Introduction: Troubling America(s) -- Spaces of the Southwest: dis-ease, disease, and healing in Denise Chavez's The last of the menu girls and Face of an angel -- Mestizaje in the Midwest: remapping national identity in the American heartland in Ana Castillo's Sapogonia and Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo -- Colonization and transgression in Puerto Rican spaces: Judith Ortiz Cofer's Line of the sun and The meaning of Consuelo -- Memoirs of resistance: colonialism and transnationalism in Esmeralda Santiago's When I was Puerto Rican, Almost a woman, and The Turkish lover -- Tales of the unexpected: Cuban-American narratives of place and body in Himilce Novas' Princess papaya -- Postscript: The illegal aliens of American letters: troubling the immigration debate.