as a bridge to get others to contemplate different policy possibilities in this civil re-​reading of citizenship. This cultural intervention involves a specific negotiation of difference, given that the stories are clearly grounded in the US–​Mexico border and all border-​ crossings implied by that term. Rosi Braidotti throws light upon the ethical accountability behind this kind of project by signaling the social and political practices they incorporate that aim to restore social cohesion and respect for diversity, constructing social infrastructures of generosity and hope (2013, 14). The aesthetic exercise developed by De La Cruz clearly honors and fosters appreciation for heterogeneity in community members. The fact that volunteers have also participated in the actual painting of the mural adds to the emphasis on diversity. Diversity and difference are key in these new forms of cosmopolitanism, although, as Alberto Ledesma has highlighted, there is a scarcity of narratives dealing with undocumented subalterns in Chicana/​o literature and in literary criticism, even though undocumented immigration constitutes an essential component of the Chicana/​o condition (2002, 333). Othering processes also need to be acknowledged: the artists included in this analysis turn strangers into active community members and help extract meaning from their shared lived experiences. Grassroots participation in these artistic projects grants immigrants accountability in their role as creators of a critical sociocultural awareness that presents difference and plurality as positive values necessary for the construction of a fairer worldview. Likewise, both English and Spanish are used in the narrations, reflecting the bilingual reality of the borderlands and validating both cultures. Stories dealing with deportations and family separation resonate with the social injustices the disempowered are confronted by. Their experiential accounts situate the borderline and unfair immigration laws as the epicenter of the disruption and chaos in their lives. De La Cruz’s involvement, therefore, contributes to raising awareness about the oppressions and hardships these marginalized people suffer. Painting their faces on the wall and using digital technology to transcend the ephemeral character of murals helps to make their struggles visible, preventing them from being forgotten. In her anthology Making Face, Making Soul (1990), Gloria Anzaldúa ascribed a powerful meaning to faces, since it is the part of the body on which power structures are most significantly engraved: “The world knows us by our faces, the most naked, most vulnerable, exposed and significant topography of the body” (xv). Not without reason does De La Cruz choose to paint faces: victims of exclusionary factors such as ostracism, alienation, isolation, and shame, these disempowered people do not portray the idealized image of community the dominant discourse desires. The artist’s function consists in dismantling the assumptions that have been internalized in their collective psyche and, through a subversive transgression, displaying their faces full of pride and self-​knowledge, transcending selfhood for a greater goal: to bring light to others.

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158  María Jesús Castro Dopacio Thus, the invisibility and inaudibility of these strangers is subverted in De La Cruz’s creative discourse, which rescues them from oblivion and restores their important role as part of a public expression worthy of representation. Her use of grayscale for the portraits highlights the intricacies of deportation and the feelings of vulnerability of those who are potentially exposed to it. In the same vein, by using a large scale for the portraits and painting the background in sky blue, Lizbeth De La Cruz plays with the concepts of forced visibility and erasure (Chase 2019, 138). The choice of this hue allows viewers to blend the color of the sky with that of the metal posts that make up the wall. The contrast between the ethereal sky and the materiality of the bars is particularly stark. The resulting effect is that the faces gain even greater prominence. The digital stories testify to the dramatic consequences border policies have had on the lives of many Mexican and American people. All the narratives are connected by the hardships of deportation or insecure residency; what is permanently at stake in these people’s lives is the constitutional privilege of citizenship and the right to be treated with dignity and respect. The meanings of this art installation are contingent upon the presence of the wall, whose location adds to these meanings: the mural faces the Mexican side of the wall that divides/​unites two nation states. Playas de Tijuana is a borough of the municipality of Tijuana, Baja California, which is bordered to the north by Border Field State Park in San Diego county, California. Friendship Park, an area of land contained within Border Field State Park, was inaugurated in August 1971 by First Lady Patricia Nixon as a meeting space for separated families and friends who could not legally cross the border to gather and get together. Initially a barbed wire fence, the 50th anniversary of this binational space in 2021 has shown that to be a distant ideal, not only because of the double-​ layered border walls that now exist and its militarized surveillance—​ 24-​ hour presence of Border Patrol agents, infrared cameras, and high-​powered radars—​but also because of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, which have completely closed public access on the US side since February 2020.7 The wall, as well as the art exhibited on it, offers multiple interpretations, depending on the perspective of the viewer/​audience. The fact that the artistic interventions face Mexico emphasizes the social discontent with the idea of a wall and immigration policies. The unfair separation of families, the demands for social equity, and the problems derived from immigration status become even more acute in these murals. Artistic expression serves, then, as a turning point, increasing awareness of what the wall makes material: ambivalent as border life is, this powerful audio-​ visual message reminds audiences/​ viewers of the dignity human lives should never lose, of the perils faced when seeking a better future on US soil, and of the sense of closeness among strangers that ameliorates social exclusion experiences. For US audiences crossing the border into Mexico, the perceptions of this mural may hopefully recall the need to question

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Humanizing the Wall  159 the parameters through which walls and immigration policies thwart the dreams of others. In a time when goods and capital have greater mobility than humans, connections across borders must be put in place not only in economic terms, but also taking a more humanitarian approach. The shared experiences of migration and deportation in these digital narratives establish a cosmopolitan connection around the globe which likely resonates in contexts far from Tijuana. In this sense, De La Cruz creates a new community. On her personal website, the artist tags her multifaceted nature by having several sections—​scholar, educator, poet, artist, public speaker, and photo/​videographer. As part of the ArteVism Fellowship Program Guest Speaker Series, held by the AFSC-​Pan Valley Institute, Lizbeth De La Cruz insists on her role as ‘artivist,’ combining art with activism so that ethical and more humane policy recommendations can start to be contemplated (De La Cruz web).

Beautifying the Wall through Conviviality: “Mural de la Hermandad” A liaison for “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project,” Enrique Chiu is another artist now resident in Tijuana whose “Mural de la Hermandad” (Figure 8.2), started in December 2016, shares some features with De La Cruz’s, namely, the vision of art as a medium to show change; the collaboration of more than 4,000 volunteers, including immigrants from the caravan arriving from Central America in 2018; color as a technical

Figure 8.2 Enrique Chiu, Mural de la Hermandad, 2020.

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160  María Jesús Castro Dopacio tool to make the rusty wall fade into the background; painting on the southern side of the border; and the use of inspirational sentences that contribute to beautifying this liminal space generally perceived as inhospitable. With two kilometers in Tijuana, half a kilometer in Tecate, and another half kilometer in Mexicali, Chiu aims to paint the longest mural in the world. The artist’s intention is to turn a dividing wall into a welcoming and inclusive one. This subversion of hegemonic imagery responds to Mignolo’s paradigm of a critical cosmopolitanism where “silenced and marginalized voices are bringing themselves into the conversation of cosmopolitan projects, rather than waiting to be included” (2000, 736). A revised notion of citizenship is put forward in this type of project, one that escapes the restrictions of state jurisdiction by including migrants, refugees, asylum-​seekers, and deported people. The only condition the artist established for participants was that contributions had to send out positive messages, promoting peace and conviviality. Hence, the vision of this artwork for border-​crossers will provide a beacon of hope and of humanitarian support, transforming the wall’s previous aesthetic. In the same way that Lizbeth De La Cruz produced a documentary (2019), currently shown on her website, Enrique Chiu has also had a very active role as an artist. He collaborated with Alejandro Argüelles Benítez on the documentary “Un Mundo Sin Muros” (2019) and with Spencer Rabin on the short “This Side Has Dreams Too” (2019). In his TED talk “Las fronteras de la cultura,” given in Tijuana, he claims that the Mexican Dream is also possible, and art, with its focus on the aesthetic and emotional, has the power to invert the wall’s symbolism, transforming solitude into solidarity (Chiu 2019). It is his firm conviction that creating and changing the world can also be done on the Mexican side, where the human rights impact of the wall is notably manifest. Even though the artwork on the wall is ephemeral, the artist emphasizes the moment of union and the sense of freedom granted to participants/​ viewers. Vince Marotta alludes to the importance of “moments of sameness” (2011, 119) achieved by engaging in group practices. He believes they should exist in combination with the individual differences that contemporary cosmopolitan thinkers call for. Likewise, Seyla Benhabib argues that “migrations … lead to a pluralization of allegiances and commitments and to the growing complexity of nationals” (2007, 54). Individuals legally prohibited from public participation in some territories are being artistically and socially recognized by Enrique Chiu. As well as an exchange of aesthetics and knowledge, the artist facilitates the transfer of these within the community: he becomes a facilitator of communal expressions where Hondurans, Haitians, Guatemalans, Mexicans, and people from other countries, together with many local and international artists, have shared personal stories. Both local and global activisms are at play here since volunteers from all over the world have travelled to Tijuana to take part in this project.8 Integration is, therefore, achieved through the resilience and engagement of participants, and it

