{"id":139,"date":"2026-07-30T20:21:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T01:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=139"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:50:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:50:57","slug":"monstrous-borders-and-the-border-as-monster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=139","title":{"rendered":"Monstrous Borders and the Border as Monster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Monstrous Borders and the Border as Monster<\/h1>\n\n\n

Elmira Louie<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Abstract
Nocturno mexicano; Daniele Crepaldi (b. 1953 Italy); 2017; Oaxaca, M\u00e9xico; Chronomat; 101x200cm; The Mexican Museum in Association with the Smithsonian Institute; \u201cEndemismo: Arte contempor\u00e1neo y la biosfera de Oaxaca\u201d exhibition; Image from mexicanmuseum.org. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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What is a border? Some perceive it geographically, marked by natural landmarks or  military posts separating one nation from another (Popescu, 2011; Yuval-Davis et al., 2019; Turner, 2020). Others define borders theoretically as a third space where differences intersect (Anzald\u00faa, 1987; Sandoval 1997; Mignolo, 2000). As this journal demonstrates, the more diverse forms of borders we uncover, the more avenues we find for (re)evaluating politics, the environment, and the human experience. In this essay, I explore the transformation of the border from an abstract concept to a physical monster in Sonia Gui\u00f1ansaca\u2019s poetry. As a queer migrant poet and activist, Gui\u00f1ansaca combines their intersectional activism with their lived experience in their poetry. For instance, in Nostalgia & Borders <\/em>(2016) Gui\u00f1ansaca draws from their own personal history to voice experiences of migration and loss. This \u201cartivism\u201d (Sandoval and Latorre, 2008) confronts the struggles of marginalized communities and fosters solidarity. Gui\u00f1ansaca has been featured in numerous media outlets, including PEN America <\/em>and NBC News<\/em>, and there is a burgeoning scholarly interest in their provocative poetry (P\u00e9rez, 2018; Urquijo-Ruiz, 2019; Zecena, 2021).

This paper examines Gui\u00f1ansaca\u2019s \u201cThe Monster Is Real,\u201d a single stanza poem composed of nine lines in free verse. I read the titular monster as the border and in doing so, offer an approach to borders that counters dominant anthropocentric perspectives and considers the border as a complex entity within itself.

The poem symbolizes the multifaceted forms of the border and ultimately defines it as a sinister monster. Historically, migrants have been referred to derogatorily as \u201cmonsters,\u201d or depicted as such in literature and media, for their hybrid existence between languages, cultures, and locations (Rodr\u00edguez, 2007; Ram\u00edrez Berg, 2012; Mora\u00f1a, 2017; L\u00f3pez-Calvo, 2021). This poem instead applies the monster signifier to the border. The migrant is humanized in the figure of the abuelito<\/em>; it is the border that is \u201cothered.\u201d Othering, understood as the \u201chuman ontology of distance and opposition\u201d (Giuliani, 2021), is applied here to a non-human entity. This radical move unites the migrant and non-migrant by making the \u201cmonster,\u201d i.e., the embodiment of difference, the border itself. It gives rise to the paradoxical representation of the border which, I argue, underscores its elusive nature.

The poem initially presents two understandings of borders, that of the real and the imagined: \u201cI am told that borders are imaginary \/ As a way to offer me consolation \/ But they have not seen the monstrosity that has been built\u201d (vv. 1-3). Borders that are imaginary are viewed as such by those who lack a personal encounter with borders and can only view them as an abstract, imagined concept. This perspective is emblematic of \u201cthinking about borders\u201d that Walter Mignolo distinguishes from \u201cborder thinking\u201d or \u201cborder gnosis\u201d; the former being based on a territorial epistemology while the latter emerges from dwelling within the border (Mignolo, 2000). The passive voice creates a sense of distancing that renders the imagined border remote and intangible. It simultaneously situates the speaker and abuelito<\/em>\u2019s positionality as that of border gnosis, which is further emphasized by the switch to active voice starting in the fourth verse: \u201cMy abuelito crossed a real river, almost died in a real desert, and \/ climbed a real wall\u201d (vv. 4-5). This shift contrasts the conceptual border with the physical border that the narrator\u2019s abuelito <\/em>encountered. The active verbs \u201ccrossed,\u201d \u201cdied,\u201d and \u201cclimbed\u201d give movement not only to the abuelito <\/em>who is performing the action, but also to the border upon which the action is being done. The border is something that can be climbed and crossed. It is a physical entity that can inflict death.

