Nerds Goths Geeks and Freaks

<p>Contributions by Carolina Alonso Elena Avilés Trevor Boffone Christi Cook Ella Diaz Amanda Ellis Cristina Herrera Guadalupe García McCall Domino Renee Pérez Adrianna M. Santos Roxanne Schroeder-Arce Lettycia Terrones and Tim Wadham</p><p>In Nerds Goths Geeks and Freaks: Outsiders in Chicanx and Latinx Young Adult Literature the outsider intersects with discussions of race ethnicity gender and sexuality. The essays in this volume address questions of outsider identities and how these identities are shaped by mainstream myths around Chicanx and Latinx young people particularly with the common stereotype of the struggling underachieving inner-city teens.</p><p>Contributors also grapple with how young adults reclaim what it means to be an outsider weirdo nerd or goth and how the reclamation of these marginalized identities expand conversations around authenticity and narrow understandings of what constitutes cultural identity.</p><p>Included are analysis of such texts as I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Shadowshaper Swimming While Drowning and others. Addressed in the essays are themes of outsiders in Chicanx/Latinx children's and young adult literature and the contributors insist that to understand Latinx youth identities it is necessary to shed light on outsiders within an already marginalized ethnic group: nerds goths geeks freaks and others who might not fit within such Latinx popular cultural paradigms as the chola and cholo identities that are ever-present in films television and the internet.</p>