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<p>In 2002, the <i>Los Angeles Times</i> reported that over half of Latinx people nationwide were living in suburbs, a demographic shift that has continued in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. These Latinx migrations prompt us to consider how Latinx people are modifying political and environmental suburban landscapes. As a literary critic, I look to Mexican American playwright Karen Zacarías’ <i>Native Gardens</i> to explore the role that Chicanx/Latinx art on environments and its kin, (eco)criticism and cultural studies, can play in helping illuminate the social justice and environmental stakes of suburban Latinidades. With careful attention to form, I close read dialogue, scene descriptions, and stage directions in the written script of <i>Native Gardens</i>. I couple my close reading with an analysis of one of the play’s performative embodiments, UNC Chapel Hill’s PlayMakers Repertory Company’s final staging of <i>Native Gardens</i> on October 30, 2022. I additionally draw from interviews with Zacarías and members of PlayMakers’ production team to complicate my understanding of the play’s messages and audience responses. In my analysis, I argue that <i>Native Gardens</i>, contrary to an uncritical celebration of the rise in Latinx suburbanization and “success,” illustrates the dangers of succumbing to colonial capitalist endeavors and depicts both the Latinx epistemic decolonial possibilities and settler colonial immersions and re-enactments in suburban spaces. I contend that while the play spotlights Latinx environmentalisms, its embrace of mainstream environmentalist methods without a critical attention to how such strategies can merge with social justice and Indigenous knowledge exposes the play’s fraught relationships to settler colonialism.</p>

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Suburbia and the contested landscapes of Chicanx/Latinx environmentalisms in Karen Zacarías’ Native gardens

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年11月12日

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  • Geovani Ramírez

摘要

In 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that over half of Latinx people nationwide were living in suburbs, a demographic shift that has continued in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. These Latinx migrations prompt us to consider how Latinx people are modifying political and environmental suburban landscapes. As a literary critic, I look to Mexican American playwright Karen Zacarías’ Native Gardens to explore the role that Chicanx/Latinx art on environments and its kin, (eco)criticism and cultural studies, can play in helping illuminate the social justice and environmental stakes of suburban Latinidades. With careful attention to form, I close read dialogue, scene descriptions, and stage directions in the written script of Native Gardens. I couple my close reading with an analysis of one of the play’s performative embodiments, UNC Chapel Hill’s PlayMakers Repertory Company’s final staging of Native Gardens on October 30, 2022. I additionally draw from interviews with Zacarías and members of PlayMakers’ production team to complicate my understanding of the play’s messages and audience responses. In my analysis, I argue that Native Gardens, contrary to an uncritical celebration of the rise in Latinx suburbanization and “success,” illustrates the dangers of succumbing to colonial capitalist endeavors and depicts both the Latinx epistemic decolonial possibilities and settler colonial immersions and re-enactments in suburban spaces. I contend that while the play spotlights Latinx environmentalisms, its embrace of mainstream environmentalist methods without a critical attention to how such strategies can merge with social justice and Indigenous knowledge exposes the play’s fraught relationships to settler colonialism.