Borderland Brutalities

Laura Elena Belmonte is an assistant professor in the University of New Mexico's Chicana and Chicano Studies Department.

“Belmonte brings an important, timely, and focused study on the various types of both daily and extreme violence that have occurred from the late twentieth century to the present within the US–Mexico borderlands through an investigation of cultural productions by people of the borderlands. More than just an examination, however, Borderland Brutalities is a celebration of the resistance, love, and healing within these communities from a scholar who intimately understands these wounds.” - Melissa Castillo Planas, author of A Mexican State of Mind: New York City and the New Borderlands of Culture“Providing historical context and connections to pressing contemporary issues, Belmonte captures the effectiveness of cultural production in revealing borderlands communities' experiences with, and responses to, violence wrought by the US and Mexican governments and corporations.” - Vanessa de Veritch Woodside, author of Ripped Apart: Unsettling Narratives of Transnational Migration

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One. The Life of Teresa Urrea and the Yaqui Resistance Represented in Luis Alberto Urrea’s Novel The Hummingbird’s Daughter (2005)Chapter Two. Capitalism and Complicity between the US Government and Railroad Corporations along the US-Mexico BorderlandsChapter Three. “May We Break the Spell of the Official Story”: The Criminalization of Refugees of Color Represented in Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue (1994) and Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana (2005)Chapter Four. Priestess y Pastora: Transnational Female Spiritual Leadership in Ana Castillo’s So Far from God (1993) and María Amparo Escandón’s Esperanza’s Box of Saints (1998)Chapter Five. The Coatlicue State and Moebius Strip: Mirrors and Mirroring in Artwork of the US-Mexico BorderChapter Six. Making Waves in “Tranquil Waters”: Chicanafuturism and the Invisibilization of ViolenceEpilogue. Fibroblast Migration and Borderlands ConsciousnessNotesBibliographyIndex