The use of metaphor is arguably the most useful tool to those seeking to explain the forces that work upon individuals and on societies. For Linda Heidenreich, the metaphor of weaving is central to the concept of Nepantla, which, appropriately enough, weaves together ideas both new and old. In their exploration of the earliest incarnations of Nepantla, Heidenreich explores the philosophical history of indigenous Mesoamerica, specifically the Aztec, for whom “Nepantla was a middle space but also generative motion. It wove the world, the physical-spiritual would of the Mexica people. Theirs, like ours, was a world in motion” (4). Heidenreich cites numerous scholars and activists, perhaps most notably Gloria Anzaldúa, C. Riley Snorton, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, who have added to this theory. Heidenreich then states their intent to examine how themes of economic change and crisis interweave with themes of identity, particularly those related to race and gender, in order to make plain the way in which these complex forces affect and are affected by one another in an inamic relationship. Heidenreich then weaves together the macro-history of Mexico and California with focused biographical studies that reveal the ways that transgender individuals in particular come to grips with the reality of Nepantla.

Heidenreich begins to weave together these disparate threads in the first chapter, which introduces the concept of Nepantla as it took shape in Aztec society while acknowledging that its true origins might be far older. In this version, Nepantla encompassed the creative tension between the male and female, the physical and spiritual, the creative and the destructive. They then explore how, in the 1960s and 70s, Chicanx activists such as Gloria Anzaldúa rediscovered and repurposed Nepantla in the context of Marxist theory as a way to understand and explain “the cultural space that we, as queer mestiz@s, inhabit . . . we embody change” (7, emphasis in the original). In this way, they make clear the threads of identity that will be explored in the rest of the chapters, before ending with an introduction to the world of “motion-change” in nineteenth-century California, a world shaped by racial and capitalistic imperialism.

The following chapter explores the life story of Jack Mugarrieta Garland, born Elvira Mugarrieta, in 1869 San Francisco. Garland's identity shifted over time from that of a tomboy, to a masculine woman, to a man some knew as “Uncle Jack.” His identity as a man became more stable, but never entirely so, in a period when the systems of laws and culture imposed by the United States were becoming fixed, thus limiting the space in which those who did not conform to racial or gender roles could operate. Garland, ironically, played a role in helping those rules become more restrictive, as he participated in American military exploits in the Philippines as a translator.

The third chapter shifts to the larger picture of more recent history, describing the work of the movement that eventually became the Zapatistas of Chiapas (EZLN) in the 1980s and 1990s. This movement sought to resist a new form of capitalist expansion in Mexico, embodied by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Heidenreich criticizes for causing further displacement and danger for racial and gender nonconformists. They illustrate this point in Chapter 4 with the tragic story of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, a trans woman whose brutal murder at the hands of her classmates in Newark, California, took place contemporaneously with that of Matthew Shepard. Her death did not get anything like the attention that his did, even though both died because of their perceived transgressions against the boundaries of acceptable sexuality.

The work concludes with a cautiously optimistic assessment of the work of the Transgender Law Center, conditioned by the advent of the Trump administration in 2017 with its overt hostility toward both immigrants and transgender communities. Heidenreich's work thus serves as an excellent overview of Latinx studies, gender studies, and philosophical and historiographical frameworks that is readily accessible to newcomers in these fields.