Desbordes: Translating Racial, Ethnic, Sexual, and Gender Identities across the Americas

SUNY Series: Genders in the Global South

by María-Amelia Viteri

María-Amelia Viteri explores the multiple unfixed meanings that the term “Latino” takes on as this category is reappropriated and translated by LGBT “Latinos” in Washington, DC, San Salvador, and Quito. Using an anthropology-based, interdisciplinary approach, she exposes the creative ways in which migrants—including herself—subvert traditional readings based on country of origin, skin color, language, and immigrant status. A critical look at the multiple ways migrants view what it means to be American, Latino, and/or queer provides fertile ground for theoretical, methodological, and political debates on the importance of a queer transnational and immigration framework when analyzing citizenship and belonging. Desbordes (un/doing, overflowing borders) ethnographically addresses the limits and constraints of current paradigms within which sexuality and gender have been commonly analyzed as they intersect with race, class, ethnicity, immigration status, and citizenship. This book uses the concept of “queerness” as an analytical tool to problematize the notion of a seamless relationship between identity and practice.

Genres: Queer

200 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2014

Reviews

[celia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Viteri also situates herself as an researcher clearly, early-on, and then ongoing, which was really nice. Really interesting introduction to thinking about the connections between different identities and their intersections with migration(s). Pretty dense at points, but has one of the best uses of knowing when to translate something and keep it in its original form– the quotes/blurbs from different participants are such an amazing and necessary insight.