Monarch Butterflies in Queer Migrant Art-Activism

I am currently working on an article titled, “‘Migration is Natural’: Monarch Butterflies as Symbols of Queer Migrant Identity in Art-Activism” that examines the work of queer migrant art-activists who use monarch butterflies as symbols of environmentalism and queer of color identity in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. While previous scholars have analyzed representations of borderlands biodiversity in the media, portrayals of nature in activist discourses remains understudied. I conducted visual and rhetorical analysis of art-activism by the queer migrant artists, Julio Salgado, Jess Snow, and Favianna Rodriguez. I contextual their artwork within a coalition of environmentalists, scientists, and activists that formed following the environmental controversy surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border wall expansion by the Trump administration that harmed endangered species, such as the jaguar and monarch butterfly. Using frameworks from Latinx environmentalisms and queer and trans migration studies, I analyze narratives of social change embedded within queer migrant visual art that depict the future of human migrant groups as inextricable from biodiversity conservation in the borderlands. Ultimately, I find that these art-activists provide a distinctive political vision for the future of the borderlands in which human, plant, and animal inhabitants flourish together beyond the historical wounds of borders and binaries. These findings have implications for understanding the emerging queer of color ecological consciousnesses.

This has been the most meaningful research I’ve done, and I am so excited that this project will be expanded into my second book where I analyze queer and feminist activism alongside biodiversity conservation in the borderlands.

Protest Art by Jess Snow