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Central American Non-belonging: Reading ‘El Norte’ in Cary Fukunaga’s Sin nombre

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The Latin American Road Movie

Part of the book series: Global Cinema ((GLOBALCINE))

Abstract

This article claims that the road movies Sin nombre (Cary Fukunaga, 2009) and its predecessor El Norte (Gregory Nava, 1983) bring to the fore a strategic mapping of “Central American non-belonging”: an exclusionary state of being on the basis of race, class, gender, and/or sexuality. As the films suggest, for many Central Americans this non-belonging remains a constant both in their country of origin and in the USA, where it is further maintained by discriminatory immigration laws.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Yajaira M. Padilla

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  1. Yajaira M. Padilla
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Spanish, The University of Kansas , Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    Verónica Garibotto

  2. University of Kansas , Lawrence, USA

    Jorge Pérez

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© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

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Padilla, Y.M. (2016). Central American Non-belonging: Reading ‘El Norte’ in Cary Fukunaga’s Sin nombre . In: Garibotto, V., Pérez, J. (eds) The Latin American Road Movie. Global Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58093-1_8

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