Abstract
I apply Gloria Anzaldúa’s “borderlands theory” to Jamie Cortez’s Sexile, an HIV/AIDS prevention publication created as a first-person narrative of the journey of queer, trans activist Adela Vasquez who fled to the US from Cuba in 1980. I argue that Sexile is a borderlands text and operationalizes Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness at various levels— ranging from the essence of the text and what its existence represents to the literary techniques used in the telling of Adela’s narrative. In the first half of this paper, I explore Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory and the ethos of Sexile as a text, including Vázquez’s story as inherently a borderland narrative; as a product of democratized knowledge; the praxis of the text’s creation; and the technology of the graphic novel. Throughout the second half, I look more closely at the content of the text using close reading to explore notions of the “borderland” represented throughout Adela’s narrative. Through both its content and the praxis of creation, Sexile represents the power of graphic medicine in illustrating the nuances of narratives at the interstices of marginalized identities and captures the multitudes and ambiguities of trauma, loss, rebirth, kinship, and joy at the margins.
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Acknowledgments
My deepest gratitude to so many incredible folks without whom this work would not have been possible. First, to Adela Vasquez for allowing us to witness and celebrate this brilliant tale of deep love and multiplicity. To Jaime Cortez for the labor of creating Sexile and sharing this incredible story with the world and to Pato Herbert for grounding it so beautifully. To AIDS Project Los Angeles and Gay Men’s Health Crisis for their timeless commitment to imagining new and creative ways to conduct community centered work. To the brilliant Dr. Gloria Anzaldua for offering the language that continues to hold and transform worlds. And to my mentors, Dr. Edgar Rivera Colón, Dr. Danielle Spencer, and Saljooq Asif for your guidance and care always.
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Kaur, G. Community Narrative as a Borderlands Praxis: Anzaldúa’s Mestiza Consciousness as Explored in Cortez’s Sexile. J Med Humanit 43, 319–333 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09678-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09678-2