Queer Migrations

Sexuality, U.S. Citizenship, and Border Crossings

2005

Eithne Luibhéid and Lionel Cantú Jr., editors

At the intersection of citizenship, sexuality, and race, a new perspective on the immigrant experience

Queer Migrations brings together scholars to provide analyses of the norms, institutions, and discourses that affect queer immigrants of color, also providing ethnographic studies of how these newcomers have transformed established immigrant communities in Miami, San Francisco, and New York.

Contributors: Martin F. Manalansan IV, Susana Peña, Erica Rand, Timothy Randazzo, Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, Alisa Solomon, Siobhan B. Somerville, Alexandra Minna Stern.

Queer Migrations powerfully unpacks the ways in which state mechanisms police borders and bodies simultaneously and is an invaluable addition to the scholarship on race, sexuality, and migration.

Gayatri Gopinath, University of California at Davis

Immigration from Latin America and Asia has influenced every aspect of social, political, economic, and cultural life in the United States over the past quarter century. However, little attention has been paid to queer immigrants of color.

Focusing particularly on migration from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, and the Philippines, Queer Migrations brings together scholars of immigration, citizenship, sexuality, race, and ethnicity to provide analyses of the norms, institutions, and discourses that affect queer immigrants of color, also providing ethnographic studies of how these newcomers have transformed established immigrant communities in Miami, San Francisco, and New York.

Contributors: Martin F. Manalansan IV, U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Susana Peña, Bowling Green State U; Erica Rand, Bates College; Timothy Randazzo, UC Berkeley; Horacio N. Roque Ramírez, UC Santa Barbara; Alisa Solomon, Baruch College–CUNY; Siobhan B. Somerville, U Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Alexandra Minna Stern, U Michigan.

Eithne Luibhéid is associate professor of ethnic studies at Bowling Green State University and the author of Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minnesota, 2002).

Lionel Cantú Jr. (1965-2002) was assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Queer Migrations powerfully unpacks the ways in which state mechanisms police borders and bodies simultaneously and is an invaluable addition to the scholarship on race, sexuality, and migration.

Gayatri Gopinath, University of California at Davis

An indispensable guide for anyone wishing to understand how queer sexualities confront, challenge and transform international migration to the United States.

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, University of Southern California

Luibhéid and Cantú’s excellent anthology is an important contribution to queer migration studies, as it brings together outstanding contributions from a diversity of disciplines and perspectives. The book is useful as a general, basic introduction to those who know nothing about the topic, and also offers nuanced readings of specific topics that will amply satisfy experts and specialists. The book is a vital resource for queer Latin American and Latina/o studies, and its remarkable accessibility also makes it an ideal undergraduate and graduate teaching text. I highly recommend this anthology.

The Americas

Selections from Queer Migrations would make excellent additions to a course on immigration, on queer studies, or even on race and ethnicity.

American Studies

This is a tightly woven volume that makes some important interventions. An interesting showcase of recent interdisciplinary work on this topic.

Journal of American Ethnic History

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Queering Migration and Citizenship Eithne Luibheid

PART I Disciplining Queer Migrants

ONE Trans/Migrant: Christina Madrazo's All-American Story Alisa Solomon
TWO Social and Legal Barriers: Sexual Orientation and Asylum in the United States Timothy J. Randazzo
THREE Well-Founded Fear: Political Asylum and the Boundaries of Sexual Identity in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Lionel Cantu Jr. with Eithne Luibheid and Alexandra Minna Stern
FOUR Sexual Aliens and the Racialized State: A Queer Reading of the 1952 U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act Siobhan B. Somerville
FIVE The Traffic in My Fantasy Butch: Sex, Money, Race, and the Statue of Liberty 92 Erica Rand

PART II Queering Racial/Ethnic Communities

SIX Visibility and Silence: Mariel and Cuban American Gay Male Experience and Representation Susana Pena
SEVEN Migrancy, Modernity, Mobility: Quotidian Struggles and Queer Diasporic Intimacy 146 Martin F. Manalansan IV
EIGHT Claiming Queer Cultural Citizenship: Gay Latino (Im)Migrant Acts in San Francisco Horatio N. Roque Ramirez

Contributors

Index 193