ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how Latinx writers—like the cosmopolitan stranger—function from a liminal space with “subjective objectivity” to expose the dominant (or host) group to histories and experiences of immigrants, thereby countering the notion of Latinx immigrants and Latinx communities more broadly as a threat as foreign strangers. Drawing on sociological theory, Suzanne Keen’s narrative empathy theory, and Mark Bracher’s schema criticism methodology, this analysis of All the Stars Denied (2018) demonstrates how ‘in-between’ Latinx authors like Guadalupe García McCall act as cultural mediators vis-à-vis their writing to bridge the gap between the hegemonic cosmovision and that of the immigrant ‘newcomers’ by mediating their perceived strange(r)ness through strategies that develop empathy and undermine dominant narratives of immigrants as Other. Empathic narrative techniques and textual exposure to diverse exemplars of culturally distant groups can shift readers’ mental schemas, which may ultimately lead to extratextual action in pursuit of social justice and change.
