Que Próxima: The Future of Latinx Sci-Fic

Photo by Monica Garniga on Unsplash

Colorism testimonies. Cultural fetishism. Religious exploration. 

As I prepared to take part in a panel for FIYAHCON 2020, a virtual convention boosting the works of BIPOC in speculative fiction, those are a few themes that rose to the surface of my contemporary reading reflections.

Latinx people are, no doubt, a marginalized community. Yet our plight is a unique one. We straddle the lines of privilege and injustice, both in speculative fiction and in the real world.

Side note: If you’re doing it right, you’re uplifting voices of Black and Indigenous as loudly as you spread the word for your local jíbaro/a, paisano/a and other—insert your region dialect here—kinfolk. 

Back to the topic at hand: With 20 countries with Spanish as the official language plus others that haven’t gained enough freedom to be considered a sovereign nation—like Puerto Rico—we are a group of people wanting to coalesce around our similarities while celebrating our differences.

With this in mind, how might Latinx writers re-imagine the world that brought them decades a strife along with años of joy?

The answer is: One story at a time.

Correcting the Record

“Cosmos Latinos” an anthology of science fiction from Latin American and Spain by Associate Professors of Spanish Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilan discusses the distinctiveness of this group by comparing it to an anglophonic canon. The argument continues on to note the relative “softness” of the works because of a lack of plausibility in their expression of the social sciences. Excluding the problematic nature of starting with Eurocentric terminology, segregating social sciences to the kid’s table is just one of the reasons mental disorders have the stigma they do today. 

The book later cites literary scholars in an effort to explain the preference of Latin American authors because of their historical role as consumers rather than innovators.

Um, que? 

This reminds me of how Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said his organization had:

“a very limited pool of Black talent to recruit from.”

Many responses were along the lines of, “If you don’t know, you better ask somebody.” Ever heard of an HBCU? 

Willful ignorance is the cause of so many bad takes among the decades.

For the people in the back: Let people write their own histories and tell their own stories.

In you’re in need of science fiction falling across strength levels look to Yoss, Bernardo Fernández, Carmen Marie Machado, Felix J. Palma, Malka Older and Adam Silvera.

Oh, as for: Colorism testimonies. Cultural fetishism. Religious exploration.

They each deserve a post of their own.

To be continued…