1. Introduction1

2At its core, environmental injustice refers to the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and burdens along racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic lines. It encompasses a spectrum of issues, from the siting of polluting industries in low-income neighborhoods to the unequal access to clean air, water, healthy foods, and green spaces (Bullard 18). While the manifestations and consequences of environmental injustice are manifold, its intersections with reproductive violence present a particularly grim narrative. Reproductive violence encompasses a range of injustices, including forced sterilization, lack of access to reproductive healthcare, exposure to toxic substances affecting fertility and pregnancy outcomes, and the imposition of reproductive control on marginalized communities. These injustices not only infringe upon individuals’ reproductive autonomy but also perpetuate cycles of inequality, impacting the health and well-being of present and future generations. Furthermore, in their paper on environmental injustice and reproductive violence, Poehling et al. rightfully note that “environmental injustices intersect with individuals’ ability to determine whether and when to have children and how to parent in safe and sustainable communities, affirming their culture” (1). This paper will show how both analyzed novels intricately weave this reality into their central narratives.

3The novels also reveal how reproductive violence, situated within the broader framework of biopolitics, becomes a tool for enforcing neoliberal agendas and maintaining systems of power and control. Under the guise of individual choice and autonomy, reproductive rights are commodified and restricted, particularly for those minoritized by race, class, gender, nationality, and species. Biopolitical mechanisms regulate and govern reproductive bodies, determining who has access to reproductive healthcare, contraceptive technologies, and bodily autonomy. Both novels reveal that reproductive violence is not only a consequence of neoliberalism and biopolitics but also a strategy for perpetuating these regimes of power.

4Through the analysis of contemporary literary works written by Japanese-American and Chicana women, this paper aims to illuminate the interconnections between neoliberalism, biopolitics, environmental injustice, and reproductive violence. These works serve as mirrors reflecting the lived experiences of individuals navigating the complexities of contemporary social, political, and environmental landscapes. Furthermore, by critically engaging with these narratives, the paper uncovers the ways in which neoliberalism and biopolitics benefit from speciesism and how they use the animalizing discourse to violate minoritized bodies. While de Alba’s text does not directly address the exploitation of nonhuman animals, it engages with the broader logic of objectification, which is deeply entangled with speciesist structures. The animalization of language used to describe non-white women in Mexico is not merely a rhetorical device but a reflection of a hierarchical system that positions certain human groups closer to the status of the nonhuman, thereby legitimizing their marginalization. This dynamic does not exist in isolation but is historically and materially linked to the treatment of nonhuman animals within colonial and capitalist frameworks.

5By placing these texts in dialogue, the paper aims to highlight how the language of animalization operates as both a tool of racialized and gendered oppression and as a mechanism that reinforces human exceptionalism. The absence of direct engagement with nonhuman animal suffering in de Alba’s text does not negate its relevance to the discussion of speciesism; rather, it underscores how speciesist logic underpins broader structures of violence, even when nonhuman animals themselves remain absent from the narrative. This approach aligns with critical animal studies and intersectional feminist scholarship, which argue that dismantling oppression requires addressing its interconnected manifestations rather than treating them as separate issues. Finally, by including nonhuman animal bodies within the discourse on environmental and reproductive justice, this paper seeks to broaden our understanding of intersecting systems of oppression and advocate for a more inclusive and holistic approach to justice that includes nonhuman beings.

2. Biopolitics and Neoliberalism

6In the 21^st century, settler colonialism in North America continues to be dependent on the labor and elimination of both human and nonhuman bodies that are treated as disposable under neoliberal capitalism that aims to generate ever-more profit. Neoliberalism has facilitated significant benefits for multinational corporations through two primary mechanisms. Firstly, the deregulation and reduction of barriers to trade have expanded markets in developing countries, providing corporations with new avenues to sell their products. Secondly, the liberalization of trade has enabled corporations to seek out locations where production costs are lowest, thus increasing profitability by minimizing labor expenses (Kostova et al. 994-1006). However, as neoliberalism progresses, it increasingly challenges the ability of nation-states to regulate corporate activities effectively, thus empowering large corporations to wield substantial influence over political processes. Furthermore, this system perpetuates inequalities and exploitation based on race, class, and species.

7Neoliberal capitalism generates ever-more hidden slow violence and suffering as it disregards the laboring bodies (both human and nonhuman) that are subjected to the workings of biopolitics. Biopolitics examines the ways in which power operates through the regulation and management of (non)human life, encompassing various techniques and practices that affect populations and individuals in social, political, and biological contexts. Michel Foucault characterizes biopolitics as a turn in organization and employment of coercive power from a focus on violent attainment of territories to a model that prioritizes the cultivation of lives of certain populations for collective gain. In other words, the central idea of biopolitics is the notion of power being exercised through the management of life itself, emphasizing the ways in which populations and individuals are subjected to control, surveillance, and normalization. Biopolitical strategies may involve policies that promote health and well-being, but they can also manifest as practices of exclusion, discrimination, and social control. In the words of Foucault, the logic of biopolitics is the “power to foster life or disallow it to the point of death” (Foucault 138). Under biopolitical power, violence is still present but manifests in different, more insidious forms.