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Humanizing the Wall  161 has transformational potential. Embellishing a community space has the capacity to change the stance of viewers facing the wall, fostering social dialogue, and opening spaces of negotiation. Chiu insists that his mural has an aesthetic and emotional focus, not a political one. Uniting people does not equal unifying them into a single mass; much to the contrary, granting them the confidence to reveal themselves as unique is the first necessary step toward the visibility and understanding of their complex identities. Visual language is a potent tool for constructing meaning and sharing lived experiences. Mural painting allows participants the opportunity to access the public sphere in order to evade ostracism and validate their personal discourses and sense of belonging. Unlike the classical Mexican muralists of the 1930s (Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros), with his participatory stand, Enrique Chiu, who declares himself to be heir to that cultural heritage, invites social cooperation, moving from individualism to collective praxis. “Mural de la Hermandad” thus becomes a culturally purposeful process that brings the community into play. Through an online fundraising platform, Chiu has managed to finance the project, which was not sponsored by the government, as the Mexican murals were under the post-​Mexican Revolution. Once again, “the new technologies of networking … [are] destroying the walls of separation and generating a new global connectivity consonant with this new age” (Benhabib 2007, 62). The wall becomes a place of convergence where the artist tries to promote a sense of refuge and solidarity that mitigates fear and insecurity, the emotions meant to be triggered by this vertical structure. The powerful link between art and society that this project focuses on subverts the top-​down hierarchy officially superimposed on the metal fence.

Sewing Up the Wall with a Seesaw: “Teeter-​Totter Wall” The wall has also been chosen as the spot for other modes of visual art, such as performance art. The partnership between architecture professor Ronald Rael and interior design professor Virginia San Fratello gave life to “Teeter-​Totter Wall” (Figure 8.3), a temporary installation created in July 2019 at the fence between Ciudad Juárez (Mexico) and Sunland Park (New Mexico). Three pink seesaws engaged people for some minutes in binational play that dismantled the violence, intolerance, and exclusion implied by the wall. Using play and joy as acts of resistance, the creators momentarily returned hope and harmony to this interstitial area. Drawing on Modesta di Paola’s notion of “cosmopolitical aesthetics,” art installations of this kind “move between concepts such as identity of relationship, conflict, hospitality, and migration, revealing the relationship that humankind establishes with its bio-​geo-​political environment” (2018, 13). With the collaboration of Colectivo Chopeke, in this unusual encounter these artists did, indeed, disrupt the hospitality/​ hostility dichotomy by reinforcing public hospitality in this newly created space of

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162  María Jesús Castro Dopacio

Figure 8.3 Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, Teeter-​Totter Wall, 2019.

sharing. The choice of making the installation bright pink alluded to the violence inflicted on women in the city of Ciudad Juárez. This site-​specific artwork interacts with its surroundings, integrating the social particularities of its border context and making clear the inadequacy of the wall as a physical and psychological deterrent. In his TED talk “An architect’s subversive reimagining of the US-​ Mexico border wall” (2019), Ronald Rael states that since the wall cuts people’s lives and divides families, his role is to mend those broken relationships to design a re-​United States. This art installation questions whether the wall is a valid solution to immigration, especially in view of the traumatic experiences children are suffering when separated from their parents. The Trump administration’s “zero-​ tolerance” migration policy, announced in April 2018, interpreted unauthorized entry to the United States as a criminal act. This caused severe psychological and emotional harm to children who were separated from their parents when they were detained. In 2017, Ronald Rael had already written Borderland as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-​Mexico Boundary to protest against the wall. In his book he criticizes the poor understanding of the delicate balance of trade and labor relationships that a one-​sided perspective on the wall provides (2017, 105). The teeter-​totter is but a metaphor for the mutually dependent relationship of the two nations. After all, the success of both states depends upon their relationship. As with the children’s playground ride, the negotiation and advancement of social abilities allows a balance to be achieved. The central point for this 20-​minute performance was indeed the wall, leaving momentarily aside all the tensions, concentrating on

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Humanizing the Wall  163 the new dimension brought about by the seesaw project: that of social cohesion and intercultural construction. Architect Teddy Cruz observes in his foreword to Rael’s book that “the borderwall is a concrete symbol of an ‘administration of fear,’ the clearest evidence of our obsession with private interests at the expense of social responsibility and the erosion of public thinking in our institutions today” (2017, xiv). As in the artistic interventions analyzed above, public space is the arena for public participation. Globalization turns local in this specific spot that constrains the mobility of migrants. The seesaw acts as a catalyst setting in motion the sociopolitical commitment of the artists and the community dynamics, a bottom-​up public paradigm. The performativity of this live art restates the interdependent relationship between the participants involved, engaging with the context in which it occurs and with their constantly revised and reconstructed border identities.9 In her article “Structural Injustice and the Politics of Difference,” Iris Marion Young notes how important it is for civil society to bring attention to relations of privilege and disadvantage (2007, 91) so that while celebrating positive shared experience, structural processes that perpetuate the limitation of opportunities are being confronted and undermined (2007, 92). This is what “Teeter-​Totter Wall” does, acting as a suture, or stitch, that at this specific point mends, in Anzaldúa’s words (1987), the “open wound” that the border and the borderwall are. As Rael himself argues in his book, this extremely low-​tech piece of security infrastructure poses tremendous opportunities for “the residents of this landscape to intellectually, physically, and culturally transcend it through their creativity and resilience” (2017, 5). Imagination is indeed a potent tool to propel a more just and humane community.10 Feelings of attachment and belonging reduce social exclusion and foster transborder collective empowerment. Marsha Meskimmon points to art as one of the most significant modes through which it is possible “to encounter difference, imagine change that has yet to come, and make possible the new” (2011, 8). Being a design that nurtures bonding, “Teeter-​ Totter Wall” contributes to the health of communities by underscoring hospitality and interaction as requisites for inclusiveness. This artistic project ultimately destabilizes the function of the wall, while advancing the re-​appropriation of its physicality and its subsequent borderless imaginary.

