In Queering Mesoamerican Diasporas, Susy J. Zepeda examines queer Chicana/Xicana feminists who seek a connection with Indigenous ancestors and living Indigenous peoples. This important book covers both well-known activists, such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Laura Aguilar, and less-known contemporary queer artists. In each case, Zepeda situates the individual in a historical narrative of colonization and decolonization, weaving between the present and the past, and examining connections with Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, California, and the Southwest.
Zepeda's sources include oral histories, archival texts, the writings of feminists, and the artwork produced by a series of queer artists. Through these texts, she shows that colonization led to what she terms detribalization, an attempt to hide Indigenous heritage, and that more recently, activists from various groups have asserted a spiritual memory of Indigenous lineage. The central argument is that from the 1970s through today, Chicana/Xicana activists have invoked the...
