{"id":16456,"date":"2017-10-27T09:59:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T14:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=16456"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:19:25","slug":"big-picture-building-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/big-picture-building-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Picture: Building the Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since November 2016, I\u2019ve unfriended one family member on Facebook, and have been tempted to unfriend others. I blocked a cousin who lives in Texas and posted about Mexicans taking American jobs. It wasn\u2019t anything beyond the pale; no matter how much research complicates this idea<\/a>, it\u2019s one of the most common assertions of the anti-immigration crowd. But I\u2019d had enough. I\u2019m a mixed-race Latino: part Mexican, Filipino, Panamanian, and Colombian (on my dad\u2019s side), and part English, Scottish, and Irish (on my mom\u2019s side). The cousin in question is my mom\u2019s brother\u2019s son; it\u2019s some of her kin that have gotten under my skin.<\/p>\n

Via shared memes, members of this side of the family oppose the removal of Confederate statues, abhor NFL players protesting in solidarity with the quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and scorn debates about reparations for slavery, since \u201cNo white person alive today ever owned a slave,\u201d and \u201cNo black person alive today was ever a slave.\u201d One meme proclaimed, \u201cWhite Irish slaves were treated worse than any other race in the US.\u201d Then asked: \u201cWhen was the last time you heard an Irishman bitching how the world owes them a living?\u201d And answered: \u201cYou Won\u2019t \u2026 The Irish are not pussies looking for free shit.\u201d Through false equivalence, they articulated the white grievance and anti-welfare discourses that characterize much of the right today. Several relatives \u201cliked\u201d these posts.<\/p>\n

These are my cousins. They took me fishing, played baseball with me, and introduced me to Hulk Hogan and monster truck rallies. I\u2019ve opened Christmas presents with them. They used to call me \u201cgreen bean,\u201d I assume without malice, because I\u2019m part \u201cgringo\u201d and part \u201cbeaner.\u201d Now we see one another infrequently. I keep up with them mainly on social media, or I ask my mom about them sometimes.<\/p>\n

The separations between us are hardening, and I\u2019m uncertain that we\u2019ll come together again. As a scholar of the border between the United States and Mexico, and, more generally, of borders around the world, I often think about their paradoxical nature, how borders both divide and unite. I\u2019ve thought about them not as peripheries, but as grounds zero for the broad articulation of national and international politics, as refracting lenses that both crystallize and distort facts on the ground as word of them ripples outward from their epicenter. This is the space I\u2019ve inhabited with my cousins, and it\u2019s the ground we all walk on now. It\u2019s divided, fractured, shaky, fragmented, and, nevertheless, deeply connected terrain. It\u2019s unclear which of these images will best describe our condition\u2014my family\u2019s, our nation\u2019s\u2014in the coming years.
\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The distant lands of the rural Midwest and South that tipped the scales in Trump\u2019s favor need to become more, not less, like communities in the US-Mexico borderlands.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n


\nMy cousins are the same people today that they were when Barack Obama was President, but I can no longer tolerate them now that Trump occupies the White House. What had changed? Interestingly, their posts became more political after<\/em> the election. The morning after Trump\u2019s electoral win, on November 9th, a cousin who hadn\u2019t posted anything overtly political in all of 2016 wrote, \u201cWhat a way to wake up! I can\u2019t vote\u201d\u2014presumably because of her prior legal troubles\u2014\u201cbut Wow!\u201d Later that day, she continued, \u201cIt\u2019s funny how bad I want to unfriend people on facebook because they won\u2019t stop whining about Trump\u2019s win.\u201d Before then, her posts, and those by other cousins, contained some homophobia (Dallas Cowboys fans were \u201cgay\u201d), but mostly focused on football, veterans, heartbreak, cars, kids, work. Did their political evolution lend credence to the somewhat contested idea that Trump had energized white voters who went to the polls irregularly, or not at all? I don\u2019t know. I do know, however, that, even if Trump\u2019s victory somehow empowered them to speak their minds freely, they had long held the ideas they now posted on Facebook. Remember, I grew up with them.<\/p>\n