8The Critical Animal Studies scholar Dinesh Wadiwel applies Foucaultʼs biopolitics to the analysis of the human treatment of nonhuman (especially farm) animals. As he explains, todayʼs capitalist society fosters the lives of animals for human benefit and, via the animal industrial complex, controls their movement, nutrition, reproductive cycles, and relations with others, before it kills them for further profit (Wadiwel 25). Wadiwel develops his arguments in his book The War Against Animals, in which he posits the war we wage against other animals as being “distinctly biopolitical” and stresses that “we must keep in mind that biopolitical sovereignty is about both life and death” (Wadiwel 25, emphasis in original). Or, in the words of the Driftpile Cree Nation scholar Billy-Ray Belcourt, “animal bodies that are inserted into capitalist spaces of commodity production are always already scheduled for death to be consumed as meat, clothing, scientific data, and so forth” (9).

9Nicole Shukin’s Animal Capital further elucidates the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and the exploitation of both human and nonhuman animals by theorizing the concept of “rendering” in two interrelated ways: as a technological process that extracts value from nonhuman animal bodies and as a metaphor for how capitalism converts life into economic capital. Shukin argues that under neoliberalism, nonhuman animals are not only materially reduced to commodities (as meat, leather, or biomedical subjects) but also symbolically mobilized in advertising, media, and politics to sustain capitalist ideologies. In this sense, neoliberal capitalism depends on what Shukin calls the “double rendering” of animals—both in their physical destruction and in their cultural representation to serve economic interests (20). This framework is useful for understanding how animal exploitation extends beyond the slaughterhouse and into broader systems of oppression, including those that target marginalized human populations. The commodification and disposability of nonhuman animal bodies under capitalism thus serve as both a material and ideological model for the treatment of minoritized human groups.

10Societyʼs treatment of dairy-bred cows constitutes an exemplary manifestation of the biopolitical power. During their life, dairy-bred cows are “intensively confined, always on call to endlessly recycle the same tasks, continuously impregnated and milked, only to be slaughtered once they become infertile or substandard milk producers” (Cohen 508). Due to technological advancements—or rather, as a result of them—bodies subjected to relentless exploitation in capitalist industries inevitably deteriorate. Once they can no longer perform the labor demanded of them, they are discarded. Even though their natural lifespan is up to twenty years, dairy-bred cows are usually slaughtered at the age of three to seven when they can no longer satisfy the capitalist demand (Gillespie 17). Unproductive nonhuman animals are killed in order to “eke out the last bit of capital in the form of meat, skin, and offal” (Gillespie 1322).

11But this fate is not limited to nonhuman animals in this neoliberal era that continues to value some human lives over others. In the North American context, minoritized women continue to be especially impacted by this regime as the literary analysis will show. Furthermore, it exposes how the exploitation of nonhuman animals and minoritized women are interconnected issues because the perception of other animals as inferior and expendable contributes to a broader culture of objectification, extending beyond nonhuman animals to include minoritized peoples. This is done through the animalizing discourse that assigns minoritized women the status of animalized women and thus facilitates the imagined justification for their exploitation and murder. As such, the ongoing gendered violence against minoritized women is an interspecies issue that can be linked to the exploitation of nonhuman animals since, as Aph Ko puts it, “animal experiences are the invisible framework keeping colonial consumption intact” (Loc. 1157). The neoliberal treatment of nonhuman animals directly translates into its treatment of minoritized people and, in its most insidious form, provides practical model for exploitation.Top of Form

3. Ruth Ozeki’s My Year of Meats (1998)

12Ruth Ozeki, a Japanese-American author, is celebrated for her well-researched novels that delve into the intersections of culture, identity, and social issues. Ozeki’s novels defy traditional literary boundaries, as exemplified in her debut novel My Year of Meats. It is a transgressive, genre-blending work, a natural progression from her independent film background where she merged drama and documentary, fact and fiction. In My Year of Meats, Ozeki uses faxes, memos, and newspaper clippings, reflecting a montage technique reminiscent of her film work, offering multiple perspectives and narrative voices, and challenging traditional storytelling. The novel addresses substantial issues such as the power dynamics within the global food industry, environmental injustice, reproductive violence, cultural differences, the intersections of patriarchy and human exceptionalism, and the impact of mass media.

