Border disablement: how embodied Borders disable Latina immigrants with breast cancer

Abstract In this article, I introduce and theorize “border disablement” to challenge dominant frameworks that treat immigrant illness primarily as a matter of access or individual identity. Drawing on feminist theories of borders and a disability justice framework, I show how serious illness among Latina immigrant women reveals that borders are inherently disabling, structuring health trajectories before and beyond diagnosis. Based on 25 ethnographic interviews with Latina immigrants diagnosed with breast cancer, I reveal how borders are disabling through three interrelated dimensions: 1) borders fracture and diminish support networks, exacerbating disablement at the point of illness; 2) borders render women hyper-visible as racialized immigrants, yet illegible to state and medical institutions, magnifying the impact of withholding institutional support while ill; and 3) medical institutions, framed as benevolent, mask violence and deprive women of self-determination through constrained options, neglect, and mistreatment. Together, these dynamics show that borders compound the inequalities that illness makes visible, producing and sustaining the disabling conditions that shape immigrant women’s health and survival.