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In Malín Alegría's Border Town, the first young adult fiction series set on the Mexico-United States border, magical realist moments subvert power relations and reveal that popular beliefs are legitimate forms of knowledge. Magical realist occurrences demonstrate the importance of knowing about Mexican American folklore and folk saints such as bailando con el diablo [dancing with the devil], las lechuzas [bewitched owls], La Llorona [the weeping woman], and la Santa Muerte [Saint Death].
Introduction
Malín Alegría's Border Town series, published by Scho- lastic in 2012, includes four books targeted to readers age twelve and older: Crossing the Line, Quince Dreams, Falling Too Fast, and No Second Chances. The first young adult fiction series set on the México-United States border, Border Town portrays border culture through the Garza family in a small town in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. At culminating moments in each novel, Alegría includes magical realist moments that inten- sify tension and blur the line between the supernatural and the natural, as inexplicable events occur in the midst of everyday reality. This magical realism shows the importance of knowing about Mexican American folklore and folk saints such as bailando con el diablo [dancing with the devil], las lechuzas [bewitched owls], la Llorona [The Weeping Woman], and la Santa Muerte [Saint death]. Alegría's implementation of the legends challenges official reli- gious teachings about avoiding unapproved practices and behaving in gender-approved ways. The magical realist elements in Border Town subvert power relations and show that popular beliefs are legitimate forms of knowledge.
Alegría, a Mexican American author who writes culturally specific literature about Mexican American characters, grew up in the mission district of San Francisco, california and now lives in San José. A former elementary teacher, Alegria is recognized for the young adult novels Estrella's Quinceañera (2006) and Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in México (2007). The favorable reception of her fiction and school visits caused Scholastic Publishing to offer Alegría the Border Town series authorship (kurwa). A precedent for Border Town is the Roosevelt High Series (1994-2009) by Gloria Velásquez, the first Latina author of a young adult series about Latino/a and multiethnic characters. While Velásquez, in books such as Juanita Fights the School Board (1994), emphasizes social problems and...