Post-Colonial Consciousness and the Erotic in Iracema: Uma Transa Amazônica and Caballero

Borders have been commonly popularized as a space where illegal acts and perversions occur. As an area of political instability and representative of constant corporal movement, they are imagined as the impossibility of cultural development. Typical representations of the people on the border imitate an incomplete reality and, as a result, the alienation of these groups by the pre-established norms of both surrounding societies. This article reconsiders the border experience of the Amazon and Texas with the purpose of comparing and recuperating pieces of the inhabitant’s bodies and experiences. In particular, the film Iracema: Uma Transa Amazônica and the historical novel Caballero will be examined. Besides their evident differences, an analogy can be constructed to show the similarities between the Amazon in the 1970s and the Mexican experience in Texas in the 1800s. These two distinct histories will demonstrate the importance of a discourse on resistance on the border and contribute to mapping the dynamic intersections of sex and gender.