Degollado’s Throw : Nepantla, A New Name, A New Self

Abstract Growing up hedged between two borders in deep South Texas (USA), the Fronterista exists, by default, in Nepantla, a term coined by Gloria Anzaldúa that expands on liminality. In addition to Turner’s “between and betwixt,” Nepantla refers to fissures caused by the violent collisions between two competing cultures into which characters can fall, thus existing in a perpetual state of cultural, linguistic, and spiritual transformation, a never-ending and grating duality. In Rubén Degollado’s young adult novel Throw, narrator Cirilo/Güero must navigate between reality and Nepantla. In one instance, Cirilo/Güero, who has fallen into Nepantla through a fissure, is able to revisit an experience but with the benefit of hindsight. He does not have an out-of-body experience nor does he time travel. Instead, he is reliving the moment from both his past and the present moment consciences, his two selves aware only of what they can possibly be conscious of at those times in his life. That is, his younger self is naïve to the racism he and his friends are being exposed to on that day, while his older and more world-weary self cannot help but know it for what it is: vile hatred.