I also know that when Obama was President I believed that their views were fringe. Overall, I was convinced, our country was on a progressive track and, as we moved forward, their voices would become ever more faint. Instead, their voices have grown louder, emboldened by the nation\u2019s 45th president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since the election, it has been hard to remember that, demographically and politically, for better and worse, the United States is by and large the same country today as it was a year ago; that Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than Trump, and that Trump won the electoral votes of key battleground states\u2014Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin\u2014by a grand total of around 80,000 to 100,000 votes. A growing resentment toward demographic change, mistrust of academic expertise, a real sense of economic decline, and bankers pursuing their self-interests above all else: these have been with us for a long time. Yet in other ways\u2014rapid deregulation, the erosion of norms\u2014everything has changed.<\/p>\n

And the fact that everything has changed has caused me to feel differently about the relatives with whom I disagree. It is always frustrating and painful when we don\u2019t see eye-to-eye; but in the past I thought that, over time, I would be able to persuade them, because I have facts on my side and because they\u2019re family. Mostly we watched sports together because it was one of the few things we shared in common. But when we did argue about politics, I felt like they argued by asserting their feelings and I argued by presenting them with facts. I came away thinking my facts had meant something to them. Now I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n
Related readings<\/div>\n\n
\n\n
\n
\n \"Refugees<\/a> <\/figure>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n\n
\n Reviews<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n No Peace for Refugees<\/a>\n <\/h5>\n\n
\n \n \"Emma <\/a>\n \n Emma Shaw Crane <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot these days about the Declaration of Independence, because I\u2019ve been reading Danielle Allen\u2019s Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality<\/em>, as part of the One Book One Northwestern program. We read the book and come together as a community to discuss its themes; in this case, the idea that individual liberties depend on acknowledging the fundamental equality of all human beings. We\u2019re all equal as political actors, individuals who are intrinsically able to determine for ourselves the form of government most likely to lead to our happiness and security.<\/p>\n

The authors of the Declaration of Independence argued that they didn\u2019t take lightly their decision to separate from Great Britain. They made every effort to reconcile with their \u201cBritish brethren,\u201d because it was human nature to \u201csuffer, while evils are sufferable,\u201d rather than \u201cright themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.\u201d But after a \u201clong train of abuses,\u201d it was their \u201cright\u201d and \u201cduty\u201d to \u201cthrow off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.\u201d For me, these lines shed light on the dilemma with my family, and the dilemma we face as a country: to come together despite our differences, drift apart, or perhaps break up altogether.<\/p>\n

Allen believes we should come together. Her book was published in 2014, in Obama\u2019s America, an eight-year period in many ways defined by an optimistic faith that our similarities are greater than our differences. If freedom and equality are the most important ideas in the Declaration, Allen argues that we have elevated freedom above equality. She wants to reverse the tide by convincing all of us, especially those who would disagree, that freedom is impossible without viewing one another as equals.<\/p>\n

Through conversation, we can find common ground\u2014my cousins and I, and all Americans\u2014much like the authors of the Declaration of Independence, who, despite their different religious, political, and occupational (but shared racial) backgrounds, forged their document by working together around the clock in Philadelphia, and by corresponding constantly with constituents in their home colonies. Allen argues that the Declaration of Independence belongs to all of us. It\u2019s our \u201cpatrimony,\u201d Our Declaration<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I liked Our Declaration<\/em> a lot. But in Allen\u2019s desire to have us come together as equals, I think she downplays the eventual rupture between colonists and their British brethren: after attempting to reconcile, they opted for Revolution. I spent two weeks discussing Allen\u2019s book with incoming first-year students, who took a summer course with me to help them transition from high school to college. One noted that nobody like her helped write the Declaration, and that the Constitution, written a decade later, would have recognized her only as three-fifths of a person. Many didn\u2019t think that more conversation will accomplish much, since not everyone is viewed as an equal participant in the conversation. It is not self-evident to them that their truths are heard equally, or that their adversaries are, or would be, good listeners.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, while I see where these students are coming from, I want to side with Allen because I believe that, if we\u2019re to remain connected somehow, working through even these challenging ideas requires more talk, not less. But I confess, the past couple of years have shaken my faith in this idea.
\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Undocumented immigrants pay more taxes, without receiving benefits, than they take. Border cities are some of the safest in their states, not the dangerous places they are made to seem.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n