A Dream Come True: “Erasing the Border” The last artistic intervention on the wall that this chapter focuses on is Ana Teresa Fernández’s “Erasing the Border.” This performance was developed in several phases. The first stage was carried out at Playas de Tijuana in 2011. Wearing a black cocktail dress and stilettos, as the photos and paintings of this performance show on the artist’s website,11 Ana Teresa Fernández painted blue a section of the metal barrier that

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164  María Jesús Castro Dopacio curtails the horizon for so many families. The resulting visual effect is the erasure of the wall in that fragment, which is now the color of the sky and the ocean. After all, air and water stand out as two natural elements that cannot be contained by the human architecture of separateness. Her public artwork sends a message of hope to the world, one where walls do not divide people. Fernández projects a figment of utopian imagination in this dystopian border that blocks human movements in the age of globalized mobility. The powerful image of a sensual laboring female body is used by the artist to undermine stereotypes and to question assumptions about gender, sexuality, politics, identity, class, race, and ethnicity. By inscribing her colored female body on the art event, Fernández chooses a signifying element that challenges stereotypes and notions of otherness. She has ascribed her choice of clothing to the visual language of tango, a dance that establishes power symmetry in the couple (Fernández 2019). Her stand against the objectification of female Others is evidenced by the fact that she inscribes not only her body, but also her determined self-​ expression through art as well. The female body as an empowering figure appears in the foreground of this art event placed out in a landscape characterized by its constructed boundaries. Therefore, the artist, as an agent of change, breaks down those barriers. The second stage of this performance took place in Nogales, Sonora (Mexico), in 2015. This time the artist was invited by the humanitarian organization Border Community Alliance to paint a 10-​meter-​ wide section of the wall with the participation of both US and Mexican volunteers (Redacción Sipse). Even though this time she was not wearing her dress, her intention was the same: to create a sense of unity under a common sky, reimagining a landscape often associated with aggression, frustration, and death. The third phase of the performance was done in 2016 in Baja California and Ciudad Juárez with the collaboration of the cultural collective Border/​Arte. These community-​based projects allow viewers/​participants to become aware of their collective power to reimagine space. “Erasing the Border” echoes what Marsha Meskimmon calls “a transitive economy in and through the work of art” (2011, 62), as art is not only the object, the artwork, but also the active process of engagement—​art’s work. As an art event, projects like this suggest a new type of encounter with the wall from the perspective of viewers. The wall’s naturalization and solemnity may be rendered artificial by viewers’ perceptions since this project has the capacity to reverse its underlying ideological purpose as a social construct. Thus, as senses such as sight transcend the artifice of the border wall, power is being contested. The color blue manages to disrupt the fixity of the wall, exposing at the same time the mutability of identities. The artist indicates how both reality and imagination are negotiable. Her intervention questions issues that revolve around the wall, such as the criminalization of immigrants and refugees,

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Humanizing the Wall  165 the oppression of women, and, in general, it makes viewers confront the living conditions of communities on both sides of it. Ana Teresa Fernández’s TED talk “How Art Allowed Me to Erase Borders” (2017) recounts the reception of her artwork. She relates how feelings of love and hatred were immediately aroused in art receivers. She was made aware of the brutal sense of threat arising from her art: “Fear had erected those walls. It was the sheer illusion of the wall not being present that terrified people. I realized how important the imagination could be” (web). The fiction generated by Fernández’s art reassured her in her initial motivation for this project. In fact, her most powerful weapon—​her creative force—​was strengthened after witnessing viewers’ reactions. Embracing Thoreau’s words, she bluntly declares, “I will keep painting the future as a majority of one that widens the path of possibility.” Ana Teresa Fernández’s aesthetic installation determines how viewers connect and interpret the landscape, momentarily transcending reality. In “Walls and Border Art: The Politics of Display” (2012), Anne-​Laure Amilhat Szary confronts the paradox whereby politics and power work hand in hand, yet curiously enough most walls are built by democracies, which, after all, demonstrates their performative function. The wall arouses strong emotions, but healthy democracies should not appeal to passion to encourage an open debate. When analyzing this artwork, Renée Marlin-​Bennett points out the menace of the hidden walls human beings imagine: “The barrier that cannot be seen is more dangerous than one that can be” (2019, n.p.). In fact, with its aesthetic engagement, art can change the way observers perceive the world since it directly affects emotions, stirring deep resonances. Fernández’s intervention is a hand outstretched to strangers. She clearly painted what she wished to see and dreamt about. As such, she initiates a cosmopolitan dialogue that acknowledges and connects what Marsha Meskimmon designates the artist’s “response-​ability” to everyone’s responsibilities in a world community: The impact of feminist praxis on the concept of cosmopolitanism is especially strong where connections are made between the macro-​ level of a politics of world citizenship and micro-​level explorations of making ourselves at home in the world, of creating opportunities for hospitality and belonging that cut across difference and are engendered through conversations with embodied others. (2011, 7) What Fernández achieves with “Erasing the Wall” allows her to link her creativity to her sociopolitical endeavor. Her artwork produces an effect of reality that de-​naturalizes reality, revealing its constructedness. To this end, social change is instigated in her aesthetic strategies by

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166  María Jesús Castro Dopacio transforming and redefining the meanings of the wall. Her interpretative gaze forms bonds between a local and a cosmopolitan outlook on the walls that divide communities across the globe, and in this way her artistry manages to transcend real or imagined borderlines, celebrating unity, inclusion, diversity, and compromise. Overall, in the transnational subjectivities and artworks examined here, human dignity is restored while a highly militarized geographical space is being questioned and gains some humanitarian values in the exchange. The artists included in this reflection employ a variety of artistic media to build bridges through the wall which, aesthetically and conceptually, advocate greater social justice. Their artworks contribute to an openness toward strangers whereby they complete a process of subjectification that requires constant renegotiation in each encounter with the Other. Ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, social status, and foreignness affect the perception of strangers and they are all inscribed in the artworks examined here. The wall is the product of particular historical conditions, and as such, these sociopolitical variables are fluid, so they will shift over time. The artists have negotiated what type of creative projects are necessary to improve the life and social conditions of permanent or temporary residents as well as of people in transit through the border. It is in the artistic spaces they create that aesthetic and ethical values intersect and coalesce. Thus, their art demands ethical approaches that re-​think the wall with a new sensibility. Since their artworks help to know and accept others better, they respond to the principle of cosmopolitanism, which “starts with what is human in humanity” (Appiah 2007, 134).

Notes 1 The term “Dreamers” refers to immigrants taken to the USA as children who have obeyed the law, stayed in school, or enlisted in the military. They had been offered temporary protection from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), introduced by President Barack Obama in 2012. Even though the program did not grant citizenship, the Trump administration brought it to an end in 2017. The Supreme Court rejected the abolition of the program in June 2020. Nonetheless, the Trump administration continued to create obstacles for DACA recipients. The appointment of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as President in January 2021 has returned some hope to these undocumented immigrants, since one of his first presidential actions has been to preserve and fortify DACA. A memorandum from the White House is eloquent in this respect, saying that the decision “reflects a judgment that these immigrants should not be a priority for removal based on humanitarian concerns and other considerations” (White House Briefing Room 2021). 2 This project is a bilingual public venue for exploring and sharing personal stories of mass deportation. Containing over 300 digital stories by 250 community storytellers, the project gives authority to the participants as they

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Humanizing the Wall  167 narrate their oftentimes traumatic experiences from their perspectives, in their own words and with their own visual design (Irwin). 3 At the time of writing this chapter, six new digital stories have been uploaded to De La Cruz’s website. 4 Despite holding an official immigration status in the US, foreign nationals may be subject to deportation for participating in criminal acts, being a threat to public safety, or violating their visa (USAGov). 5 A Berkeley-​based organization that has been running storytelling workshops since 1993. As founders of the digital storytelling movement, Joe Lambert, Dana Atchley, and Nina Mullen have helped over 20,000 individuals construct and share their personal stories using digital media technology (www. stor​ycen​ter.org). 6 Her dissertation, titled “The Diaspora of US Childhood Arrival Immigrants: Illegalization, Criminalization, and Deportation of Americans by the Country They Call Home,” is expected in June 2023 (De La Cruz web). 7 Friends of Friendship Park is a grassroots coalition of individuals and organizations working toward revitalizing the US side of this binational space. Whereas the Mexican side boasts with life (as there are restaurants, cafés, people living), on the US side there is no such vitality. That is what this association has been advocating for since 2006. With the belief that the best security for both nations is based on cooperation, trust, and friendship, they advanced a Design Challenge called Build That Park! as part of the activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary. This was also an important backup for the first binational bid from San Diego and Tijuana to become World Design Capital 2024. 8 At the time of writing this chapter, the project has been alive for five years. In March 2020, communal painting was stopped due to the outbreak of the COVID-​19 pandemic. However, in July 2021 collective painting resumed at Playas de Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, and Tijuana. The organization Sin Fronteras took part in these events, pasting QR codes on the wall that contain useful information for migrants, such as interactive maps of where to find immigration offices and hospitals, and the procedures for seeking asylum or documenting immigration status. 9 The functioning of this artwork has been recorded in video format, capturing its live-​ness and impermanence for wider and future audiences (Rael, Ronald, and Virginia San Fratello). 10 In January 2021, Teeter-​Totter Wall was awarded the overall 2020 Beazley Designs of the Year prize at the Design Museum in London. The jury was particularly impressed by the possibility of things deriving from the mixture of design and activism (https://​desig​nmus​eum.org/​exhi​biti​ons/​beaz​ley-​desi​ gns-​of-​the-​year). 11 https://​ana​tere​safe​rnan​dez.com/​borra​ndo-​la-​barda-​tiju​ana-​mex​ico/​.

