Gulf Gothic examines haunted, secret-laden narratives that emerge from the gulfs between peoples all along the Gulf of Mexico and on both sides of the Rio Grande. The Gulf is presented as a single transnational region and as dynamic ground zero of North American (and global) cross-culturality and trauma. Responding to the long history of Mesoamerican writing, plantation systems, and racialized divides across the region, this study argues that gothic-with all its affect, undead figures, heavy weather, and hauntings-provides a powerful lens through which to awaken the kinds of gulf-traversing vision so necessary to us here and now.