Brujeria in the borderlands: portrayals of Mexican American witchcraft in Hollywood horror films

"Witchcraft has long been considered the personification of evil and has historically been used to demonize women, Indigenous people, queer people, and enslaved people. This book examines how binary portrayals of witchcraft in Chicanx culture - brujeria and curanderismo - affect both the colonized and colonizer within Hollywood horror cinema. Brujeria is loosely translated as 'witchcraft,' but it often has the connotation of 'black magic' in Latin America, while curanderismo, a syncretic form of witchcraft that melds Catholicism with Indigenous medicine, is known as 'faith healing' in line with the Catholic God. This book argues that the reason Chicanx people are afraid of mythological mothers like la Llorona and brujeria speaks to why Chicanx people are, in turn, afraid of femininity. By analyzing three Hollywood horror films that portray Chicanx witchcraft within the B/borderlands, this book investigates how the portrayal of both curanderos and brujas as binary good vs. evil juxtapositions is heavily linked to Indigeneity, gender, syncretism, and the acceptance of Catholicism as a missionizing agent.