Contesting The Borderlands

Download or read book Jillian in the Borderlands written by Beth Alvarado and published by Black Lawrence Press. This book was released on 2023-10-12 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jillian Guzmán, who is nine years old at the beginning of the book, communicates through drawings rather than speech as she travels with her mother, Angie O'Malley, throughout the borderlands of Arizona and northwestern Mexico. Later she creates survival maps for border crossers and paints murals at the Casa de los Olvidados, a refuge in Sonora run by the traditional healer Juana of God. These darkly funny tales, focusing on Mexican-American, Euro-American, and Mexican characters, feature visionary experiences, ghosts, faith healers, a deer's head that speaks, a dog who channels spirits of the dead--and a young woman whose drawings begin to create realities instead of just reflecting them.