13The story follows Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker hired to work on My American Wife!, a TV show sponsored by the Beef Export and Trade Syndicate (BEEF-EX). This organization represents various stakeholders in the American meat industry, aiming to promote beef consumption in Japan by featuring “attractive” American housewives cooking meat dishes. As Jane delves deeper into the project, she uncovers the dark aspects of the meat industry, such as the use of hormones and chemicals in meat production and the broader impacts on the environment, nonhuman animals, and consumers’ health and reproduction. Parallel to Jane’s journey, the novel weaves in the story of Akiko Ueno, a Japanese housewife whose life becomes intertwined with the television show that her husband, “John”, promotes for work. He is also responsible for the spreading of the meat culture in Japan and uses his wife as a testing ground. Akiko’s narrative provides a lens to explore the interconnectedness of sexism, speciesism, environmental injustice, and reproductive violence, highlighting how her personal struggles are linked to societal expectations regarding gender and meat consumption.

14My Year of Meats delves into the intersection of environmental injustice and reproductive violence, linking these issues to the biopolitical and neoliberal systems that perpetuate such practices. Through the character of Jane, the novel portrays the brutal realities of the animal industrial complex, illustrating how domesticated animals’ physical, emotional, and social needs are disregarded, leading to extreme cruelty. Nonhuman animals endure immense suffering due to the contradiction between human demands for meat, milk, and other animal-derived products and their need for survival. Human desires shape the animals’ living conditions, resulting in widespread misery through overcrowding, confinement, mutilation, and selective breeding for economic efficiency.

15Ozeki’s vivid descriptions evoke the dystopian horror of this industrial system, creating a powerful sensory and emotional impact on the reader:

Stepping into the slaughterhouse was like walking through an invisible wall into hell. Sight, sound, smell—every sense I thought I owned, that was mine, the slaughterhouse stripped from me, overpowered and assaulted. … Blood was everywhere: bright red, brick red, shades of brown and black; flowing, splattering, encrusting the walls, the men. The floors were graded toward central drains for easy cleaning, yet the place was caked with a deep, rotting filth. And thick with flies … [and] massive swinging animals that had been hoisted into the air by a hind leg, suspended between the incremental stages of life and death and final dismemberment. (Loc. 4210-25)

16The image of the dead cow, “suspended by her leg, the dead cow spins, drained but still dripping from the mouthlike wound that bisects her throat” (Loc. 4853), evokes the mechanized and impersonal nature of the slaughter process. The cow’s body, reduced to a spinning carcass, depicts the commodification of life in industrial agriculture and critiques how neoliberal capitalism dehumanizes both human and nonhuman animals, reducing them to mere products within the global market.

17Jane’s emotional response to these practices is telling: “Sometimes when I think about it I cry” (Loc. 4853). This reflection highlights the emotional toll of witnessing such violence and the inherent contradiction in trying to reconcile the act of consuming meat with the brutal realities of its production. This awareness is further highlighted in a conversation between Jane and a police officer: “‘How can you watch that stuff?’ the cop said, screwing up his baby face. ‘I don’t know.’ I shrug. ‘How can you eat it?’ I rewound the tape, sucking the screams back into the cow’s throat, along with the blood” (Loc 4860). Jane’s retort underscores the complicity of consumers in the violence of industrial agriculture. By rewinding the tape, she metaphorically attempts to reverse the violence, highlighting the cognitive dissonance between consuming meat and the gruesome reality of its production.

18The novel also highlights the control exerted over the reproductive cycles of nonhuman animals, with 95 percent of American cattle receiving hormones like estradiol, testosterone, progesterone, anabolic steroids, and large doses of antibiotics to manage diseases in cramped feedlot conditions. These practices result in significant health challenges for humans too, including declining sperm counts, fertility issues, cancers, and antibiotic resistance (WHO, 2017). This interconnected suffering underscores the link between environmental injustice and reproductive violence, revealing the shared consequences for human and nonhuman animals due to industrial agricultural practices.

19Jane serves as an example of this injustice as her reproduction is impacted by exposure to DES (diethylstilbestrol), a synthetic estrogen once used extensively in the meat industry. Jane also suffers from an elevated risk of cancer due to her mother’s exposure to the drug during her pregnancy. Initially employed to promote rapid growth in livestock, DES was banned in poultry in 1959 but continued in beef production until 1979, despite its harmful effects on human health, including reproductive cancers and fertility issues. The novel’s “documentary interlude” details DES’s pivotal role in shaping the American meat industry, exposing its profound and lasting impact. Jane’s tragic loss of a fetus following an accident in a slaughterhouse towards the end of the novel serves as a powerful metaphor for the broader impacts of the animal industrial complex on life, reflecting the interconnected fates of humans and nonhuman animals.