References Ahmed, Sara. 1999. “Home and Away: Narratives of Migration and Estrangement.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 2 (3): 329–​347. Aldama, Arturo J., and Naomi H. Quiñonez, eds. 2002. Decolonial Voices: Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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168  María Jesús Castro Dopacio Amilhat Szary, Anne Laure. 2012. “Walls and Border Art: The Politics of Art Display.” Journal of Borderlands Studies 27 (2): 213–​ 228. www.resea​ rchg​ate.net/​publ​icat​ion/​254307365_​Walls_​and_​Border_​Art_​The_​Poli​tics​_​ of_​Art_​Disp​lay Anzaldúa, Gloria. 1987. Borderlands/​ La Frontera. The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. —​—​—​. 1990. Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2007. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. London: Penguin. Argüelles Benítez, Alejandro, dir. 2019. Un Mundo Sin Muros. Long Beach, CA. Enrique Chiu Arte. Benhabib, Seyla. 2007. “Crises of the Republic: Transformations of State Sovereignty and the Prospects of Democratic Citizenship.” In Justice, Governance, Cosmopolitanism, and the Politics of Difference: Reconfigurations in a Transnational World, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Seyla Benhabib, Iris Marion Young, and Nancy Fraser, 45–​78. Berlin: Humboldt University. Braidotti, Rosi, Patrick Hanafin, and Bolette Blaagaard. 2013. After Cosmopolitanism. New York: Routledge. —​—​—​. 2013. “Becoming-​world.” In After Cosmopolitanism, edited by Rossi Braidotti, Patrick Hanafin, and Bolette Blaagaard, 8–​ 27. New York and London: Routledge. Cambridge Online Dictionary. “Intervention.” January 5, 2022. https://​dic​tion​ ary.cambri​dge.org/​dic​tion​ary/​engl​ish/​inter​vent​ion Chase, Wendy. 2019. “Tijuana Dreamers: An Interview with Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana.” In Art, Activism, and the Practice of Dissent. Interdisciplinary Humanities 36 (3 Fall): 132–​153. Chiu, Enrique. 2019. “Las fronteras de la cultura.” TED Video, 15:50. www.ted. com/​talks/​enrique_​chiu_​las_​fron​tera​s_​de​_​la_​cult​ura Cornwall, Andrea, and John Gaventa. 2001. “Bridging the Gap: Citizenship, Participation and Accountability.” January 9, 2021. www.resea​rchg​ate.net/​ publ​icat​ion/​242453114_​Bridging_​the_​Gap_​Citizenship_​Parti​cipa​tion​_​and​_​ Acc​ount​abil​ity Cruz, Teddy. 2017. “Borderwalls as Public Space?” In Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-​Mexico Boundary, edited by Ronald Rael, viii–​xv. Oakland: University of California Press. De La Cruz, Lizbeth. 2017. “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital.” In Cultura en América Latina: prácticas, significados, cartografías y discusiones, coordinated by David Bautista Toledo, César E. Jiménez Yañez, and Christian Alonso Fernández Huerta, 277–​286. Mexicali, Baja California: Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. www.resea​rchg​ ate.net/​publ​icat​ion/​242453114_​Bridging_​the_​Gap_​Citizenship_​Parti​cipa​tion​ _​and​_​Acc​ount​abil​ity —​—​—​. “Artist’s Web.” January 9, 2021. https://​liz​beth​dela​cruz​sant​ana.com/​ De La Cruz, Lizbeth, dir. 2019. Playas de Tijuana Mural Project. Davis, CA: UC Davis. Di Paola, Modesta, ed. 2018. Cosmopolitics and Biopolitics: Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary Art. Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona.

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Humanizing the Wall  169 Estrada, Karla. 2017. “Scars of Family Separation.” Humanizando la Deportación, #221b. http://​human​izan​dola​depo​rtac​ion.ucda​vis.edu/​ Fernández, Ana Teresa. 2017. “How Art Allowed Me to Erase Borders.” TED Video, 16:09. www.yout​ube.com/​watch?v=​ncwp​zEoV​ZCk —​—​—​. 2019. “Episode 015: Erasing the Border and the Wall in Our Heads with Social Sculptor Ana Teresa Fernández”. Monument Lab. Archived from the original on 2019-​09-​17. October 12, 2021. —​—​—​. “Artist’s web” January 9, 2021. https://​ana​tere​safe​rnan​dez.com Fotou, Maria. 2016. “Ethics of Hospitality: Envisaging the Stranger in the Contemporary World.” Thesis on the web. London School of Economics and Political Science. January 9, 2021. http://​ethe​ses.lse.ac.uk/​3403/​ Gunew, Sneja. 2013. “Estrangement as Pedagogy: The Cosmopolitan Vernacular.” In After Cosmopolitanism, edited by Rossi Braidotti, Patrick Hanafin, and Bolette Blaagaard, 132–​148. New York and London: Routledge. Irwin, Robert, coord. “Humanizing Deportation.” October 13, 2021. http://​ human​izan​dola​depo​rtac​ion.ucda​vis.edu/​en/​ Lambert, Joe. 2010. Digital Storytelling Cookbook. Digital Diner Press. January 9, 2021. www.stor​ycen​ter.org/​invent​ory/​digi​tal-​story​tell​ing-​cookb​ook Ledesma, Alberto. 2002. “Narratives of Undocumented Mexican Immigration as Chicana/​o Acts of Intellectual and Political Responsibility.” In Decolonial Voices: Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century, edited by Arturo J. Aldama and Naomi H. Quiñonez, 330–​354. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lozano, Jairo. 2017. “Vocalizing My Dreams without Borders.” Humanizando la Deportación #255: http://​human​izan​dola​depo​rtac​ion.ucda​vis.edu/​ Marlin-​Bennett, Renée. 2019. “Art-​Power and Border Art.” Arts and International Affairs. October 27, 2019. https://​the​arts​jour​nal.net/​2019/​10/​27/​mar​lin-​benn​ ett-​2/​ Marotta, Vince. 2011. “The Cosmopolitan Stranger.” In Questioning Cosmopolitanism, edited by Stan van Hooft and Wim Vanderkerckhove. Studies in Global Justice 6, 105–​120. Dordrecht: Springer. Meskimmon, Marsha. 2011. Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination. New York: Routledge. Mignolo, Walter D. 2000. “The Many Faces of Cosmo-​polis: Border Thinking and Critical Cosmopolitanism.” Public Culture 12 (3): 721–​748. —​—​—​. 2007 “Coloniality of Power and De-​colonial Thinking.” Cultural Studies 21 (2/​3): 155–​187. Rabin, Spencer, dir. 2019. This Side Has Dreams Too. Long Beach, CA. Enrique Chiu Arte. Rael, Ronald. 2017. Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-​Mexico Boundary. Oakland: University of California Press. —​—​—​. 2019. “An Architect’s Subversive Reimagining of the US-​Mexico Border Wall.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading www.ted.com/​talks/​ronald_​rael_​an_​ architect_​s_​subversive_​reimagining_​o​f_​th​e_​us​_​mex​ico_​bord​er_​w​all. October 12, 2021. Redacción Sipse. 2022. “Artista ‘baja el telón del cielo’ en la frontera México-​ EU.” January 24, 2022. https://​sipse.com/​mex​ico/​arti​sta-​mexic​ana-​pinta-​ valla-​fro​nter​iza-​mex​ico-​esta​dos-​uni​dos-​174​033.html USAGov. “Deportation.” Web. January 11, 2022. www.usa.gov/​depo​rtat​ion

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170  María Jesús Castro Dopacio U.S. Department of Homeland Security Press Releases. 2020. “The Border Wall System is Deployed, Effective and Disrupting Criminals and Smugglers.” October 29, 2020. www.dhs.gov/​news White House Briefing Room. 2021. Preserving and Fortifying Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). February 15, 2021. www.whi​teho​use.gov/​ brief​i ng-​room/​page/​16/​. Young, Iris Marion. 2007. “Structural Injustice and the Politics of Difference.” In Justice, Governance, Cosmopolitanism, and the Politics of Difference: Reconfigurations in a Transnational World, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah et al. 2007, 79–​116. Berlin: Humboldt-​Universität zu Berlin.

