Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:47:14.998Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 18 - Vulnerable States

Immigration and Gender in American Literature

from Part III - New Directions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2021

By
Sigrid Anderson
Edited by
Jean M. Lutes  and
Jennifer Travis
Jean M. Lutes
Affiliation:
Villanova University, Pennsylvania
Jennifer Travis
Affiliation:
St John's University, New York
Get access

Summary

A key development in Cristina Henríquez’s 2014 novel The Book of Unknown Americans comes when an immigrant family from Mexico loses their U.S. visas, and ultimately their daughter’s spot in a special needs school, because the father has lost his job. By narrating the personal repercussions of this shift in documentation, Henriquez insists on making visible the human cost of immigration policies and the precarity of documentation, a longstanding precarity that has taken on heightened resonance in our current political moment. This chapter takes up the gendered inflections and devastating effects of shifting states of documentation in contemporary novels by women writers, including Henríquez, Ruth Ozeki, Julie Otsuka, Lisa Ko, and Bich Minh Nguyen. These texts reveal not just a project of rendering immigrant and undocumented life visible, but also an emphasis on documentation and broader gendered and racialized conceptions of U.S. national identity as vulnerable states.

Keywords

Ruth OzekiJulie OtsukaLisa KoBich Minh Nguyenundocumentedimmigrant
Type
Chapter
Information
Gender in American Literature and Culture , pp. 286 - 299
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×