Post-Borderlandia opens up with the case of the “San Antonio Four,” which refers to four Latina lesbians—Elizabeth Ramirez, Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera, and Anna Vasquez—who were all wrongfully convicted of gang raping Ramirez's two nieces in 1994 and spent almost fifteen years in prison. Cuevas recalls her attendance at Deborah S. Esquenazi's documentary about their struggle, Southwest of Salem, where the four were present and openly shared about their ordeal. Ramirez explained to the audience that she had rejected sexual advances from her nieces' father and that he may have manufactured the accusation against Ramirez and her friends. While Ramirez shared this with her attorneys, it was something that was dismissed, along with the fact that some of the jurors were blatantly homophobic and yet allowed to remain on the jury. Cuevas recalls another audience member who asked the four women if they thought they were punished harshly by...
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November 1, 2019
Issue Editors
Book Review|
November 01 2019
Transgressing the Boundaries of the Borderlands
Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Literature and Gender Variant Critique
. Cuevas, T. Jackie. New Brunswick, NJ
: Rutgers University Press
, 2018
. 169
pp.
Jack Caraves
Jack Caraves
Jack Caraves is an assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San José State University. Their research uses community-based mixed-methods approaches to focus on the experiences of trans Latinxs in Southern California and the role of family and spirituality in serving as spaces of empowerment and resistance.
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TSQ (2019) 6 (4): 676–682.
Citation
Jack Caraves; Transgressing the Boundaries of the Borderlands. TSQ 1 November 2019; 6 (4): 676–682. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-7771838
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