Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature - Paperback

by Trevor Boffone (Editor), Cristina Herrera (Editor), Guadalupe Garc McCall (Foreword by)

Contributions by Carolina Alonso, Elena Avilés, Trevor Boffone, Christi Cook, Ella Diaz, Amanda Ellis, Cristina Herrera, Guadalupe García McCall, Domino Renee Pérez, Adrianna M. Santos, Roxanne Schroeder-Arce, Lettycia Terrones, and Tim Wadham

In Nerds, Goths, Geeks, and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature, the outsider intersects with discussions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The essays in this volume address questions of outsider identities and how these identities are shaped by mainstream myths around Chicanx and Latinx young people, particularly with the common stereotype of the struggling, underachieving inner-city teens.

Contributors also grapple with how young adults reclaim what it means to be an outsider, weirdo, nerd, or goth, and how the reclamation of these marginalized identities expand conversations around authenticity and narrow understandings of what constitutes cultural identity.

Included are analysis of such texts as I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Shadowshaper, Swimming While Drowning, and others. Addressed in the essays are themes of outsiders in Chicanx/Latinx children's and young adult literature, and the contributors insist that to understand Latinx youth identities it is necessary to shed light on outsiders within an already marginalized ethnic group: nerds, goths, geeks, freaks, and others who might not fit within such Latinx popular cultural paradigms as the chola and cholo, identities that are ever-present in films, television, and the internet.

Author Biography

Trevor Boffone's work using TikTok with his students has been featured on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, Access Hollywood, and numerous national media outlets. He is author of Renegades: Digital Dance Cultures from Dubsmash to TikTok and TikTok Broadway: Musical Theatre Fandom in the Digital Age. Cristina Herrera is professor and director of the Chicanx/Latinx Studies Program at Portland State University. She is author of ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy and Welcome to Oxnard: Race, Place, and Chicana Adolescence in Michele Serros's Writings. Boffone and Herrera are coauthors of Latinx Teens: U.S. Popular Culture on the Page, Stage, and Screen.