Explorations of Border-Crossing Identity through Dreamscape in Frontera

This analysis examines how Frontera, a graphic novel that follows a young man as he attempts to cross the Sonoran Desert to return to Arizona after being deported, draws upon the mythologically-rich space of the desert to create a dreamscape that explores Mexican-American identity. Featuring visual differentiation, cultural icons, and spiritual figures that interact with the main character, Mateo, the text’s dreamscape serves as a narrative bridge for characters to transcend their individual identity and connect with a communal identity. Specifically, a spiritual jaguar from Aztec mythology, and the ghost of an immigrant who died crossing the desert help Mateo reconcile with his evolving Mexican-American identity and sense of community. This research draws on the work of comics scholar Mark Di Paolo, who conceives of comics as a cultural marker of American identity that reacts to the social environment of the time, and Latinx comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama, whose research highlights the rise in well-developed and complex depictions of Latinx identity in comics in recent decades. Read in conjunction with these scholarly perspectives, Frontera may be understood to react to a contemporary society in which the modern political environment threatens the deeply felt American identities of undocumented immigrants. By using dreamscape to explore Mateo’s shifting identity throughout his deportation and border-crossing, and showcasing a variety of trans-cultural identities through the dreamscape’s spiritual figures, Frontera depicts an interconnected, multi-cultural identity for both the main character and contemporary U.S. society.