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Index

9/​11 3, 4, 63, 134, 141, 142; post-​ 3, US-​Mexico border 135; public discourse 4 A Ballad of Love and Glory, see Lemus Abya Yala 83 Across a Hundred Mountains, see Grande action, theory of (Arendt) 97, 109, 111 activism 146; grassroots 146, 147; and art 1, 159; and design 167n10; local and global 160 Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, see Derrida aesthetic reflective judgement (Kant)101 Ahmed, Sara 2, 26; and stranger 2; stranger strangers 26, 27, 30; Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-​coloniality 2 All the Stars Denied, see García McCall Althusser, Louis, 105, 106; “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” 105 Álvarez-​López, Esther, and Andrea Fernández-​García 1–​21 angst 15, 88, 111; Cubangst (Rivero) 95, 109, 110, 111; Latinangst 95, 110; of unbelonging 96; in Latinx cosmopolitanism 109–​111 anti-​immigrant 129, 143; activities 141; measures 4; movements 143; restrictions 142; sentiments 143; legislation 4, 134, 141; rhetoric 14, 25, 42; cooperation 142 anti-​immigration, laws 4; sentiments 9

anti-​Latinx, sentiments 1, 59, 65, 66, 134, 135; exclusionary practices 134 Antoszek, Ewa 134–​149 Anzaldúa, Gloria 70, 72, 78, 84, 92, 93, 157; autohistoria 97; autohistoria-​teoría 97; and border 7, 79; Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza 6, 81, 97, 102, 103; and bridge 17n6; 17, 90; bridging 78; conocimiento 10, 39n1, 95; interconnectedness 67, 70; la facultad 95, 102; nepantla 10, 15, 27, 77, 78, 80, 81, 87, 95, 98, 105; nepantilism 14, 77, 78, 79; psychic confession 109; third element 79; “To Live in the Borderlands” 88 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 28, 151, 153; and cosmopolitanism 28 Arendt, Hannah 95, 105; action, theory of 109, 111; Between Past and Future 108; Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy 98; boundary situations 99, 107, 110; critical thinking 95, 96, 98, 107, 111; Latinx critical thinking 107–​109; The Human Condition 97; “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition” 101–​102; The Life of the Mind 98, 99, 104; judgment, conception of 99, 101, 110; and Kant’s cosmopolitan subject 98, 102; life of a stranger 99; natality 15, 96, 97, 111, 112n2; pariah, theory of 101; and testimony 97, 108, 111; thinking ego 104; “We Refugees” 102 Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 4, 141

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172 Index art, agency 16, 151, 152; as a medium to show change 159; and performance 161 artist’s response-​ability 165 artivism 147; as a bridge 157 artivist, De La Cruz and role as 159 artwork, and active process of engagement 164 Bauman, Zygmunt 3, 14, 15, 45; cosmic fear 3, 135; fission 9, 147; fusion 9, 147; moral panic 3; and stranger 26, 59, 73, 120; true hybrids 39n1; undistorted communication 16 Beck, Ulrich, and cosmopolitanism 70, 71; and dialogic imagination 71–​72 Bestia, La 140, 145 Between Past and Future, see Arendt biculturation 103 border(lands) 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 34, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 59, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 87, 88, 89, 92, 92n1, 104, 130, 131, 140, 141, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 162, 166; alchemy 45; artivism 147; border-​crosser 10, 39n1, 140, 160; borderzone, policing of 6; bridging of 87; Chicanx border narratives 82–​84; contesting violence in 153; cross-​border interactions 63; crossing 3, 7, 8, 17n2, 48, 55, 60, 62, 64, 73, 83, 89, 136, 142, 157, 158; discursive 60; as discursive space 61, 72, 73; duality in 7, 155, 158; dystopian 164; “Erasing the Border” 163–​166; essential for cognitive processes 6; ethnic tensions in region 25; great south 134, 142–​144; identities 163; ideological 42, 54; Latinx artists dismantling of 7; materiality of 3; mechanism 14; militarization of 5, 63, 77, 134, 140, 141, 142; national and transnational forces in 61–​65; necropolitics 5, 9; as open wound 77, 79, 83, 90, 163; as places of passage and transformation 7, of encounter and dialogue 72; people 64; porous 7, 62, 63, 69, 71; rhetorical 42, 43, 45, 54; security 4; Southern 17n2, 42, 43, 135, 136; surveillance of 3,

25, 63, 140, 141, 158; third (Davis) 138–​139; as third space 79, 80, 81, 84, 86, 90, 92n1, 93n7, 93n8; traceability 44–​46; US-​Mexico 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 16, 25, 38, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 74, 77, 115, 116, 134, 135, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 150, 152, 155, 157; wall 6, 158, 162, 163, 164; writing 93n4 Border/​Arte 164 Borderlands/​La Frontera: The New Mestiza, see Anzaldúa Border Patrol 17n2, 25, 63, 64, 140; surveillance 25, 158 Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act 141 Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” 4 Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act 141 boundary(-​ies) 6, 9, 10, 14, 26, 44, 46, 52, 62, 69, 70, 71, 73, 80, 81, 82, 120, 128, 152, 164; crossing subject 8; discursive 45; of ethnicity 102; genre 156; ideological 43; necropolitical 5; racial 25; situations (Arendt) 99, 107, 110 Bracero Program 136 bridge(s) 1, 8, 9, 13, 15, 17n6, 80, 87, 88, 132n12; building 9, 10, 11, 30, 147, 166; bridging 14, 59, 60, 87; transnational 119 buffer zone (French and Manzanares) 134, 142 CAM Refugee/​Parole Program 141 Cantú, Francisco, The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border 140 Cantú, Norma E. 10, 14, 15, 77–​94 Capó Crucet, Jennine 7, 95; “Imagine Me Here, Or How I Became a Professor” 100, 102, 106; “¡Nothing Is Impossible in America!” 96; Make Your Home Among Strangers 15, 95; “Magic Kingdoms” 99; My Time Among the Whites. Notes from an Unfinished Education 15, 95; “Say I Do” 101 care, politics of 9 Carrera, Mauro 152

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Index  173 Casa del Migrante de Saltillo 146 Casa en tierra ajena, see Villalobos Vindas Casa Mambré 146 Cásares, Oscar 9, 14, 42; Where We Come From 14, 42–​56 Castro Dopacio, María Jesús 150–​170 Chavez, Leo 23; Latino Threat Narrative 4, 5, 134, 135–​138, 139; The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens and the Nation 4, 134 Chiu, Enrique 9, 16, 150, 159, 160, 161; “Mural de la Hermandad” 16, 150, 151, 159–​161 city 15; City of Orange 84, 85, 86, 87; Mexico City 37, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125; New York City 3, 13, 15, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130; role of imagination in the creation of 131; as site of political struggle 129; as sanctuary 13, 17n8; transnational 13, 15, 115, 116, 123 cognitive, cache 32; corrective exemplars 31, 32; default 33; exemplars 38; faulty apparatuses 31; shift to solidarity 32, 33; schema of solidarity 33; wall as essential to cognitive processes 45 conocimiento (Anzaldúa) 10, 95, 39n1 contact zones 134, 144, 147 Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination, see Meskimmon convivencia 11, 17n7, 144 conviviality 9, 11, 17n7, 135, 144, 151, 159; planetary 151 coronavirus 2; COVID-​19 2, 152, 167n8 cosmic fear (Bauman) 3, 135 cosmopolis 129; the dream of 129 cosmopolitan 1, 11, 12, 16, 33, 70, 71, 104, 111, 120, 123, 150, 153, 159, 160, 165, 166; approach 11, 70, 71, 123; belonging 105; and critical thinking 11, 95; ethical universality 12; hospitality 13; imagination 16, 151; Kantian moral 27; Latinx becoming 15, 95, 111; Latinx collectivity 100; Latinx stranger as mediator 1; Latinx subjectivities 95, 96, 108, 109; sense of universality 39; spirit 13; stranger(s) 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23,