This movement and action, embedded in the poem\u2019s grammar and in the repetition of the word \u201creal,\u201d brings the border out from the imagined, passive world to the land of the living. The border is a river, a desert, and a wall. These metaphors give the border concrete forms while highlighting its mutability. Yet the border\u2019s change and movement only serve to prevent <\/em>that of the migrant. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen\u2019s fifth thesis from the seminal text Monster Theory: Reading Culture <\/em>(1996) states the monster prevents mobility by restricting space and attacking those who cross its borders (p. 12). Gui\u00f1ansaca\u2019s border is the definition of this exact monster. It comes to life \u201cAt night, somewhere between Mexico and the U.S.\u201d as though lurking and waiting to pounce under the cover of darkness (v. 6). The verse continues with \u201cyou can hear it\u201d which marks the beginning of the border\u2019s physical transformation into a creature that can create sound. The following verse, \u201cbreathing,\u201d connotes the living <\/em>aspect of the border\/monster hybrid. The word is emphasized structurally as it is the only verse that consists of just a single word, and the absence of other words highlights the profundity of the breathing.

The border\u2019s personification is animated further in the penultimate verse: \u201cYou can hear it eating\u201d (v. 8). There is greater emphasis on \u201ceating\u201d since it appears at the end of the verse, and the lack of punctuation and abruptness implies the verse is another enjambment, yet it does not continue. The reader is left hanging on the intransitive verb \u201ceating,\u201d which begs the question: What <\/em>is the border eating? Given the border\u2019s monstrous transformation, I interpret the abuelito <\/em>almost dying as him being hunted and nearly eaten by this monstrous border. The intransitivity of \u201ceating\u201d indirectly makes it synonymous with \u201ckilling\u201d within the larger context of the poem. The monster eats migrants, the border kills migrants. The act of eating sustains life and provides the consumer with nutrients to grow. The monster feeds off migrants, implying that with each death, it is fortified.

In the final verse, the border\u2019s monstrous transformation is complete as the poem affirms: \u201cThe monster is real\u201d (v. 9). Earlier, the poem had established that the border is a monstrosity (v. 3) and that the border is real (vv. 4-5). These separate elements contributed to the poem\u2019s depiction of the border by initiating its monstrous transformation. The last verse, then, brings these two ideas together and yields a border that is a hybrid monster. Although throughout the poem the  border has gone through a process of othering, it is not the \u201cother\u201d in Levinas\u2019 sense of an unknowable difference (Levinas, 1998). The narrator and their abuelito <\/em>know the border quite intimately, and it is this knowledge that makes the border a monster as opposed to an \u201cother.\u201d Ironically, monsters are typically imagined creatures. Juxtaposing the material border with an immaterial monster demonstrates that the border can be both <\/em>real and imaginary.

\u201cThe monster is real\u201d contrasts with the poem\u2019s opening verse when the narrator was told that \u201cborders are imaginary.\u201d The parallel between the first and last verses demonstrates a mestiza consciousness, where multiple identities exist (Anzald\u00faa, 1987). By embracing the border\u2019s fluidity and multiplicity, the poem challenges dominant perceptions of the border. It is more than just an imagined concept; the border is also made of the barriers and beasts that inflict trauma, death, and separation. Reading the border as a monster who breathes and eats resists the anthropocentrism in contemporary border discourse. It shifts focus onto the border itself and acknowledges more-than-human agency (Bennett, 2010). In doing so, the role of the land and its relationship to the biopolitics of immigration can be reevaluated. Notably, the third verse reveals that the border is a \u201cmonstrosity\u201d that was constructed. Perhaps, then, the true monster is not the border but rather those who delineate it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Professional<\/figure>
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About the Author<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Elmira Louie<\/strong> is a PhD Candidate and an Associate Instructor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). Her research is on world-systems borderlands within modern Persian and Turkish literature. She is interested in theories of gender, decolonialism, migration and diaspora studies, translation, and world literature. She is the translator of the book Espejo de los detalles \/ Mirror of Details, <\/em>which was published in 2020. She has produced several digital humanities podcasts, including most recently The Story of Iran <\/em>and Dialogic<\/em>. Additionally, she serves on the Vice Chancellor\u2019s Advising for Equity Administrative Advisory Committee, where she works to reshape and transform advising structures across the UC Davis campus.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Works Cited<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Anzald\u00faa, G. (1987). Borderlands\/La Frontera: The New Mestiza<\/em>. Aunt Lute Books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. <\/em>Duke University Press.