20The shared vulnerability of human and nonhuman animals is further exemplified on the character of Rose, a five-year-old girl raised in a feedlot who embodies the most shocking consequences of synthetic hormone exposure. Exhibiting symptoms of premature thelarche such as having almost fully developed breasts and a menstruation, Rose’s development mirrors real-life cases of estrogen poisoning seen in Puerto Rico, with young children developing early puberty and associated health risks like ovarian cysts and cancer. Her story exemplifies a profound form of environmental injustice, highlighting her involuntary exposure to harmful chemicals in her home due to industrial agricultural practices. Being born to a minoritized mother who married a farmer, her story resonates with the assertion that “environmental injustices intersect with individuals’ ability to determine whether and when to have children and how to parent in safe and sustainable communities” (Poehling et al. 1).

21The narrative critiques the pervasive influence of neoliberalism on individuals’ lives, making them complicit in violence. John, Rose’s father, is described as “an awful sorry but essentially decent man who participates in inhumane and mechanical mass slaughter and the corruption of his own daughter” (Loc 4877). This portrayal emphasizes how neoliberalism penetrates deeply into personal lives, forcing individuals to partake in and perpetuate systemic violence. The economic pressures of maintaining a farm in a neoliberal capitalist system drive John to engage in practices that harm his daughter and the nonhuman animals he raises. Neoliberalism, with its emphasis on deregulation, free markets, and economic efficiency, creates an environment where individuals like John are compelled to compromise their moral and ethical values as they navigate the pressures to conform to economic demands. Rose’s story, therefore, serves as a poignant representation of how neoliberalism not only exploits nonhuman animals but also extends its reach into the most intimate aspects of human life.

22Through Rose’s family’s story, Ozeki also reveals other inhumane practices in feedlots, such as breeding animals to feed on their dead counterparts, leading to diseases like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This practice highlights the extreme lengths to which industrial farming goes to maximize efficiency and profit. Additionally, feeding cattle their own feces to reduce feed costs underscores the extent of their exploitation and suffering. The cattle, depicted as profoundly unhappy, are emblematic of the broader environmental injustice inflicted upon nonhuman animals by these systems. This exploitation is also a manifestation of biopolitical control, where the lives of nonhuman animals are regulated and manipulated to serve human economic interests.

23However, Ozeki’s novel also contains several moments in which nonhuman animals exert forms of agency that transcend their status as mere commodities. As Wadiwel argues in Animals and Capital, even within oppressive structures such as the animal industrial complex, nonhuman animals are not mere passive victims but active agents who resist their commodification in ways that, while often overlooked, disrupt and challenge systems of exploitation. This perspective complicates the notion of nonhuman animals as entirely powerless within biopolitical regimes. Ozeki’s unsettling description of the feedlot—an “enormous patchwork comprising neatly squared and concentrated beef-to-be” (Loc. 3762) —demonstrates how nonhuman animals are forcibly inserted into industrialized grids of production. Yet, the passage also suggests resistance: “The only aspect of their animal nature that could not be contained by the gridwork was the stench… It rose and spread like anarchy in the autumn wind” (Loc. 4240). The choice of the word “anarchy” is significant, as it imbues the nonhuman animals with a kind of uncontainable force that escapes human-imposed order. The very odor of their presence defies the systematic control imposed upon their lives and deaths, refusing full erasure.

24Resistance is even more explicit in the novel’s slaughterhouse scene. The cow awaiting slaughter does not submit quietly to her fate but reacts with palpable fear, slamming against the sides of the pen after watching others die before her. Her labored breathing and strangled cries viscerally convey not only suffering but an effort—however futile—to resist what is being done to her. That resistance is mirrored in the film crew’s response, as the filmmaker, overwhelmed by the animal’s cries, is brought to tears. This interaction between the human observer and the resisting animal complicates the simple victim-perpetrator binary; the cow’s presence exerts an emotional and ethical force upon the human witness, forcing an uncomfortable confrontation with the violence at hand. By incorporating Wadiwel’s notion that nonhuman animals under capitalism are not wholly powerless but engage in forms of resistance—however constrained—we can move beyond a framework that naturalizes their victimhood. Recognizing these moments of defiance shifts the discussion from one of passive suffering to an acknowledgment of nonhuman agency, which, in turn, challenges the logics of neoliberal exploitation that seek to erase it.

25Through the story of Akiko, a Japanese housewife, the novel shows the global spread of American meat imperialism that is enabled by neoliberalism. The novel vividly illustrates how Japanese housewives’ bodies are treated as territories to be colonized, aligning with Vandana Shiva’s theory of environmental injustice perpetrated against women’s and nonhuman animals’ bodies (Chater 2). John exerts control over Akiko’s reproductive autonomy through dietary interventions, insisting she needs to gain weight by eating meat in order to become pregnant. He quotes an antiquated American book, asserting that a “liberal meat supply” is essential for a “happy and virile people”, linking meat consumption to traditional notions of virility and societal advancement (Loc. 370). By imposing a meat-heavy diet in his household, Akiko’s husband is not merely exerting patriarchal control but is also fulfilling his professional obligations and advancing neoliberal capitalist interests. This mission aligns with the broader agenda of American food imperialism, in which promoting meat consumption becomes a tool for economic gain and cultural dominance.

