1 Forthcoming in Companion to Latin American Science Fiction, edited by Silvia Kurlat Ares and Ezequiel de Rosso, Peter Lang, 2019 Science Fiction vs. Magical Realism: Oppositional Aesthetics and Contradictory Discourses in Sergio Arau’s A Day without a Mexican David Dalton Sergio Arau’s critically acclaimed film, A Day without a Mexican (2004) imagines what would happen if every “Mexican”—a term he uses to metonymically refer to all U.S. Latinos/as (Carroll 487; de la Garza, “Mockumentary” 123)—were to suddenly vanish from California. The director employs a mockumentary style that allows him to cut between several storylines protagonized by characters whose Mexican and Latino/a family and friends have inexplicably disappeared. The film owes its fame primarily to its politically charged message that criticizes anti-immigrant discourses along the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the United States. A largely overlooked detail is that the film’s very continuity—which depends on the unexplained disappearance of people of Mexican and Latin American descent—places it in a fantastical world. As such, one of the most intriguing aspects of the film is how it balances science fiction (SF) and magical realism. The mass disappearances of Latinos/as reverberate with a body of magical-realist narratives from Latin America where unexplainable events occur in daily life and are generally accepted by the characters and/or readers. At the same time, however, some of Arau’s characters insist on finding a scientific explanation for these events. Given the widespread association of magical realism with Latin America and SF with the United States and Western Europe, I would argue that Arau’s film represents a distinctively borderlands aesthetic that borrows from both U.S. and Mexican/Latin American literary and filmic modes. This hybrid style allows for a critique of anti-immigrant sentiments in the United States, and it demands greater visibility and rights for Latinos/as in the country. Nevertheless, it also promotes and