The Finality of the Colonial Spirit : Critical imaginations of Home at the US-Mexico Border

Abstract

Understanding the struggles that queer migrants face when making Home proves historically that one is always in response to the economic shifts of the world. It shifts one’s identity in order to more readily fit within the logic of coloniality. It also helps us understand the underlying racialization of these economic flows of identity. We all fit within these notions of coloniality and we fit in certain ways and differently from others. The borderlands of Identity view the parts of ourselves that live within as well out outside the boundaries of the Home/Nation. In this analysis that lives within the bordered regions of the Home/Nation, prompted by the US-Mexico border, the bordered regions of the parts of ourselves that get lost is where we learn from. Many people have described this position within the border regions of identity as the “colonial difference”, “Colonial Wound”, and some early theroizations resulting in the books like “La Raza Cosmica” by Jose Vasconcelos. Then to the more contemporary definitions of borderlands of identity by gloria Anzaldua. All depict the points where the boundaries meet and are in relationship with these pre-imposed boundaries. This means we all live differently in the colonial matrix of power within the Home. It is to view the Home as just an imposed phenomena that comes with pre imposed boundaries. The task is then to see our “colonial wounds” to understand where we fit within gendered ordering of power within the Home/Nation to inform our relationality in the world.