Border rootedness as transformative resistance: youth overcoming violence and inspection in a US–Mexico border region

Abstract

This essay addresses Mexican immigrant and children of immigrants' ‘border citizenship’ as they negotiate space, post-secondary education, national citizenship/s and immigration status, and the transgressive aspects of their transnational and transitional identities. As they travel to and from college, these young adults confront surveillance and racism by border reinforcers within an institutional setting and when crossing border inspection points, while learning strategies of transformative resistance. This essay examines how young people manage their cross-border lived experiences, and their daily survival of ‘rights’ infringements at the Border and within academic settings.

Keywords:

• border
• immigrant youth
• inspection
• violence
• post-secondary education

Notes

I would like to thank Jeff Shepherd and Sonia Flynn for their assistance with this article. I will refer to Puerto Palomas de Villa as Palomas hereinafter.

In 2005, the Minutemen Project began as a vigilante group with origins in Tombstone, Arizona, whose members include US citizens, retirees, retired and active duty military, including women; most individuals migrate to this group from outside of Arizona and Border communities. Their claim is they act as a ‘neighborhood watch group … protecting themselves and their families from criminal activity’ (Doty 2009, p. 26). There have been consistent accounts of abuse against migrants by Minutemen members as they have apprehended and threatened people crossing into the US desert.

Many of these children come from mixed-status families where a family member may not have documentation to enter the US, yet the children are US born or are permanent residents and have every right to attend a US public school. Some children lived in the US as US citizens but would cross the border to visit immediate family daily or weekly in Mexico. Contrary to popular public opinion, many mixed-status families are forced to live this way and do respect and abide by US laws which bar them from entering the US while their paperwork for permanent residency is underway.

Alejandro Lugo (2008) develops this concept and I use it as an analytical tool within this article.

This article is based on eight years of working with young immigrant adults as the principal investigator of a University program serving primarily first generation Latina/o college students with permanent residency or US citizenship status. This article is based on student immigrants' daily struggles navigating college and living within border inspection perimeters.

Transitional within this context represents transitioning from high school to college and from adolescence to young adulthood, or transitioning as a permanent resident to a US citizen and the shifting of identities and meaning within fluid spaces like border communities and educational settings, and within local yet globalized spaces.

The median income in Columbus is less than $15,000 a year (Caldwell 2009).

Long before the arrival of Mexican soldiers to Palomas and the street shootouts that killed several people, along with the recent narco fossa (mass grave) discovery of nineteen people near Palomas, US National Guards had arrived in droves surveilling the Border only miles from the international port of entry with equipment under the guise of border security and terrorism. In 2007, during visits to the area, my colleagues and I witnessed throughout the small village of Columbus National Guard soldiers shopping, dining, and manning sophisticated equipment on the outskirts of town along the Border.

Out of 200 students, approximately 98% of which are Latino, are served in a retention program at this land-grant University. Forty-nine of these students come from the Columbus, NM region and make daily or weekend excursions ‘home’.

Information on exact procedures is vague on the Department of Homeland Security's homepage; for a robust discussion on human and civil rights abuses at the Border, visit the American Civil Liberties Union's website: http://www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/36491prs20080820.html.

Additionally, unmanned aircraft systems, sensors and cameras, and gamma ray and X-ray imaging systems, and sophisticated computer databases comprise the surreptitious surveillance tactics by Customs and Border Patrol policing in isolated regions of the Border, port of entries, and checkpoint stations. (Inspections and Surveillance Technologies. http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/fact_sheets/port_security/fact_sheet_cbp_securing.xml).

A college degree in hand is not required for the border patrol application process.

Most people working and studying at the University have been receptive to immigrant students and several have become avid advocates for them, however, students still retell intimidating stories about classroom experiences with faculty, hostile experiences with staff, and even more problematic encounters with perceived racist students.