Home/Land Insecurity, Or, un Desmadre en Aztlán: Virginia Grise's blu

Neoliberal militarism relies on the gendered spaces of home and homeland to enable the spatial logic of national security and the sociospatial formation of militarized subjectivities. Set in a post-9/11 barrio, Virginia Grise's blu (2011) offers a critique of the militarization of Chicana/o communities. The play challenges the meaning of homeland by juxtaposing Aztlán, the mythic Aztec homeland, with the US homeland. blu critiques wartime nationalism and Chicano cultural nationalism by drawing parallels between patriarchal war cultures: the Aztecs, gangs, and the US military. By rewriting myth, it offers more emancipatory notions of homeland belonging.