28, 30, 32, 38, 59, 60, 70, 72, 74, 78, 81, 85, 86, 92, 115, 116, 125–​128, 130, 134; subject 27, 28, 98, 104, 123, 124, 125; isolation of 123; and total perspective 128 cosmopolitanism 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 27, 28, 72, 74, 95, 96, 128, 151, 157, 165, 166; critical 160; Kantian notions of moral 27; Marotta and 26; (neo)cosmopolitanism 8, 16, 17n5; rooted 28, 151; and stranger 59, 60, 70, 115, 116, 125 cosmopolitical aesthetics (di Paola) 161 cosmopolitics 151; cosmo-​politics 12 coyote(s) 46, 48, 137 critical thinking (Arendt) 98, 96, 98, 107, 11; critical thought, faculty of 101 Cubangst, see Rivero cultural, anxiety 109; deprivation (Schmeichel) 107; difference 11, 70, 90, 98, 107; identity 104, 106, 109; mediators 13, 22, 23, 28; theory of 105 (Hall); visibility 116 customs era 63 DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program 141, 166n1; “DACAmented: DREAMS without Borders” 153; “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital” 156; recipients 154, 166n1 “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital,” see De La Cruz Dancing with Butterflies, see Grande DAPA Program 131 defamiliarization, process of 42, 43 dehumanization 4, 7, 13, 32, 35, 47, 134, 139, 140, 143 De La Cruz, Lisbeth 150, 151, 152–​159, 160, 167n3; “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital” 156; “Humanizing Deportation” 153, 156; “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project” 16, 152–​159; 167n8 deportation(s) 11, 23, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37, 138, 141, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 166n1, 166n2, 167n4; of 1932 62; “The

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174 Index Criminalization of Salvadorans: Maras, Deportations, and the Third Border” 138–​139; “Face to Face with Immigration and Deportation: ‘Playas de Tijuana Mural Project’” 152–​159; “Humanizing Deportation” 153, 156 Derrida, Jacques 12, 49, 50; Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas 47, 56n4; and Cixous 51; conditional/​limited hospitality 12, 46; and ethics 151; and the foreigner 53; hospitality 12, 136; hostipitality 15, 134, 135, 136, 144; “Hostipitality” 136; hos(ti)pitality 13; l’étranger 136; Law of hospitality 12, 51; laws of hospitality 12, 51; Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond 136; refuge cities 12; unconditional/​ unlimited hospitality 12, 49 de Veritch Woodside, Vanessa 13, 22–​41 digital murals 13 Distance Between Us, The, see Grande double vision 107 DREAM Act 141 Dreamers 152, 166n1 eco-​poetry 34 ethics 12, 54, 153; authors and ethical responsibility 23; ethicopolitics (Baker) 12; ethical obligation 28; of hospitality 12, 42, 43, 136, 150, 151, 153; of inclusion 11 empathy 13, 107, 154, 155; in All the Stars Denied 33–​39; ambassadorial strategic 29, 31, 33, 34, 39; bounded strategic 29, 31, 33, 38; broadcast strategic 29, 30, 31, 39; empathic connections 33, 39; empathic narrative techniques 22, 29; narrative empathy 23, 29–​33; narrative strategies that enhance empathetic reactions 32; and the need for cultural coalitions 23; Suzanne Keen’s theory of 22, 29; strategies that develop 22, 23; techniques that foster 31; theory 22 El Salvador 48, 135, 138–​139, 142 “Erasing the Border,” see Fernández estrangement 9, 95, 107; process of 152 exemplars 22, 23, 31, 32; cognitive 32; corrective cognitive 31, 33;

that undermine culture’s idea of immigrants as dangerous strangers 38 Faces in the Crowd, see Luiselli family separation policy 14, 43 faulty cognitive apparatuses 31 Fernández, Ana Teresa 16, 150, 151, 163; “Erasing the Border” 16, 150, 163–​165; “How Art Allowed Me to Erase Borders” 165 García-​Avello, Macarena 14, 59–​76 García McCall, Guadalupe 9, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39; All the Stars Denied 13, 22, 23, 26, 30, 32, 33–​39; Shame the Stars 23, 25, 30, 33 gender 82, 86, 93n7, 106, 123, 124, 164, 166; genderfluid 84, 86; genderqueer 83, 85, 86, 87, 88; nepantla 87; third 86 ghost(s) 47, 132n10; and guest 47, 56n4; as a metaphor for language 126; and the stranger 125–​128 glocalization 61 globalization 3, 65, 129, 163 Grafals, Michael 10, 15, 95–​114 Grande, Reyna 14, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84; A Ballad of Love and Glory 14, 77, 88–​92; Across a Hundred Mountains 89; Dancing with Butterflies 89 grassroots, activism 15, 146, 147; Friends of Friendship Park 167n7; initiatives of solidarity 135; participation in artistic projects 157 Great Depression 25, 34 guest(s) 12, 27, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55; host-​guest 14, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49–​50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 136; as hostage 49, 54; huésped 52; as shadows 46 Hamilton Heights 117, 118, 119 Haraway, Donna 11, 14, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 90; chthulucene 14, 77, 81; sympoiesis 81, 84 healing 33, 78, 79, 80, 81, 90, 91, 101, 155, 156 heteroglossia 61 hospitality 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 42, 44, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 56n4, 161, 163, 165; absolute 12, 49, 136; Benveniste and 50; conditional

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Index  175 12, 43, 44, 47, 51; Derrida and 12, 136, 151; as engagement 54, 55–​56; ethics of 12, 42, 43, 136, 150, 151, 153; etymology of 49; “Hospitality as Engagement” 54; hostility in 136; hostility dichotomy 161; versus hostility 144–​146; Kant and 12; Law of 43, 50, 51; laws of 43, 51; Levinas and 12; limited 43, 46, 51; passive 46; reluctant 46; unconditional 12, 43, 49, 51, 54, 136; unlimited 43, 54 host 46, 48, 51, 52, 54, 56n5, 60, 70, 119; huésped 52; hôte 52; country 138; culture 28, 82; and guest dynamic (see guest) 14, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49–​50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 136; hostage 12, 49, 54; group 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38; hostile 4, 15, 16, 36; audience 39; and hospitality 136, 144–​146, 161; hostility 5, 9, 50; toward Mexicans 25, 35 “Hostipitality” 136; hostipitality 15, 134, 136, 139, 144; hos(ti)pitality 13 (Derrida) House of Broken Angels, The, see Urrea Human Condition, The, see Arendt hybrid subjectivity 68, 71, 97 identification 2, 33, 37, 47, 50, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 108, 109, 110, 123; of Mexicans as illegal aliens 63, 64, 66, 74; spaces of 9, 11 identity 7, 12, 25, 29, 32, 64, 69, 70, 72, 95, 97, 99, 104, 105, 109, 110, 154, 161, 164; absence of 47; Afro-​Latinx 110; communal 156; construction of cities 131; cosmopolitan Latinx 108; creative disclosure of and cosmopolitan subjectivity 104; Cuban-​American 109; cultural 105, 106, 109; genderfluid 84, 86; genderqueer 86, 88; hybrid 64, 68; Latinx 100, 101, 102, 107, 108, 109; national 62, 65, 74; as performative 71; and whiteness 101 “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, see Althusser “Imagine Me Here, Or How I Became a Professor”, see Capó Crucet