26The novel demonstrates the detrimental consequences of such patriarchal interventions on holistic well-being. Akiko’s reproductive health deteriorates as soon as her husband makes her menstruation his concern: “Suddenly her periods became his business, and as soon as they did, she stopped having them entirely.” (Loc 763). When Akiko attempts to comply and consume meat, her body rejects it violently: “it began in her stomach, like an animal alive, and would climb its way back up her gullet, until it burst from the back of her throat. She could not contain it. She could not keep any life down inside her” (Loc 611). The depiction of the meat as something that feels “like an animal alive” emphasizes the sentience of the beings involved in the meat industry, challenging the objectification and commodification imposed by neoliberal capitalism. This imposition of a meat-heavy diet not only highlights the oppressive nature of patriarchal norms but also underscores the exploitation of nonhuman animals for human goals.

27After John begins physically abusing her upon discovering she is not eating meat, Akiko leaves him and travels to the US to meet Jane. At the end of the novel, both women abstain from meat as acts of defiance against the neoliberal patriarchal system. Jane embraces a vegan lifestyle and plans to move to the countryside, aspiring to “grow organic vegetables and learn to pickle things” (Loc 4137). Furthermore, she creates a powerful documentary film using the scenes from inside the feedlot and slaughterhouse, exposing the animal industrial complex. The film garners international attention and leads to the cancellation of My American Wife!. The stories of Jane and Akiko illustrate the powerful impact of personal and collective action in challenging and resisting the entrenched systems of exploitation and violence inherent in industrial agriculture and neoliberal capitalism.

28Moreover, the novel calls for cultural interventions to raise awareness about the often overlooked aspects of animal exploitation and effectively achieves this goal through its narrative. By weaving together the personal stories of its characters with the systemic issues inherent in industrial agriculture, Ozeki’s work serves as a powerful tool for illuminating the pervasive cruelty and injustice faced by nonhuman animals. The novel not only exposes readers to the harsh realities of the animal industrial complex but also challenges them to reconsider their own consumption habits and the broader societal norms that perpetuate such exploitation. In this way, My Year of Meats becomes a significant cultural intervention, prompting critical reflection and encouraging a shift towards more ethical and compassionate practices.

4. Alicia Gaspar De Alba’s Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (2005)

29Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a queer Chicana writer and scholar born in El Paso, the twin city of Juárez. Her award-winning novel Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders (2005) is dedicated “to the ‘girls from the south’—with respect” and opens with a statement clarifying that “the serial sex crimes, or femicides, which are the subject of this novel, are true” (de Alba p. v). While the main characters are fictional, many of the authority figures, suspects, and victims are drawn from real-life counterparts. This “fictionalized account of true events” stems from four years of meticulous research (de Alba vi). De Alba’s primary aim is to inform English-speaking readers about the Juárez femicides without sensationalizing the tragedies or exploiting the victims’ families. She underscores her personal connection to the issue, hailing from El Paso and affirming the belief that “silence=death” (de Alba vi).

30Ciudad Juárez, the largest city in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, is notorious for its high crime rates and alarming levels of violence, particularly against women. The city, which shares a border with El Paso, Texas, stands in stark contrast to its American twin, known for its safety. Juárez has earned grim nicknames such as “murder city” and “the city where women disappear” due to its staggering murder rates, especially femicides—the killing of women and girls specifically because of their gender (COHA). Jill Radford and Diana H. Russell extend this definition by pointing out that femicide is “often condoned by, if not sponsored, by the state and/or by religious institutions” (qtd. in de Alba & Guzmán 1). Since 1993, femicides have surged, coinciding with the signing of NAFTA, which drastically reshaped the Mexican economy and society. The agreement led to significant changes, such as the dismantling of the ejido system of communal land ownership, which displaced many rural farmers (Klein, Loc. 209-10). This economic upheaval forced numerous families to migrate to urban areas, where women found employment in foreign-owned factories, the so-called maquiladoras. As de Alba shows in both her scholarly work and the novel, the neoliberal capitalist framework of NAFTA, prioritizing profit over human lives, is a significant factor behind the femicide epidemic in Juárez.

