This poignant collection brings together powerful testimonios from Chicanx and Latinx patients, family members, caregivers, and community advocates who have faced el maldito cáncer. Authors share first-person narratives of illness, fear, love, solidarity, and resilience, illuminating how Latinx communities navigate cancer journeys within a complex and often inequitable health-care system.

The contributors—ranging from students and community members to renowned scholars and artists—offer their stories through essays, creative nonfiction, poetry, bilingual chapters, and drawings. 

These testimonios honor the diverse ways Latinxs process and communicate the emotional, physical, and cultural realities of cancer. Each section is framed by a short editor introduction that highlights key themes and invites readers to reflect on the resonant insights each story brings. Across four sections—patient voices, family members, community perspectives, and closing reflections—the book reveals how individuals confront illness with courage and how families and communities create networks of care grounded in culture, love, and collective strength.

Exposing physical and emotional vulnerabilities, instances of pain, suffering, worry, and anguish, Maldito Cáncer also opens a space for healing and connection. It offers a new lens to understanding cancer through culturally informed, justice-centered narratives. These acts of testimoniando offer a gift to us: resistance, connection, and hope.

Contributors
Alfonso Aranda
Cathy Arellano
Estela Mara Bensimon
Cindy Camacho-Gutierrez
Daniela A. Carreon
Angie Chabram
Natalia Deeb-Sossa
Yvette G. Flores
Fran García Vásquez
Jennifer Gottlieb
Osa Hidalgo de la Riva
Ekta Kandhway
Skye Kelty
Jorge Antonio Losoya
Dalia Magaña
Maribel Martínez
Pedro Noguera
Lorraine Ramos
Mónica Torreiro-Casal
Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz
Patricia Zavella

Natalia Deeb-Sossa is an interdisciplinary and transnational Chicana feminist health scholar, schooled and trained in sociology. A scholar-activist at UC Davis, Deeb-Sossa has made rigorous, relevant, innovative, and noteworthy contributions to the fields of Chicana/o/x studies, sociology, qualitative methods, gender and women’s studies, and public health.

Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz is a Mexicana/Chicana fronteriza queer educator, performer, activist, and award-winning author and translator. She is a professor of Spanish and Global Latinx studies at Trinity University.

Yvette G. Flores is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the Chicana/o/x Studies Department of UC Davis, where she taught for thirty-five years. She is the author or co-author of six books, most recently Chicane Mental Health.