The Emotional Residue of an Unnatural Boundary

If the emotional health and well-being of individuals are linked to the larger structural features of their societies, then literature provides an important but often overlooked site for examining the social conditions that support (and diminish) mental health. Julie Minich, University of Texas at Austin, examines the depiction of mental health on the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2003 short story collection Brownsville by south Texas writer Oscar Casares. Casares presents emotional wellbeing not only as a personal, medical concern but also as a sociopolitical one, examining the intersection of race and masculinity and the emotional effects of living on a rigidly policed border. Attending simultaneously to the intimate details of lives lived under intense emotional duress and to the larger social formations that shape characters’ personal conflicts, his work prompts readers to imagine a social world characterized by mental health justice.