Un/Conventional Queer Refugee Bodies: Contextualizing the Accounts of Transphobic Persecution in Cherrie Moragas Native Country of the Heart

Name of Author : Razeena P R

Abstract: Being a refugee means constantly pursued by fear of capture and haunted by the fear of violence. This is propelled by the flight of stigma instigated by the desire for connection and belonging to the categories of people whose gender and sexuality defy accepted norms of heterosexuality in a complex spatial and psychological terrain. They recount surviving persecution by giving up their desires, distancing themselves from available identities and conforming to accepted norms in society. Often, they follow precarious migration trajectories that are limited by rigid migration controls and obliviousness of refugee rights for sexual and gender-based protection. While adhering to the norms of Western cultural narratives, they struggle with dominant sexual and gender identities, coming of age issues and gender dysphoria. Native Country of the Heart, a memoir by Chicana writer Cherrie Moraga, chronicles both a Mexican American coming-of-age story, as well as a coming-of-old-age story that describes two generations of women in the Mexican American literary canon, her coming out as a queer child of an immigrant in America and her mother’s arduous journey that charts the unmapped and unspoken territories of body and soul and refuses to be confined by any border or genre. Moraga also talks about the importance of memory, when she says,” We were not supposed to remember.” This article examines how Cherríe Moraga examines the deep complications of growing up as a refugee, mixed race and lesbian in a racist culture and reflects on the unconventionality of queer refugees’ accounts in relation to these expectations.

Keywords : Queer, Chicana, Memory, Migration, Homonationalisation

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