Chen, K. \u201cThe PEN Ten with Sonia Gui\u00f1ansaca.\u201d PEN America<\/em>, 1 Sept. 2015, pen.org\/the- pen-ten-with-sonia-guinansaca\/.

Cohen, J.J. (Ed.). (1996). Monster Theory: Reading Culture<\/em>. University of Minnesota Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giuliani, G. (2022). Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene: A Postcolonial Critique<\/em>. Routledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guerrero, H. (2016). \u201cImmigrant Poet Sonia Gui\u00f1ansaca: Nostalgia Of Home \u2018Never Goes Away\u2019.\u201d NBC News<\/em>, 4 May 2016, www.nbcnews.com\/news\/latino\/immigrant-poet-sonia-gui-ansaca-nostalgia-home-never-goes-away-n567231<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gui\u00f1ansaca, S. (2016). Nostalgia & Borders<\/em>. Self-published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Levinas, E. (1998). \u201cThe Trace of the Other.\u201d In W. McNeill & K. Feldman (Eds.), Continental Philosophy: An Anthology. <\/em>Wiley-Blackwell, 1998.

L\u00f3pez-Calvo, I. (2021). \u201cBiopolitics, Orientalism, and the Asian Immigrant as Monster in Salazar\u2019s La medianoche del japon\u00e9s <\/em>and Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s Asesinato en una lavander\u00edachina<\/em>.\u201d In A. Gasquet & G. Majstorovic (Eds.), Cultural and Literary Dialogues Between Asia and Latin America<\/em>. Palgrave Macmillan, 121-142.

Mignolo, W. (2000). Local Histories \/ Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. <\/em>Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mora\u00f1a, M. (2017). El monstruo como m\u00e1quina de guerra<\/em>. Iberoamericana-Vervuert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9rez, J. (2018). \u201cUndocuartivism: Latino Undocumented Immigrant Empowerment through Art and Activism.\u201d Chiric\u00fa Journal: Latina\/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures2.<\/em>2, 2018, 23-44.

Popescu, G. (2011). Bordering and Ordering the Twenty-first Century. <\/em>Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Ram\u00edrez Berg, C. (2012). \u201c26. Immigrants, Aliens, and Extraterrestrials: Science Fiction\u2019s Alien \u201cOther\u201d as (Among Other Things) New Latino Imagery.\u201d In B. K. Grant (Ed.), Film Genre Reader IV<\/em>. University of Texas Press, 402-432. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7560\/742055-029<\/a>

Rodr\u00edguez, A. (2007). \u201cWhere the Monsters are: Margaret Millar and the \u2018Mexican Problem\u2019.\u201d Clues25.<\/em>3, 21-32. ProQuest<\/em>, https:\/\/www.proquest.com\/scholarly-journals\/where-monsters-are-margaret-millar-mexican\/docview\/203651467\/se-2.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandoval, C., & Latorre, G. (2008). \u201cChicana\/o Artivism: Judy Baca\u2019s Digital Work with Youth of Color.\u201d In A. Everett (Ed.) Learning Race and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media<\/em>. The MIT Press, 81\u2013108.

Sandoval, C. (1997). \u201cForeword.\u201d In T. Sharpley-Whiting & R. White (Eds.), Spoils of War: Women of Color, Cultures, and Revolutions<\/em>. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, ix – xiii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turner, J. (2020). Bordering Intimacy: Postcolonial Governance and the Policing of Family. <\/em>Manchester University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urquijo-Ruiz, R. (2019). \u201cLatina Lesbian Literature.\u201d Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature<\/em>. Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yuval-Davis, Nira, et al., (Ed.). (2019). Bordering<\/em>. Polity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zecena, R. (2021). Unruly Imaginaries: The Relational Lives of Queer and Trans Migrants<\/em>. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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border<\/a>, <\/span>hybrid<\/a>, <\/span>migration<\/a>, <\/span>monster<\/a>, <\/span>poetry<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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