In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer:

Lydia R. Otero

Book cover for In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer:
Book cover for In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer:

In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer:

In the Shadows of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown & Queer:

Lydia R. Otero

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Description
Born in 1955, Lydia R. Otero knew they were queer the moment their consciousness had evolved enough to formulate thoughts. Nicknamed La Butch by their family, Otero shares a unique perspective: displaced by their queerness, but rooted in place through their relationship with Tucson, Arizona. In this book, which combines personal memoir and the historical archive, Otero takes readers to a world that existed on the physical and social margins and describes how a new freeway created a barrier that greatly influenced formative aspects of Otero's childhood. The author examines the multiple effects of environmental racism, while the lack of services and low expectations of the schools Otero attended are further examples of the discrimination directed at brown people. This book offers more self-disclosure than Otero's previous works, as the author's memories and experiences of childhood take center stage. Otero reveals the day-to-day survival mechanisms they depended upon, the exhilaration of first love, and the support they received from key family members

Critical Reviews

"A poignant, humorous and sometimes tragic coming of age memoir of sexual identity and racial and cultural awareness and empowerment in an historic era of great social change in Tucson. It tells a story that has not been told. A must read!"--Patricia Preciado Martin, author of Beloved Land: An Oral History of Mexican Americans in Southern Arizona and Songs My Mother Sang to Me: An Oral History of Mexican American Women

"Historian Lydia Otero employs the first person perspective to write themselves into the history of a working class barrio's devastation and endurance. Written with a cool, unpretentious ease, Otero's memoir makes a notable contribution to Queer and Latinx Studies while also reaching wide audiences interested in the politics of urban planning and development from a brown queer lens. This is queer of color theory born in the body and borders of the Southwest. A vital, unique, powerful memoir."--Emma Pérez, author of The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History

Publishing Information

Publisher: Planet Earth Press
Pub date: 2019-11-26
Length: 210 pages

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