Makeshift Barracks of Migrant Despair

Abstract:This article closely reads Manuel Muñoz's short story "Campo," from his 2003 collection Zigzagger, and argues that he depicts the entanglements of terror, care work, vulnerability, desire, and detention to chart a unique geography of the borderlands that is characterized by despair. The article highlights how Muñoz contributes to a post-Anzaldúan legacy by engaging Anzaldúa's critical paradigm of la herida abierta and subsequently redrawing its coordinates through his fiction. By focusing on Muñoz's use of the built form, this article illuminates how "Campo" recasts constructions of the migrant body, by imagining queer Chicano masculine desire and highlighting the daily herculean feats required of migrant youth who simply long to experience freedom, comfort, safety, and the sanctuary of home.