Queer Latinx Worldmakings: geographies of food, love and familia in prison

ABSTRACT

This study illustrates how incarcerated Latinx people create alternative social worlds or queer worldmakings as they negotiate everyday life in prison. I explore how these queer Latinx worldmakings are created and lived through the formation of chosen families or familias and the organizing of family dinners. Latinx queer worldmakings are temporary productions of social worlds that facilitate navigating life in the present while being queer and Latinx to resist as well as reconfigure disciplining heteronormative and white supremacist processes. It is the process of performing and creating a present that is oriented towards the future. I argue that such queer Latinx worldmakings counter white heteronormative social-spatial norms and carcerality, while also providing important lessons on what it means to live, love, and make place in and beyond the prison. The Latinx incarcerated women participants queered prison life by engaging in informal economies, negotiating relationships with correction officers, and securing ingredients for family dinners. By using an autoethnographic/testimonio approach and conversations with an incarcerated family member and friends, I explore two ways Latinx queer worldmakings are enacted: the creation of chosen families, and the organizing of family dinners.

Resumen

Este estudio ilustra cómo lxs latinxs encarcelados crean mundos sociales alternativos o Queer mientras negocian la vida cotidiana en prisión. Exploro cómo se crean y viven estas creaciones del mundo Queer Latinx a través de la formación de familias elegidas y la organización de cenas familiares. Sostengo que tales creaciones del mundo Queer Latinx contradicen las normas socio espaciales heteronormativas blancas y de encarcelamiento, al mismo tiempo que brindan lecciones importantes sobre lo que significa vivir, amar y hacerse un lugar dentro y más allá de la prisión. Utilizando un enfoque auto etnográfico/testimonio y conversaciones con un familiar encarcelado y amigos, exploro dos formas en que se implementan las creaciones del mundo Queer Latinx: la creación de familias elegidas y la organización de cenas familiares.

Résumé

Cette étude illustre la manière dont les prisonniers latino-américains créent des mondes sociaux alternatifs, autrement dit des fabrications de mondes queer, pendant qu’ils gèrent le quotidien de la vie en incarcération. J’examine le processus de création de ces fabrications de mondes et la façon dont elles sont vécues à travers la formation de familles choisies, ou familias et l’organisationorganization de diners en famille. Je soutiens que ces fabrications vont à l’encontre du concept carcéral et des normes sociospatiales hétéronormatives de la population blanche, tout en donnant aussi des leçons importantes concernant la signification de la vie, de l’amour et de la fabrication d’endroits dans la prison aussi bien qu’autour d’elle. En utilisant une approche autoethnographique/testimonio et des conversations avec un membre de la famille et des amis en détention, j’étudie deux manières dont les fabrications de mondes latino-américains queer sont mises en œuvre : la création de familles choisies et l’organisationorganization de diners en famille.

KEYWORDS:

• Latinx geographies
• queer Worldmakings
• food Studies
• chosen familia
• incarcerated immigrants
• testimonio

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Geografías latinxs
• creaciones de mundos queer
• estudios alimentarios
• familia elegida
• inmigrantes encarcelados
• testimonio

MOTS CLEFS:

• Géographie latino-américaine
• fabrications de mondes queer
• études alimentaires
• familia choisies
• immigrants incarcérés
• testimonio

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The UndocuQueer movement is a national network of queer undocumented immigrant activists that organize for the rights of undocumented queer and non-queer peoples. The undocuqueer activists may be dreamers or advocate for DACA as a path to citizenship and for undocumented youth and their families. https://equalityarchive.com/issues/undocuqueer-movement/

2. Ana is a Pseudonym for confidentiality.

3. All of the inmates granted permission in writing. I did not seek permission from the Federal Corrections Institution, nor to my knowledge they were not aware of the project. I consulted with the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board and they stated that I did not need permission to use the letters for publishing an article, as long as I change the names of the participants and do not identify the particular Federal Corrections Institution.

4. The reason for incarceration was rarely discussed in their letters or their role in family dinners. The participants discussed their sentences in relation to their inditements, only when I asked them about it. It was not something that came up or I felt the chosen family members used it for discrimination or critique of each other.

5. La migra is a common term used in Spanish to refer to Border Patrol in the U.S.A.. I grew up in a mixed status family, I am the only U.S. citizen in my immediate and extended family. While living with my grandmother in the summers in California, I was always tasked with interacting with the world outside our ‘safe’ mobile home park, because there was always the fear that ‘la migra’ (ICE) would take my family members away. Since I had U.S. citizenship I was aware from an early age to trace my own geographies of everyday life in relation to policing.

6. testimonios are rooted in Latin American oral traditions, indigenous activist struggles, particularly as it relates to land struggles, violent state oppressions and human rights abuses (Bernal, Burciaga and Carmona 2017). The work of testimonio also informs the work of feminist queer Chicanx activists scholars Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherrie Moraga and the generations of Latinx activists scholars that come after them, whose work demonstrates the power of disrupting silences, exposing injustices and collectively building movements across borders.

7. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/infographic-remittances-mexico-reach-historic-high#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20remittances%20to%20Mexico,2021%20behind%20China%20and%20India.

8. To protect the anonymity of the participants in the study, I do not disclose the exact location of the prison.

9. I am aware that there is danger in romanticizing ‘chosen’ families. I acknowledge and understand that chosen families, can also reproduce violence, social hierarchies and racisms that are or can be part of bio families relationship with queer family members.

10. Mutual aid is defined as when ‘people get together to meet each other’s needs, with the shared understanding that the systems we live in are not meeting our needs and that we can meet them together’ https://ssw.uga.edu/news/article/what-is-mutual-aid-by-joel-izlar/