Representing transborder communities: Yolanda Cruz and Reencuentros

Abstract

AbstractOur examination of the documentary film Reencuentros: 2501 migrantes (translated as 2501 Migrants: A Journey) contributes to scholarship connecting film geographies to critical geopolitics, accounting for affect, and attending to documentary films. We augment this literature with the concepts of Indigenous geopolitics and decolonial affect. After an abridged introduction to Yolanda Cruz, the Chatina filmmaker from Oaxaca, Mexico who made Reencuentros, we interpret her film’s representation of transborder communities in Indigenous regions of Oaxaca at the turn of the twenty-first century. We then illustrate the film’s affective logic by detailing what the film moved us—and others—to do in Oklahoma. We conclude by recognizing how friction has stalled the impetus sparked by Yolanda’s film and hoping that this article might incite impulsion anew.