Where Social Identities Converge: Latin American and Latinx Youth on Screen

Where Social Identities Converge examines adolescent girlhood as a metaphorical site in Latin American and Latinx film. Author Traci Roberts-Camps analyzes the work of a series of female directors from Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States to understand how female adolescence and young adulthood are represented in film. She argues that using an intersectional lens reveals how these directors present the image of adolescent girlhood as a site of early trauma that presages women’s lived experiences with institutional, interconnected forms of oppression. The book thus considers intersectionality through young female protagonists who represent identity struggles in Latin America and US Latinx communities. In doing so, it examines a range of genres, such as fictional film, documentary, and television miniseries. Each chapter includes a close reading of specific scenes that offer insight into the young female protagonists’ multiple identity markers and a continuous comparison between chapters.

Traci Roberts-Camps is a professor of Latin American literature and film and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature at the University of the Pacific.