immigrant(s) 62, 89, 96, 134, 141, 152; as inassimilable 26; as infestation 51, 56n6; Latinx 135; as nightmare citizens 48; as threat 24; undocumented 3, 5, 38, 45, 51, 60, 64, 67, 72, 142, 154, 155, 156, 157, 166n1; as unwilling migrant 26; anti-​immigrant 129, 143; activities 141; cooperation 142; legislation 4, 134, 141; measures 4; movements 143; restrictions 142; rhetoric 14, 25, 42; sentiments 143 Immigration Act of 1924 25 in-​between stranger 26, 27, 28, 120, 121; convergence between and cosmopolitan subject 27–​28; in-​ betweenness 79, 80, 81, 86, 87 ingrávidos, Los, see Luiselli insidious trauma (Brown) 140 interpellation 46, 53, 109; cultural 105–​107, 108; racial 105 judgment, faculty of 99; Latinx 100–​102; position of 101; and thinking 99 Kafka, Frank 100, 101; and pariah 101, 102 Kant, Immanuel 101, 111–​112n1; and hospitality 11–​12; moral cosmopolitanism 27; world citizen 96, 98, 104 Lacan, Jacques, conception of the subject 104 La Malinche 84, 85, 86 La Llorona 84, 85; Weeping Woman, The/​LaWeeping 85, 86, 92 Latinangst 9, 96, 109–​111 Latinidad 103, 109, 122 Latino Threat Narrative, see Chavez Latinx authors (writers); as a bridge 27; as cosmopolitan strangers 13, 22, 23; as cultural mediators 16, 30, 33; as embodying subjective objectivity 13; as in-​between stranger 28; as insiders-​outsiders 30; writing from the third position 28; use of empathic narrative techniques 22, 29 Latinx immigrants 22, 23, 24, 66; as criminal; dehumanization of 13; families 30; as foreign strangers 134; as illegal aliens 135; as marked by lack of Americanness 3, 24; as

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176 Index perpetual foreigners 2, 24, 26; as a threat 135; and othering 3, 7, 135 Latinx (as) stranger 1, 2–​3, 6, 7, 16, 24, 26, 30; as cosmopolitan mediator 1; cosmopolitan stranger 8 law enforcement era 63 Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, see Arendt Lemus, Felicia Luna 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 89, 90, 93n9; A Ballad of Love and Glory 14, 77, 78, 88–​92; Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties 14, 77, 78, 84–​88 Levinas, Emmanuel 12, 53, 136 Life of the Mind, The, see Arendt Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-​ American Way, see Pérez Firmat liminal, experiences 68; as nepantla 80, 95; space 76, 79, 80, 81, 160; and the stranger 119, 120; writers occupying liminal space as cosmopolitan strangers 13, 22, 26, 30, 33; time 79; liminality 8, 70, 80, 89 Luiselli, Valeria 7, 9, 13, 15, 115–​132; Faces in the Crowd 115, 131n2; La historia de mis dientes 121; Los ingrávidos 15, 115, 116, 121–​125, 126; Los niños perdidos 121; Lost Children Archive 56n1; “Mancha de Agua” 129; and mapping 117; Papeles falsos 15, 115, 116, 121, 126; “Paraíso en obras” 127; “Relingos” 126; Sidewalks 115; Tell Me How It Ends. An Essay in Forty Questions 56n1; “Zapata Boulevard” 15, 115, 116, 117, 118, 121 Lost Children Archive, see Luiselli “Magic Kingdoms,” see Capó Crucet Make Your Home Among Strangers, see Capó Crucet “Mancha de Agua,” see Luiselli Manzanas Calvo, Ana Mª 12, 14, 42–​58 maps 115, 129, 167n8; intertextual 130; mapping 79, 117 maquiladoras 136 maras 138, 139 Marotta, Vince P. 1, 8, 14, 28, 86; bird’s eye view 8; cosmopolitan stranger 7, 8, 28, 70, 128, 130; existential condition 86; in-​between stranger 28, 120; moments of

sameness 160; and stranger 26, 27, 119; strangeness 152; subjective objectivity 22, 27, 23, 119; third position 28, 70, 120; and otherness 60 Matanza, La 23, 30 Mbembe, Achille 4; anxiety of annihilation 9; hydraulic racism 6; nanoracism 6; necropolitics 5, 9; Necropolitics 10; society of enmity 5, 10, 143 Meskimmon, Marsha 16, 163, 164; and artist’s response-​ability 165; Contemporary Art and the Cosmopolitan Imagination 152 mestiza 80; consciousness 103; subjectivity 68; mestizaje 68; cultural 86 Mexican-​American War 24 Mexican Harlem 117 Mexico 3, 4, 5, 6, 24, 25, 33, 36, 37, 42, 50, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 82, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 92, 118, 122, 123, 128, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 154, 155, 158, 161, 164; as a buffer zone 134, 142; City 37, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125 Mexican Repatriation 25, 26, 29, 33 Mexican Revolution 23, 25, 62, 63, 161 Mexicans 4, 13, 25, 33, 34, 35, 36, 103, 117, 143, 160; as illegal 64, 66; criminal and diseased 25; hostility toward 25; policing of 24–​26; as perpetual foreigners 2, 26, 34; as racialized category 25; scapegoating of 25 Mignolo, Walter 79, 151, 92n1; critical cosmopolitanism 160; locus of enunciation 152 mojado(s) 35, 45, 51, 55, 56n2; mojadito 45, 53–​55 movidas 80, 86 “Mural de la Hermandad,” see Rael and San Fratello My Time Among the Whites, see Capó Crucet NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) 136 natality (Arendt) 15, 96, 111, 112n2; act of 97; intergeneration 97; Latinx 102–​105 National Policy for the Protection and Development of Salvadorean Migrants and their Families 139

71

Index  177 nativist, discourses 65, 66; narratives 59 necropolitics (Mbembe) 5; border 9 Necropolitics, see Mbembe nepantla (Anzaldúa) 10, 15, 27, 77, 78, 79–​80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92n1, 95, 96, 101, 102, 111; as a bridge 80; and the cosmopolitan imagination 98–​100; and cultural interpellation 105–​107; nepantilism 13, 14, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86; nepantlera(s) 15, 39n1, 77, 79, 80, 91 New York 3, 13, 15, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130; as collective experiment 116; and visibility of strangers 116, 117, 118, 128, 129, 130, 131 Northern Triangle 135, 137, 139 “¡Nothing Is Impossible in America!,” see Capó Crucet objectivity 8, 119; subjective 13, 22, 23, 27; objective stance 119 Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, see Derrida one-​and-​a-​half generation (Pérez Firmat) 100, 101, 103, 104; Miami Cuban Americans 101 Operation Streamline 141 Other 1, 4, 7, 12, 14, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 32, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60, 66, 77, 81, 83, 89, 131, 140, 144, 145, 150, 151; encounter with 14, 42, 43, 55, 166; estranged 26; face of 48, 53; fear of 135, 143; as illegal alien 63, 64, 72, 134, 139, 142; invisibility of 47; Latinx 135, 138; policing of 24, 37; othering 1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 16, 34, 82, 89, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 146, 147; otherness 3, 7, 8, 59, 60, 70, 74, 129, 164; self and 1, 7, 14, 51, 55, 59, 60, 66–​67, 71, 106 Papeles falsos, see Luiselli “Paraíso en obras,” see Luiselli pariah (Arendt) 101–​102; Kafka and 101, 102; and la facultad 102; and thinking as instrument of self-​preservation 102 Pérez Firmat, Gustavo 103, 104, 109; and Cuban-​Bred Americans 103;

