Undocumented Knowledges: Queer Latinx Geographies in Chicagoland

Keywords: Latinx, migrants, queer, mobility, suburban
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 74

Abstract

Queer immigrants live in suburban spaces and must develop strategies to navigate some hostile environments towards their legal or migratory status, racialization, sexuality, or gender nonconformity. This paper centers queer Latinx migrants' experiences to argue that vulnerable residents craft expansive geographies of care and kinship within the broader cultural, political-economic, and material infrastructures of the Chicagoland region. In particular, this presentation argues that legally precarious, gay or queer, Latinx migrants employ social, cultural, and economic tactics to reshape their constrained mobility practices at home, to and from work, and for joy. It considers these practices within the Chicagoland area and further queers the broader region as a transnational space. This paper emerges from an in-depth, ethnographic project in a Latinx-majority sub/urban location.