31In Desert Blood, de Alba creates “a text that is neither solely academic nor purely fiction” (Revilla, 132). By doing so, de Alba achieves her goal of crafting an informative account of the Juárez femicides that reaches a broad audience. The story follows Ivon Villa, a queer Chicana women’s studies professor and the author’s alter ego, who returns to her hometown of El Paso to adopt a child from Cecilia, a maquiladora worker from Juárez. As Ivon learns about the femicides, Cecilia is murdered, prompting Ivon to take on the role of a detective due to the authorities’ failure to address the crimes and prosecute the perpetrators. As Irene Mata notes, “by positioning a queer woman of color in the role of knowledge interpreter, the text confronts any racist, sexist, or homophobic ideologies the reader might harbor” (23). The novel explores the “connection of these murders to globalization, racism, patriarchy, and xenophobia,” thus positioning itself as a counternarrative (Revilla, 132). Through this multifaceted approach, de Alba effectively highlights the intersectional nature of the violence in Juárez and challenges prevailing social injustices.

32The novel depicts the typical victims in Juárez as “thin, dark-haired, dark-skinned young women between the ages of 12 and 25, they were also all poor” (de Alba 119). Many come from the southern regions of Mexico or Central America and “have been lured to this border by the promise of jobs at the maquiladoras” (de Alba 167). One character further explains, “[y]oung women are lured here in droves, and yet the city can’t accommodate them all. There’s no subsidized housing for them, so they have to live in these godforsaken shantytowns hours away from their jobs, and their lives are in constant danger” (de Alba 253). The repeated use of the term “lured” underscores the manipulation and deceit employed by those who profit from these women’s labor, drawing a parallel to the predatory tactics in the meat industry. Like unsuspecting prey, these women are trapped and exploited, their bodies and labor commodified for others’ benefit, similar to the exploitation of nonhuman animals in industrial agriculture.

33De Alba’s description of the victims’ bodies in Desert Blood is brutal and unsettling, echoing Ozeki’s depiction of nonhuman animal victims in the animal industrial complex. She writes: “[t]he eyes were gone. The face was completely bloated and purple, facial features erased, blistered skin crusted with sand and blood and maggots. Front teeth edged in gold …. Fluid drained from the ears. A thick black rope burn ran across the neck and teeth marks covered the chest” (de Alba 246). This visceral description evokes a profound sense of dehumanization, mirroring the devaluation and objectification of nonhuman animals in industrial farming as described in Ozeki’s work. In both novels, the commodification and brutalization of bodies for profit—whether human or nonhuman—highlight the pervasive and interconnected nature of oppression under neoliberal capitalist structures. Ozeki and de Alba both draw attention to how these systems prey on the vulnerable, reducing sentient beings to mere commodities.

34Furthermore, Desert Blood frames the femicides in Juárez as a transborder issue resulting from transnational neoliberal agreements, with a strong emphasis on American involvement. This portrayal parallels Ozeki’s depiction of American meat imperialism in Japan, highlighting the complicity of the U.S. neoliberal system in perpetuating exploitation and violence. Maquiladora workers receive no security or protection, and are easily discarded and replaced. This is illustrated by the factory foreman’s daily taunt: “Twenty more girls outside waiting to take your place” (de Alba 149). The novel further highlights the exploitation of specifically poor minoritized women, noting that they are “the easiest workers to exploit. They don’t unionize, they can’t complain, they’ll accept whatever wage they get. They have no power, whatsoever” (de Alba 254). The dynamics at play in Juárez reflect a broader pattern of neoliberal capitalist practices, where maximizing profit often entails the commodification of vulnerable populations. This economic framework, driven by transnational agreements like NAFTA, perpetuates a cycle of poverty, exploitation, and violence that spans borders, implicating both local and international actors in the ongoing crisis. Furthermore, the portrayal of maquiladora workers as easily replaceable mirrors the treatment of farm animals, who are bred, exploited, and discarded without regard for their individual well-being.

35Desert Blood exposes reproductive violence by detailing the extreme measures maquiladora employers take to control their female workers’ reproductive cycles, such as administering birth control shots, requiring women to display their sanitary napkins monthly, and distributing amphetamines to boost productivity. They even collaborate with Planned Parenthood to insert Norplant, a long-term contraceptive that essentially sterilizes women for months (de Alba 90). Elsa, one of the maquiladora workers, becomes a victim of an experiment conducted at a factory where she sought employment. Misled into believing she was receiving a pregnancy test, she was instead impregnated with a needle as part of a contraceptive experiment. When she returned six weeks later, it was revealed that she was pregnant, resulting in her losing the job opportunity (de Alba, 91). Ivon highlights the severe consequences of such experiments, noting that “[w]hatever [they] did to her probably gave her cancer, too” (de Alba 97). The maquiladoras routinely fire pregnant women to avoid the costs associated with maternity leave, a practice that starkly violates worker and human rights. By illustrating these brutal practices, Desert Blood not only highlights the intersection of reproductive violence and labor exploitation but also critiques the broader systemic injustices perpetuated by neoliberal policies.

