Jotería studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that centers the experiences, epistemologies, and cultural production of queer, transgender, and travesti Chicanx and Latinx people. Rooted in Chicana feminist thought, ethnic studies, and queer of color critique, Jotería studies emerged from decades of scholarship, activism, and artistic practice and became formally institutionalized in the early 2010s with the founding of the Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS). The field takes its name from jotería, a term derived from the Spanish-language pejorative joto that has been reclaimed by queer Chicanx and Latinx communities as an affirmative identity and political category.
Etymology and terminology The word joto/a is a colloquial Spanish-language pejorative used in Mexico and in Mexican-Chicanx communities in the United States, historically applied as a slur to gay men and gender-nonconforming people, alongside related terms such as puto/a and maricón. The origin of the word is uncertain, with proposed etymologies including the Nahuatl word xôtoj/xoto (meaning homosexual) and a connection to the Spanish letter jota ("J"). The historian Robert Buffington has proposed that the word derives from Jota, the name for Cell Block J of the Lecumberri federal penitentiary in Mexico City, where prison authorities segregated effeminate men beginning in the early twentieth century, giving rise to the term jotos for those held there; though the term appears in written sources as early as 1885, predating the prison's existence. The term emerged in Mexican Spanish during the late 19th century amid the criminalization and social condemnation of same-sex relations under the Porfirio Díaz era (1876–1911), becoming associated in popular culture with stereotypes linking male homosexuality with effeminacy, reinforced by machismo frameworks that stigmatized gender nonconformity. Since the late 20th century, joto and the derived term jotería have been reappropriated within Mexican and Chicanx LGBTQ+ communities. Jotería as a collective noun refers to the community of queer and gender-nonconforming Chicanx and Latinx people. As a political and analytic concept, it functions similarly to the English-language term queer while remaining culturally and linguistically distinct. Scholars have emphasized that jotería cannot be reduced to a Spanish translation of queer or LGBT, arguing that it expresses how people exist within a broader social fabric of community, family, labor, and activism rather than isolating sexuality or gender from the other dimensions of social life. For some communities, the use of the reclaimed pejorative remains contested.
Background and intellectual genealogy
Chicana feminism and Gloria Anzaldúa The intellectual roots of Jotería studies extend to the Chicana feminist and 'third world feminist' movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including the work of Chicana lesbian feminists, transgender feministas, and collectives of queer Chicanas who were at the forefront of early consciousness-raising and political organizing. Scholars trace the field's origins to Chicana feminist theories, particularly the foundational contributions of Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga. Anzaldúa's 1987 work Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza is considered a foundational text for the field. Her call within that work to "listen to what your jotería is saying" is cited by scholars as an early and explicit demand to center jotería epistemologies within Chicanx thought. Anzaldúa's theorizations of the borderlands, nepantla, and conocimiento have shaped the conceptual vocabulary of the field, and her collaboration with Moraga on the anthology This Bridge Called My Back (1981) helped establish the intellectual and political conditions from which Jotería studies emerged. Filmmaker and activist Osa Hidalgo de La Riva is also credited as an important early figure who contributed to the creative and philosophical foundation of jotería through her work in the Chicano movement.
Early queer Chicanx and Latinx scholarship Publications and organizing by collectives in the early 1990s addressed the marginalization of queer people within both Chicano movement spaces and predominantly white LGBTQ organizations—including Emma Pérez's 1993 essay "Speaking from the Margin," which engaged sexuality and power from outside the mainstream of both Chicano nationalism and white feminist discourse. Scholarly work recognized as part of Jotería studies' intellectual lineage includes Tomás Almaguer's 1991 essay "Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual Identity and Behavior," published in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. This earlier body of work belongs to the field's genealogy even when its authors did not frame their work explicitly as jotería.
History and institutionalization
The Joto Caucus and NACCS Beginning in the early 1990s, gay men within the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) began organizing informally, and in 1993 formally adopted the name Joto Caucus, creating an early formal space for queer Chicanx scholarship and organizing within a major academic association. Raúl Coronado is credited with calling for the first meeting of "Chicano jotos" at an early NACCS conference. Over subsequent years, the Joto Caucus and related Lesbian and Gay caucuses within NACCS grew and catalyzed a broader movement.
Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship The Association for Jotería Arts, Activism, and Scholarship (AJAAS) was founded in 2011 and held its inaugural conference in 2012 at the University of New Mexico. AJAAS came directly from the Joto and Lesbian, Bi-Mujeres, and Transgender (LBMT) caucuses of NACCS and became the primary professional organization advancing jotería scholarship and practice across disciplines. AJAAS supports emerging scholars through annual conferences and mentorship. In 2026, AJAAS held its fifteenth anniversary conference at the University of Utah, hosted by AJAAS co-chairs PJ DiPietro, Director of the LGBTQ Studies Program at Syracuse University, and Omi Salas-SantaCruz, assistant professor, and founder of the JOTA Lab (Justice-Oriented Teaching and Theories in the Academy) at the University of Utah.
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