Borderland Brutalities: Violence and Resistance along the US-Mexico Borderlands in Literature, Film, and Culture

by Laura Elena Belmonte

Overview

Laura Elena Belmonte/Albuquerque/NM

In Borderland Brutalities, Laura Elena Belmonte analyzes how border violence is perpetuated and sanctioned by private corporations as well as the US and Mexican governments and how this violence is represented through border literature and cultural production. Belmonte examines literature, art, and film produced by artists living on both sides of the border to explore how they portray this violence and how they use their art to actively resist it. This important analysis of the border will be required reading for decades to come and lays the groundwork for additional studies on borderland violence and resistance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826366122
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	06/01/2024
Series:	Path to Open
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Chapter 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 Borderlands
Chapter 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 Border
Chapter Six. Making Waves in “Tranquil Waters”: Chicanafuturism and the Invisibilization of Violence
Epilogue. Fibroblast Migration and Borderlands Consciousness

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

“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

From the Publisher

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

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