Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2-2019
Abstract
With the predominance of Chicanxs in Latinx speculative fictions as the impetus behind this cluster, I want to consider how Latinxs are represented in popular culture, especially when the creators of such Latinx characters are not Latinxs themselves. Turning to popular representations, I contend, acts as a litmus test for how Latinx issues are widely perceived as well as how these concerns are perpetuated within popular media. The Roswell reboot, Roswell, New Mexico offers one such instance as both the showrunner, Carina Adly MacKenzie, and Melinda Metz, the author of Roswell High, the show on which the series is based, are not Latinxs. I turn to Roswell, New Mexico to examine the possibilities for futurity at a time when all Latinx futurities are threatened as, in Trump’s rhetoric, Mexican comes to be a metonym for all Latin Americans and people of Latin American descent. More specifically, I read the alien landing in Roswell as an allegory for Central American immigration and an example of how Central Americans are erased and subsumed under Mexican immigration."
Recommended Citation
Hudson, R. (2019, Dec. 2). “Roswell, New Mexico and the dead futures of Latinx speculative fictions,” ASAP/Review. https://asapjournal.com/feature/roswell-new-mexico-and-the-dead-futures-of-latinx-speculative-fictions/
Copyright
The author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
American Popular Culture Commons, Central American Studies Commons, Chicana/o Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Latina/o Studies Commons, Migration Studies Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Television Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in ASAP/Review in 2019.