Life on the Hyphen: The Cuban-​ American Way 103 “Playas de Tijuana Mural Project,” see De La Cruz Playas de Tijuana 158, 163, 167n8 politics of care (Amin) 9, 11; gendered 51 Project Wetback 30 psychic confession (Anzaldúa) 109 racism 2, 4, 11, 16, 23, 24; hydraulic 6; nanoracism 6; racialization 2, 3 Rael, Ronald 161–​163; “An architect’s subversive reimagining on the US-​Mexico border wall” 162 Rael, Ronald, and Virginia San Fratello 150, 151, 161, 162, 167n9; “Teeter-​Totter Wall” 16, 151, 161–​163, 167n10; as suture 163 Ramírez-​Méndez, Alejandro 13, 115–​133 relationality 7, 53, 151 “Relingos”, see Luiselli Rivero, Eliana, Cubangst 95, 109, 110, 111 Sanctuary Movement 12; New Sanctuary Movement 13, 147 “Say I Do”, see Capó Crucet schema, atomism 32, 39; cognitive 31, 32, 38; cognitive shift from atomism to solidarity 32, 33; criticism methodology (Bracher) 31, 32; exemplars 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 38; information-​processing routines 31, 32; propositional knowledge 31; prototypes 31, 32; solidarity 32 sentipensante (Pinheiro Barbosa) 78, 92n2; engagement 81 shadow(s) 46, 47, 48; identification of migrants with 47; and spectrality 47 Shame the Stars, see García McCall Sidewalks, see Luiselli; Simmel, Georg 11, 14, 15, 26, 58, 93n5, 93n8, 118, 120; bird’s eye view 8, 128; and the stranger 7–​8, 14, 26, 72, 73, 77, 78, 79, 119, 125; “The Stranger” 118; third space 79, 93n7; objectivity 8, 119 social change 7, 29–​33, 38, 128, 154, 165; collaborative action to effect 23, 32 solidarity 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 29, 32, 33, 39, 134, 144, 145, 146,

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178 Index 151, 160, 161; cognitive schema of 33; convivial 15; and grassroots activism 146–​148; grassroots initiatives of 135; schema 32 Spanish Harlem 117 spectral 44, 47, 48, 53, 109; aura 47; humans 47; spectrality 47, 56n4; Where We Come From against 48; spectralization 47 spotlighting 106, 107 storytelling, 4, 89, 152, 153, 156; cathartic effect of 154; digital 153, 156, 167n5 stranger 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 38, 47, 51, 56n4, 59, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 99, 118, 119–​120, 135, 136, 150, 152, 153; Ahmed and 2, 3, 26, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-​coloniality 2; ambivalent position of 26, 120; Bauman and 1, 3, 9, 26, 45, 73, 120; and bird’s-​eye view 8, 27, 119, 128; cosmopolitan 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 28, 30, 32, 38, 59, 60, 70–​74, 78, 81, 85, 86, 92, 115, 116, 125–​128, 130, 134; as dangerous 1, 5, 38; as diseased 25, 37, 38; estranged 24, 26, 28, 34; as foreign 2, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 35, 37, 38, 39, 45, 49, 50, 53, 66, 72, 77, 82, 118, 119, 119, 123, 124, 129, 136, 152, 166; in-​between 26, 27, 28, 120, 121; epistemological advantage of 120; in one’s own land 34; Latinx 1, 2–​3, 7, 16, 24, 30; Luiselli and 119–​129; Marotta and 7, 8, 14, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 28, 60, 70, 119, 120, 128, 130, 152; mobility of 7, 8, 60, 115, 116, 120, 124, 128, 163; perpetual 34; Simmel and 1, 7–​8, 14, 26, 27, 72, 73, 78, 79, 93n8, 118, 119, 120, 125, 128; “The Stranger” 7, 118; strangeness 8, 16, 124, 152; strange(r)ness 1, 2, 3, 7, 14, 23, 26, 27, 59, 67, 74, 78, 93n8; unwanted 144 subjective objectivity 13, 22, 23, 27 sympoiesis 81, 84 “Teeter-​Totter Wall,” see Rael and San Fratello Tell Me How It Ends. An Essay in Forty Questions, see Luiselli

testimonial audiovisual shorts 156 testimonios 139, 145 testimony 65, 108, 109, 110, 111, 118; concept of 108; Cuban-​ American 96–​98; narrative 96, 111; natality as 111 Texas Rangers 89; and other vigilante groups 25 Texas Revolt 90 texts, to bridge gap between host group and immigrant stranger 22, 23, 38; inspiring pro-​social action 23; as tools for social justice 23; textual appeals to public conscience 23 “The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition”, see Arendt The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens and the Nation, see Chavez thinking ego (Arendt) 104 third border (Davis) 138, 139 third element 39n1, 79, 93n8, 103 thirdness 79, 119, 120 third-​party position 120 third space (Simmel) 79, 80, 81, 84, 86, 90, 92n1, 93n7, 93n8 “To Live in the Borderlands,” see Anzaldúa transculturation (Pratt) 68, 69, 70 transfrontera alliances 22; contact zone 61 transfronteriza narratives 83 transit countries 137, 140; violence in 143 transmigrant 122, 123 transnational 130; aesthetic initiatives 16; approaches 70; artworks 150, 166; bridges 119; cartography 122; cities 115, 123; communities 120; complexity 121; connections 69; contexts 116; experiences 69; flows 59; forces 14, 59, 60, 65, 74; migration 22, 34; movements 82; lens 62; literary space 59, 60, 61; paradigm 72; position 117; processes 65; relationships 64; spaces 15, 116, 120, 121; subjectivities 166; tensions 70; trajectory 115; turn 61, 65; urbanism 13, 15, 115; world 60; transnationalism 65, 70, 74 Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties, see Lemus trauma 23, 31, 32, 34, 36, 140; behind deportation experience 156;

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Index  179 of displacement 30; emotional 37; experiences 23, 145, 162, 167n2; of family separation 3; insidious (Brown) 140; traumatic stories 140 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 24, 77, 150 Trump, Donald 5, 59, 65, 66, 74; administration 4, 5, 24, 166n1; bordering frenzy of, 4; America 65; anti-​immigrant legislation 4; Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements 5; building walls 8; election 59, 66; era 4, 5, 14, 17n3, 65, 66; nativist rhetoric 6; presidency 3, 14, 42, 59, 60; and racism 4; wall 4; zero tolerance policy 162; Trumpism 4, 5, 66 Urrea, Luis Alberto 7, 9, 14; The House of Broken Angels 14, 59–​74 Upper Manhattan 13, 115, 116, 117, 119, 121, 129, 130 us vs. them binary 24, 26, 39; blurring of 33; bridging of 39; stranger’s problematizing of 26, 28, 38 US-​Mexico border(lands) 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 16, 25, 38, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 74, 115, 116, 136, 142, 143, 152, 155, 157; as creator of illegal immigration; as cultural and racial boundary 25; materiality of 3; post-​9/​11 transformation of 134, 135; shelters for immigrants along 135; surveillance and

militarization of 77, 134, 140, 141; as transfrontera contact zone 61 vernacular creativity 156 Villalobos Vindas, Ivannia 9, 13, 15, 16, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148; Casa en tierra ajena 13, 15, 16, 134–​148 visibility 15, 115, 116, 117, 118, 128, 129, 130, 131, 154, 156, 161; forced 158 visual art 13, 156, 161 wall(s) 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16, 24, 42, 43, 44–​46, 48, 51, 59, 66, 104, 110, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158, 159–​163, 163–​166, 167n8; as commanding metaphor 46; casualization and flexibilization of ideological 51; as instance of specularized power 44; as place of convergence 161 “We Refugees,” see Arendt Where We Come From, see Cásares whitelash 66 whiteness 98, 100; centering function of 101; critique of 100–​102; as framework of identification 98, 100, 101; inhabiting identity 101; as a mode of identification 101 ‘world’-​travelling (Lugones) 10 “Zapata Boulevard,” see Luiselli Zapata, Emiliano 128, 129 zero tolerance policy 5, 162

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