Finding Juárez and El Paso in "Everything begins and ends at The Kentucky Club"

• Angélica Lozano-Alonso ^[1]
  1. [1] Furman University

     Furman University

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: CiberLetras: revista de crítica literaria y de cultura, ISSN-e 1523-1720, Nº. 44, 2020 (Ejemplar dedicado a: In memoriam David William Foster), págs. 32-47
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • In Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz uses the real space of the Kentucky Club to connect all the stories in this book. This bar serves as an apt metaphor in that it mimics the liminal space of the border and the experiences of border citizens in Juárez and El Paso. Using a cultural studies approach I take theories from geography and architecture to examine the role of the bar as it relates to the history of the two cities. I consider how the metaphor of this particular bar that continues to exist has changed in meaning over time and space. The bar takes on a new significance in the context of these particular stories when I demonstrate how the bar's role has changed from being a provider of freedom for US citizens seeking escape from Prohibition, to becoming a symbol of the decline of the city due to the violence associated with drug traffic. Ultimately, Alire Sáenz is able seek hope in the middle of sorrow and reclaim the bar as a symbol of hope for the future of the city in the most unexpected of ways.