36A parallel can be drawn between the treatment of maquiladora workers and dairy-bred cows in the animal-industrial complex that further illuminates the intersection of gendered and speciesist exploitation within industrial systems. Just as dairy-bred cows are subjected to continual pregnancies to maximize milk production, female maquiladora workers are pressured to suppress their reproductive capacities in order to maintain productivity and profitability. The coercive measures employed by employers, from compulsory birth control shots to experimental contraceptives, highlight the extent to which women’s bodies are treated as mere instruments of labor, their reproductive autonomy sacrificed for the sake of corporate interests. Moreover, the disposability of both female maquiladora workers and dairy-bred cows reflects the logic of capitalist exploitation, wherein bodies are valued solely for their utility and profitability. Like the cows whose bodies eventually “break down” after years of exploitation, maquiladora workers are similarly “disposed of” and replaced by their younger and more dexterous counterparts when they can no longer meet the demands of the capitalist market (Reinares 64). This ruthless cycle of exploitation perpetuates a system in which both cow’s and women’s bodies are commodified and discarded at the whim of profit-driven employers. The capitalist market can no longer profit from their bodies, unless dead.

37De Alba also unveils a disturbing connection between immigration control and the femicides. She highlights the precarious conditions faced by pregnant maquiladora workers who are forced to give up their children for adoption. Cecilia, one such worker, plans to have her child adopted by Ivon but is murdered before giving birth. This tragic event is not isolated; Cecilia is one of many maquiladora workers who “had gotten fired because they were pregnant … [and] coincidentally ended up dead” (de Alba 95). De Alba links the murders of pregnant women to anti-immigration sentiments in American society, suggesting that their potential to cross the border and seek a better life is perceived as a threat: “they can get pregnant, and that’s the threat they pose when they come this close to the border. Call it a side effect of NAFTA that has to be curtailed by whatever means possible” (de Alba 254).

38In his paper, Leo Chavez illustrates how Latina reproduction and fertility have been constructed as “threats to U.S. society” (173). He demonstrates that anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, specifically targeted the reproductive capacities of Latina women despite studies showing that the reproductive differences between Latinas and Anglo women were insignificant (173-188). Nevertheless, these facts are overshadowed by pervasive anti-immigrant propaganda, sentiments that de Alba reflects in her novel: “More illegal Mexican women in El Paso means more legal brown babies. Who wants more brown babies as legal citizens of the Promised Land?” (de Alba 332). The novel suggests that to prevent their immigration, Mexican women are murdered, along with their unborn children. This narrative underscores the lethal intersection of xenophobia and reproductive control, highlighting how the vilification of Latina fertility serves to justify extreme biopolitical measures of population control and border enforcement.

39Pregnant Mexican women and their unborn children are therefore framed as “illegal aliens”, “pests” or “invasive species” by the US authorities who want to curtail emigration. The environmental journalist Fred Pearce uses the term “green xenophobia” to draw parallels between the invasive species vilification and the xenophobia against migrants in that both involve a fear or hostility towards the “other”—whether that be non-native species or human populations perceived as foreign or different (Pearce 1). Just as green xenophobia manifests as a bias against non-native species in ecological contexts, xenophobia against migrants manifests as prejudice and discrimination against people perceived as outsiders in social contexts. Despite both human and nonhuman migrations being driven by forces beyond individual agency, including environmental degradation, economic disparities, or political instability, as is the case for Mexican women, they often result in harmful policies and practices, such as misguided efforts to eradicate non-native species of plants and nonhuman animals or discriminatory policies, social exclusion, and violence towards immigrant communities that can even lead to murders, as Desert Blood suggests.

40De Alba uses the vocabulary of a corporate animal-industrial complex when referring to the femicide victims to emphasize how profit-driven neoliberalism dehumanizes the society that treats minoritized women as objects. In the novel’s climax, Ivon links an extreme pornography website to the crimes and realizes that snuff film business allows the profit-makers to dispose of the “non-productive/reproductive surplus labor” in a “cost-effective way” and to protect “the border from infiltration by brown breeding female bodies” (de Alba 333). She also reveals that before their “disposal”, former maquiladora workers are “hollowed out” for organs that are later sold on the black market (de Alba 95). The novel points out “[t]he irony of it: an assembly worker disassembled in the desert” (255). The paradox is evident: the same women who assembled products for middle-class US consumers also serve as involuntary organ donors for the same group of people. Just as surplus animals in the meat industry are disposed of in a cost-effective manner to maximize profits, so too are minoritized women, exploited and discarded. By employing language typically associated with animal husbandry and breeding practices, the novel draws attention to how systems of oppression intersect to reinforce hierarchies of power and control.

