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Abstract
This dissertation examines narratives about the experiences of Central American and southern Mexican migrant travelers going north to seek work or sanctuary in the United States. This study looks at how the multiple issues that migrant travelers face are narrated in memoirs and testimonial literature, novels, and films from Central American, Mexican, and Latinx authors. It looks at how the theories of travel literature can illuminate the specificity of migrant travel. There are key categories of travel narratives that must be identified and redefined to accommodate the distinctive characteristics of this type of travel. These include the chronotopes of the road, the crisis-laden threshold moments, the circularity and notion of homecoming implied in the structure of travel, the dynamics of gain and loss, and the reformulation of conventional ideas of landscape and narration. Additionally, the economics of travel must be adapted to account for a non-traditional social structure among the travelers. The questions posed in this analysis are highly relevant for not only the literature within this investigation, but as a lens for looking at similar narratives of migration trajectories in the literatures of the global south. The analysis in this study covers all or parts of multiple works. The primary novels consist of: Mario Bencastros Odisea del Norte (Odyssey to the North); Juan B. Escobar Paradas El viaje a la tierra prometida; Graciela Limons The River Flows North; Roberto Quesadas Nunca entres por Miami (Never through Miami); and Luis Alberto Urreas Into the Beautiful North. Films include: Pedro Ultrerass La bestia = The Beast and Gregory Navas El Norte. The memoirs of Cedric Caldern, Contrabando humano en las Californias and Contrabando humano en la frontera, are also incorporated.