Nepantla Squared maps the lives of two transgender mestiz@s, one
during the turn of the twentieth century and one during the turn of
the twenty-first century, to chart the ways race, gender, sex,
ethnicity, and capital function differently in different times. To
address the erasure of transgender mestiz@ realities from history,
Linda Heidenreich employs an intersectional analysis that critiques
monopoly and global capitalism. Heidenreich builds on the work of
Gloria Anzaldúa's concept of nepantleras, those who could live
between and embody more than one culture, to coin the term
nepantla², marking times of capitalist transition where gender was
also in motion. Transgender mestiz@s, too, embodied that movement.
Heidenreich insists on a careful examination of the multiple
in-between spaces that construct lives between cultures and genders
during in-between times of shifting empire and capital. In so
doing, they offer an important discussion of race, class, nation,
and citizenship centered on transgender bodies of color that
challenges readers to rethink the way they understand the gendered
social and economic challenges of today.