The Theme of Outsiderness in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature: Self-Fashioning Identities, Canons, and Fields of Study

Abstract

This review article focuses on the critical anthology Nerds, Goths, Geeks and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, edited by Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera (2020). The goal of this collection of essays is to fill the gap that exists in both Latinx cultural studies and children’s and young adult (YA) literature scholarship: the focus on US Latinx children’s and YA literature. Its second goal is to concentrate on Latina and Latino outsiders, who are also ignored in the above-mentioned fields of study, even when it comes to nerds, goths, geeks, and freaks. The anthology offers a necessary exploration of the double marginalisation of Latinx and queer, nerdy, geeky, or otherwise non-conformist teenagers and young adults. The authors analyse Latinx YA texts to capture the strategies and practices the protagonists use to reject or question the dominant Latinx/Chicanx identity scripts, self-fashion a new identity, or, simply, to survive. The article outlines the key problems and themes of the anthology and describes two additional goals of the editors: to create and reaffirm an emerging Latinx YA literary canon as well as to establish an academic field of Latinx YA literature studies. Moreover, key concepts from Latinx cultural theory are sketched out, and special emphasis is placed on the difference between theme and theory, which serves as the starting point for evaluating the collection’s achievements and shortcomings.