The Border Reader brings together canonical and cutting-edge humanities and social science scholarship on the US-Mexico border region. Spotlighting the vibrancy of border studies from the field's emergence to its enduring significance, the essays mobilize feminist, queer, and critical ethnic studies perspectives to theorize the border as a site of epistemic rupture and knowledge production. The chapters speak to how borders exist as regions where people and nation-states negotiate power, citizenship, and questions of empire. Among other topics, these essays examine the lived experiences of the diverse undocumented people who move through and live in the border region; trace the gendered and sexualized experiences of the border; show how the US-Mexico border has become a site of illegality where immigrant bodies become racialized and excluded; and imagine anti- and post-border futures. Foregrounding the interplay of scholarly inquiry and political urgency stemming from the borderlands, The Border Reader presents a unique cross section of critical interventions on the region.
Contributors. Leisy J. Abrego, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Martha Balaguera, Lionel Cantú, Leo R. Chavez, Raúl Fernández, Rosa-Linda Fregoso, Roberto G. Gonzales, Gilbert G. González, Ramón Gutiérrez, Kelly Lytle Hernández, José E. Limón, Mireya Loza, Alejandro Lugo, Eithne Luibhéid, Martha Menchaca, Cecilia Menjívar, Natalia Molina, Fiamma Montezemolo, Américo Paredes, Néstor Rodríguez, Renato Rosaldo, Gilberto Rosas, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, Sonia Saldívar-Hull, Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Sayak Valencia Triana, Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez, Patricia Zavella
Introduction: On Theories from the Ends / Gilberto Rosas and Mireya Loza 3
Part I: Locating the Border
1. Empire and the Origins of Twentieth-Century Migration from Mexico to the United States / Gilbert G. González and Raúl Fernández 13
2. Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants / Cecilia Menjívar and Leisy J. Abrego 45
3. Necro-Subjection: On Borders, Asylum, and Making Dead to Let Live / Gilberto Rosas 87
4. Reimagining Culture and Power against Late Industrial Capitalism and Other Forms of Conquest through Border Theory and Analysis / Alejandro Lugo 108
5. Tijuana Cuir / Sayak Valencia Triana 136
Part II: Documenting Identities
6. The United States, Mexico and Machismo / Américo Paredes 149
7. The Spanish Settlement of Texas and Arizona / Martha Menchaca 168
8. A Place Called Home: A Queer Political Economy of Mexican Immigrant Men's Family Experiences / Lionel Cantú 199
9. Migrations / Patricia Zavella 222
Part III: En/Gendering Borders
10. Changing Chicano Narratives / Renato Rosaldo 265
11. Feminism on the Border: From Gender Politics to Geopolitics / Sonia Saldívar-Hull 282
12. Trans-migrations: Agency and Confinement at the Limits of Sovereignty / Martha Balaguera 301
13. Carne, Carnales, and the Carnivalesque / José E. Limón 324
Part IV: Othering Spaces, Othering Bodies
14. The Erotic Zone: Sexual Transgression on the U.S.-Mexican Border / Ramón Gutiérrez 345
15. Medicalizing the Mexican: Immigration, Race, and Disability in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States / Natalia Molina 355
16. "Looking Like a Lesbian": The Organization of Sexual Monitoring at the U.S.-Mexican Border / Eithne Luibhéid 372
17. Migrant Melancholia: Emergent Discourses of Mexican Migrant Traffic in Transnational Space / Alicia Schmidt Camacho 402
Part V: Border Crossings
18. "Awakening to a Nightmare": Abjectivity and Illegality in the Lives of Undocumented 1.5-Generation Latino Immigrants to the United States / Roberto G. Gonzales and Leo R. Chavez 431
19. Regions of Refuge in the United States: Issues, Problems, and Concerns for the Future of Mexican-Origin Populations in the United States / Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez 466
20. The Battle for the Border: Notes on Autonomous Migration, Transnational Communities, and the State / Néstor Rodríguez 500
21. Yo Era Indígena: Race, Modernity and the Transformational Politics of Transnational Labor / Mireya Loza 518
Part VI: New Border Imaginaries
22. Tijuana: Hybridity and Beyond: A Conversation with Néstor García Canclini / Fiamma Montezemolo 563
23. The Art of Witness / Rosa-Linda Fregoso 585
24. Amnesty or Abolition? Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement / Kelly Lytle Hernández 608
25. How to Tame a Wild Tongue / Gloria Anzaldúa 628
26. "Wavering on the Horizon of Social Being": The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo and the Legacy of Its Radical Character in Ámerico Paredes's George Washington Gómez / María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo 639
Contributors 671
Credits 673
Index 677
