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Undocumented Crime In Juan Mayorga’S Animales Nocturnos, Jeffrey K. Coleman

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The link between criminality and immigration is often personified in the undocumented immigrant. As nations have constricted the flow of immigrants, laws have inscribed a criminal culpability attached to the lack of documentation. The lack of papers becomes such a part of their persona that in Spanish the colloquial term for an undocumented immigrant is a sin papeles ‘illegal immigrant.’ Juan Mayorga’s chilling 2003 play Animales nocturnos (Nocturnal) explores the lengths to which laws can be used to criminalize and psychologically abuse undocumented immigrants. This paper will explore how immigration law manifests itself in the play and how …