UC San Diego

This study examines the current resurgence of the witch, or la Bruja, in Chicana/ Latina/ Indigenous/Caribbean cultural production. I argue that women are connecting the history of witch-hunts with the oppression of their own communities and are reclaiming la Bruja for political purposes. This phenomenon points to a growing feminist consciousness among young women that the dark history of persecution of witches as women who resist patriarchy can be equated with the intensification of attacks on women’s rights and on nature as a whole under the current phase of neoliberal capitalism. These historically based issues are inspiring cultural production that engages with this recognition of the past. Thus, I connect the historic women-led resistance to the colonial regime in the Americas that sought to obliterate native religious practices and healing knowledge by deeming it “devil worship,” to the contemporary call by women of color through cultural texts to reclaim la Bruja. This project considers work produced by or about Indigenous, Chicana/Latina and Caribbean female artists, writers, filmmakers, rappers, poets and zine-makers that speaks to the challenges faced in their communities by drawing on Indigenous and African healing knowledge that once would have been deemed brujería. I view altars and offerings as symbolic of a Bruja aesthetic in the context of feminist poetry and an art zine produced by the L.A Chicana collective, Mujeres de Maíz. I examine the work of Zapotec rapper, Mare Advertencia Lirika, and her song and music video, “Mujer Maíz,” and consider the maize diviner in the video as symbolic of a Bruja-healer. I also look at the history of hexing and poisoning as a form of resistance by enslaved women to examine two digital brujería (witchcraft) texts by Caribbean women who use the witch trope to hex Trump, alongside the novel, Daughters of the Stone by Afro-Puerto Rican author, Dahlma Llanos Figueroa. Finally, I analyze the documentary, Catching Babies, about a birth center in the US-Mexico borderlands and discuss the role of midwives, victims of witch-hunts in Europe and the Americas, to argue for humanizing birthing options. Ultimately, this study shows that la Bruja in cultural production is a response to gender inequality, gender violence and attacks on women’s rights under neoliberal capitalism and that Bruja knowledge is as relevant today as it was in the past, as life as we know it —humans, plants and animals—face an existential threat.