Border Trash: the markings of Latinas as foreign bodies

Abstract

This article studies the subgenre of border pornography and examines how Latina hypersexuality is represented. The author asks: what does border pornography say about borders, Latinas, and its political and historical pasts? What can we say about the different deployments of border pornography? Do some videos affectively carry racial stereotypes more than others? Lastly, how do brown spectators along with the actresses make sense of these border narratives? Using a performative discursive analysis, the author shows that the use of the word “Border” in pornography shifted throughout three decades. In the early 1970s border titles often centered on white women's sexual adventures to Mexico, but after 9/11, the border became synonymous with a racial-sexual difference of the Latina body and their brown carnality. The author argues that Latina adult stars find moments of possibilities despite the subjugation and racial mockery that they are expected to perform. The creativity of Latinas is evident when they challenge the fixity of their characters by refusing to stay quiet during sexual acts, incorporating nonscripted sexual dialogue, and by challenging the ideological concept of the shoots during behind-the-scene interviews. These sexual tactics trans-code new meanings about what it means to be a brown body on screen. A close study of these films shows that pornographers deploying the term border were always intentional about commenting on the political moment. Border pornography was never just about the sex; it was about how the sex could deploy racial differences vis-à-vis geographies of the border.

Keywords:

• Latinx pornography
• interracial desire
• abject pleasure
• racialized sexuality
• borderlands

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although this article focuses on cultural production from California, I acknowledge that the East Coast (New York and Florida) are other locations where Latina porn series have been produced. Afro-Latina star Vanessa Del Rio was among the top adult actresses in New York during the 1970s–1980s. A comparative study between both regions is outside of the scope of this paper, but will help us understand how Latinidad is directly impacted by its region, as well as how the colonial and racial histories that have shaped racial projects in Latin American also extend to how Latinidad is understood in the United States.

2 For more about the history of Kumeyaay/Kumaia please see Cynthia Vazquez, “Five Cycles of Education: Kumeyaay/Kumiami Experience of Assimilation, Isolation, Resistance and Negotiation,” MA Thesis, UC San Diego (2014).

3 The title of Border Bangers is the name of a website that specializes in border sex, but unlike the website, the compilation film did not have any border patrol sex.

4 Puerto Rican scholars have also documented the discursive ways in which Blackness is erased from nation building projects in Puerto Rico and Latin America, and how this leaves a problem for Afro-Latinxs who desire legitimacy for their identities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yessica Garcia Hernandez

Yessica Garcia Hernandez is incoming Assistant Professor and Filmmaker in the César E. Chavez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research explores Latinx sexualities, performance, and popular culture. She is also a President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Riverside in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies.