Topophrenia and Cognitive Mapping in The Brick People

This paper examines the role of cognitive mapping in Alejandro Morales's The Brick People, focusing on how the novel's characters navigate and resist the oppressive spatial dynamics of a one-dimensional urban landscape. Through the lens of Robert Tally's literary cartography and Fredric Jameson's cognitive mapping, the study explores how Nana, Malaquías, and Octavio engage in spatial practices to negotiate socio-cultural identity amidst systemic inequalities. Nana's garden symbolizes fragile yet meaningful resistance, while Malaquías's farms represent a more radical form of counter-mapping. Compared with these two, Octavio's leadership of a labor strike—a collective act of defiance inspired by his family's struggles—serves as the narrative vehicle through which Morales constructs Barrio Margarito, a utopian space reimagined as transformative possibility. By juxtaposing real-and-imagined spaces, Morales critiques the dominant white narrative of Los Angeles as paradise, revealing the challenges faced by Mexican-American laborers in constructing belonging. The mapping practices of these characters help them reconnect with the spaces they inhabit, alleviating their sense of topophrenia. Through their palimpsestic spatial narrative, Morales reimagines alternative spatialities not only as resistance tactics but also as provisional inscriptions of erased histories.