Lands of Entrapment
Environmental Health and Well-Being in Literature about the US Southwest and Chicana/o Communities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11272793 |
|---|---|
| Authors | María Isabel Pérez Ramos (0000-0002-3532-5062, corresponding author), María Isabel Pérez-Ramos (Independent Scholar, GIECO-Instituto Franklin) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 129-150 |
| Publication date | 2018-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | MELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/melus/mly010 |
| OpenAlex | W2800816636 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
Literature about the Chicana/o community and their Mexican and Pueblo neighbors shows how water pollution and water mismanagement in the US Southwest affect the health and wellbeing of these communities. Some narratives―Heroes and Saints (1994), Under the Feet of Jesus (1995), Cactus Blood (1995), So Far From God (1993), and El Puente/The Bridge (2000)—focus particularly on the agricultural and industrial areas, where those affected by pollution suffer from what could be considered a (mental and somatic) toxic trauma. Some other narratives—People of the Valley (1941), The Milagro Beanfield War (1974), and Alburquerque (1992)―connect the loss of land grants to water rights, environmental degradation, poverty, unemployment, and substance abuse in the Upper Rio Grande bioregion of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. The narratives moreover echo the work of many activists and associations across the Southwest struggling for environmental justice. Their focus on water, in line with the popular motto “el agua es vida / water is life,” parallels many initiatives, such as the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Through “goodlife” values, these narratives, while proposing means of resistance or viable alternatives, expose how the environmental health issues affecting the wellbeing of both the land and the peoples of the Southwest are an entanglement of social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental factors.
Environmental degradation · Environmental justice · Ethnology · Narrative · Opposition (politics) · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Sociology · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law
| Highly cited | No |
|---|