When los extraterrestres show up at our door, will we even have a planet left to host them? The universe-wide perspective is an alien consciousness that will help us survive, one that embraces all that is alien, even actual space aliens. For this perspective to take hold, however, we need the fictional space alien, because the space alien demonstrates the possibility of an alien consciousness now, not in some distant future. Let us call the universe not Space but our Home. (120)
In The Latinx Files, Matthew David Goodwin traces how Latinx science fiction writers are reclaiming the space alien from its xenophobic legacy in the science fiction genre. The book argues that the space alien is a vital Latinx figure preserving Latinx cultures by activating the myriad possible constructions of the space alien to represent race and migration in the popular imagination.
