Representing Transborder Communities: Yolanda Cruz and Reencuentros

Keywords: film geographies, Indigenous geographies, critical geopolitics, Mexico, migration
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 40

Abstract

Yolanda Cruz is a Chatina filmmaker from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca who earned her MFA from the world-renowned film school at UCLA. Her film Reencuentros: 2501 migrantes was released in 2009 (and its title translated into English as 2,501 Migrants: A Journey). This feature-length film documents the making and moving of Alejandro Santiago’s 2,501 ceramic sculptures, each of which represents an emigrant from the Zapotec community that Santiago considers his hometown. Between Santiago’s haunting yet heroic sculptures and Cruz’s visual storytelling skills, Reencuentros vividly illustrates the distinct geographies of transborder communities associated with Indigenous regions of Oaxaca at the start of the 21st century.

Our paper narrates a reader-centered story about Reencuentros that strives to reach beyond an interpretation from the nowhere land of images and ideas (only). To begin, we connect film geographies with critical geopolitics and create a frame for seeing the affective logic of (some) documentary films. We also introduce the concept of decolonial affect, which we find especially useful for explaining our love for Indigenous films emerging out of places like Oaxaca. After briefly summarizing Yolanda’s career as a transnational Chatina filmmaker, we offer an abridged interpretation of Reencuentros’ re-member-ing force. Our key task in this paper is to highlight this film’s affective logic. To do this we detail what Yolanda’s film moved us – and others – to do in Oklahoma. We then note how friction can limit such impetus and conclude with the hope that our story might incite impulsion anew.