Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Amy Cummins

Second Advisor

Stephanie Alvarez

Third Advisor

David Bowles

Abstract

The speculative genre has become a venue for Chicanx cultural producers to narrate their own histories, preserve their cultural identities, and reaffirm their rightful place in the United States. This thesis explores the redefinition of gothic monstrosity in Isabel Cañas’ Vampires of El Norte (2023), a contemporary novel within the Latinx speculative fiction genre. The novel blurs the boundaries between the supernatural threat posed by the vampires and the human threat embodied by the Anglo American settlers as both endanger Mexicans living in the Borderlands during the Texas Revolution and the U.S.-Mexico War. Drawing from L. Heidenreich’s theoretical framework, this study argues that the vampire figure in Cañas’ novel symbolizes colonial violence, social and economic hierarchies, and familial pressures rooted in traditional Mexican and Chicanx values. Furthermore, it proposes that “vampire clans” emerge as a consequence of intergenerational historical trauma, where the horrors of systemic structures infiltrate family dynamics. Anzaldúan theory provides a critical lens for interpreting Vampires of El Norte to understand Mexican and Chicanx cultural identity and resistance in the contested space of the Borderlands. This analysis is grounded in the colonial history in the Borderlands region and the hierarchical systems established under Spanish rule. Cañas’ narrative is examined with the conscious knowledge that Texas was Mexican territory, and long before that, Indigenous land.

Comments

Copyright 2025 Paulina Longoria. https://proquest.com/docview/3240627871

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