End of summer reads

The Cost of Being Undocumented

by Alix Dick and Antero Garcia

“When Alix Dick’s family found themselves in the crosshairs of cartel violence in Sinaloa, Mexico, she and her siblings were forced to flee to the U.S. Many of the scenes that she shares are difficult and unforgettable: escaping from a relationship in which her partner threatened to report her to immigration; getting root canals done in an underground dental clinic. But there are moments of triumph, too: founding her own nonprofit; working on films that tell important stories; and working with her co-author Dr. Garcia to tell her story in a framework that lays bare the realities of structural oppression.”

Being Seen

by Elsa Sjunneson

Blending memoir and media criticism, Elsa Sjunneson’s Being Seen explores the representation of D/deaf, blind, and (the very rare example of) D/deafblind figures in our cultural spaces. Each chapter turns in the focus: horror, science fiction, the medical drama, all exploring the ways in which disabled bodies are delivered for abled gazes and motivations. Read it, and, the next time you catch yourself using blind or deaf to mean willfully ignorant, think on it.

Hunchback

by Saou Ichikawa

Hunchback was a quick read that I devoured in an evening but, as is often the case with Japanese feminist writing, it has been on my mind ever since. Ichikawa’s story is so specific to the situation of her character – describing daily minutia that are individual and unique to the body and mind of one specific woman’s life – and yet in just a hundred pages she challenges our assumptions about disability, sexuality, isolation, power and violence. In a society where disability is disappeared, Ichikawa transgresses by making one individual’s complexity impossible to ignore.