ABSTRACT
Aesthetics has been an essential part of discourses of control and of the policing of queerness or joteria. Nevertheless, aesthetics has also been crucial in the emancipation, self-valorization, and self-determination processes of Latina/o queers, jota/as, tortilleras, maricones, and mariposas–all variations of queerness. The chapter identifies five central axioms that emphasize our jota/o aesthetic spaces within the context of our Chicana/o and Latina/o experiences. They are coalition as an activist praxis, chaos as order, spatiality, body and pleasure, and healing and love. It argues that all the jota/o aesthetic elements described previously–coalition as an activist praxis, chaos as order, spatiality, and body and pleasure–are, in essence, practices of at-large jota/o curanderismo for healing. In this sense, jota/o culture productions are in many ways deliberate and collective offerings and sacrifices for the construction of a new world; they inscribe new alternative spiritual geographies to honor our mutual love and collective holiness.