41However, unlike My Year of Meats, by not critically engaging with the material conditions of animal exploitation, Desert Blood instrumentalizes nonhuman suffering as a metaphor for human subjugation. In doing so, the novel inadvertently reinforces the anthropocentric hierarchy, privileging the dehumanization of women over a broader interrogation of species-based violence. As Benedict Boisseron argues in Afro-Dog, comparisons between human and nonhuman oppression often affirm human identity in contrast to the animal rather than challenging the structures that uphold both forms of subjugation (Boisseron xii). This dynamic raises the question of whether the novel’s use of animal-industrial language could disrupt speciesist hierarchies or if it merely repurposes them to illuminate human injustice.

42Ultimately, Ivon realizes that the femicides continue to happen because they are profitable for too many powerful men: “What did it matter who killed them? This wasn’t a case of ‘whodunit,’ but rather of who was allowing these crimes to happen?” (de Alba 333). De Alba reveals how neoliberalism capitalizes on poor female victims and that silence keeps the violence intact. By writing this novel, de Alba joins the ranks of those who refuse to remain quiet. Mata asserts that “[t]he novel becomes an example of the power of writing in creating alternative paradigms for challenging the social inequality of globalization processes” (Mata 15). It is essential that artists keep “telling stories of communities that have been overlooked or ignored” (Mata 31). Similarly to Ruth Ozeki, Alicia Gaspar de Alba contributes to the cultural production that exposes neoliberal violence and demonstrates through her work “the benefit of opening up transnational alliances within and beyond U.S. territory” (Park 170).

5. Conclusion

43Both Desert Blood by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki weave the realities of environmental injustice and reproductive violence into their central narratives, showing how “environmental injustices intersect with individuals’ ability to determine whether and when to have children and how to parent in safe and sustainable communities, affirming their culture” (Poehling et al. 1). In Desert Blood, this is manifested on the exploitation of maquiladora workers who are lured to the industrial, but highly violent, border region by the promise of employment, but are subjected to exploitative working conditions, invasive reproductive controls, and ultimately, deadly violence. By highlighting the commodification of their bodies and labor, de Alba underscores how neoliberal economic policies and patriarchal structures dehumanize and endanger these women. The stories of Cecilia and other pregnant maquiladora workers who get fired and murdered soon after, poignantly illustrate how environmental injustices strip individuals of their autonomy over reproduction and family life, denying them the ability to raise children in safe and sustainable communities.

44Similarly, My Year of Meats exposes the detrimental effects of the industrial meat complex on both human and nonhuman animals. Through the character of Jane, Ozeki unveils the harmful practices of the American meat industry that harm both nonhuman animals and also pose significant health risks to humans, particularly through the exposure to synthetic hormones and contaminated meat. This narrative arc highlights the broader environmental and reproductive injustices faced by communities living on or near industrial farms and feedlots, who are often subjected to pollution, hormones, and other health hazards, as manifested on the five-year-old character Rose and her family. Both novels thus reveal the impossibility of many minoritized populations, both human and nonhuman, to determine their reproductive futures under neoliberalism and to live in communities that nurture and sustain life in all its forms.

45The analysis also revealed how the two novels render the multiple marginalization of bodies across intersecting lines of gender, race, nationality, and species by highlighting the disturbing link between the exploitation of minoritized women’s bodies in maquiladoras and bodies of nonhuman animals in the animal industrial complex. Both settings epitomize environmental injustice, where dairy-bred cows and maquiladora workers are subjected to ruthless biopolitical exploitation though the control of their reproductive cycles, and when they are no longer profitable, they are disposed of. The lives of both cows and minoritized women are reduced to serving the capitalist agenda, and their bodies are colonized, violated and commodified for profit both before and after their murder.

46Both novels illustrate that reproductive violence serves as a tool for reinforcing neoliberal and biopolitical regimes. By regulating and exploiting reproductive capacities, these systems maintain their power and suppress resistance. In Desert Blood, the strategic use of reproductive violence ensures a compliant workforce, devoid of the power to challenge their exploitation or demand better conditions. The enforced birth control measures and experimental contraceptives serve to regulate these women’s reproductive capabilities, stripping them of autonomy and reducing them to mere instruments of production. My Year of Meats similarly shows that by controlling the reproductive functions of nonhuman animals, the meat industry perpetuates its profit-driven agenda, disregarding the well-being of both human and nonhuman lives. In both cases, the strategic manipulation of reproduction ensures a continuous supply of labor and resources, essential for sustaining exploitative practices.

47Through their narratives, Ozeki and de Alba challenge dominant narratives and illuminate the interconnectedness of various forms of systemic injustice perpetuated by neoliberal capitalism and globalization. Both novels call for cultural interventions to raise awareness and incite action against the often overlooked and normalized forms of exploitation. By intertwining personal stories with broader socio-political critiques, de Alba and Ozeki challenge readers to confront the pervasive injustices perpetuated by neoliberalism and advocate for systemic and personal resistance against these oppressive structures.