\nAs a scholar of Latinx and US-Mexico borderlands history, I\u2019m inured to statements about Mexican immigrants like, \u201cThey\u2019re bringing drugs. They\u2019re bringing crime. They\u2019re rapists.<\/a>\u201d I instinctively historicize calls for the construction of an \u201cimpenetrable<\/a>,\u201d \u201cBIG & BEAUTIFUL<\/a>\u201d border wall, supposedly made necessary because of the \u201cillegals\u201d who \u201cpour through our borders<\/a>,\u201d members of ISIS who \u201chave been caught crossing the Mexico border<\/a>,\u201d and the \u201cvery bad MS 13 gang members<\/a>\u201d crossing from Mexico. I\u2019ve thought that, if I could demonstrate how such statements in the past led to violence and discrimination against Mexicans, it would make us less likely to be persuaded by their logic. We would become more likely to unify in resistance against those who would speak them.<\/p>\n

Unity was key. Community and togetherness has been the subtext of much of my writing about Latinxs, Latin American migration, and the border. Like many Latinx historians, I\u2019ve argued that the future of our country depends on recognizing all Latinxs as Americans. They\u2019ve served in the military, benefitted the economy, and have lived on the land for centuries. In an opinion piece<\/a> written days after the 2012 election, in which Latinx voters helped deliver Obama\u2019s victory, I argued that politicians, and the parties they represent, ignored Latinx communities at their own peril.<\/p>\n

In my book Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland<\/em><\/a>, I drew attention to the many points of contact between Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora. I wrote about celebrations of regional identity, Arizona\u2019s economic dependence on Mexican shoppers, and student exchanges between US and Mexican universities, so as to undercut the idea that the border represents a sharp division between two countries, and the incorrect understanding that movement between the United States and Mexico has been exclusively about undocumented labor migration and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

Undocumented immigrants have paid more taxes, without receiving their benefits, than they\u2019ve drained from public coffers. Border cities are some of the safest in their states, not the dangerous places they are made to seem. By living the truth that Mexico and the United States are deeply and inextricably intertwined in love, politics, and economics, the residents of border communities have much to teach Americans elsewhere about co-existing with others. The distant lands of the rural Midwest and South that tipped the scales in Trump\u2019s favor need to become more, not less, like communities in the US-Mexico borderlands.<\/p>\n

If I said these things in different ways, to different people, in different formats, then, I believed, our national conversation about immigration and the border might change, however slowly. Immigrants would be seen as vital and regenerative forces in American life, and the border would be seen more as a point of connection than division. This is the leap of faith that many writers and teachers take every time we put pen to paper, or step into a classroom.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n
Related readings<\/div>\n\n
\n\n
\n
\n \"\"<\/a> <\/figure>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n\n
\n Reviews<\/a>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n Immigration\u2019s Daughters<\/a>\n <\/h5>\n\n
\n \n \"Laura <\/a>\n \n Laura Fisher <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n

At least for now, though, I\u2019m not convinced about the efficacy of my optimistic belief in community, faith in dialog, or hopeful empathy. Are they the right approaches for moving politics in a more progressive direction? The pessimistic voices of others\u2014marchers in the \u201cUnite the Right<\/a>\u201d rally in Charlottesville, the \u201cProud Boys<\/a>\u201d who consider white Christian males to be the most marginalized population in America, and a President who sows division when he talks about the great danger he faces when he visits the border (\u201cI may never see you again<\/a>\u201d)\u2014seem to be more persuasive.<\/p>\n

Still, a kind of optimism\u2014maybe even the \u201cinfectious and relentless optimism<\/a>\u201d that Obama spoke about the day after Trump\u2019s grim speech before the UN General Assembly\u2014is all I know, and sometimes I think it\u2019s all we have. I continue to place my hope in the country\u2019s changing demographics, the potential of education, and the idea that justice will follow community organization around shared interests. The students I teach give me reason to be optimistic about these things.<\/p>\n

About a month ago, my mom called me to say my cousin\u2014the one I\u2019d unfriended\u2014was looking for me. He said I\u2019d unfriended him because he\u2019s conservative, but his daughter wants to go to college and, he said, I\u2019m the only person he trusts to talk to her about applying and deciding where to go. I told my mom that I\u2019d think about whether I wanted to reconnect with him or not. I haven\u2019t decided, but I probably will. Apparently my cousin thinks I have valuable advice to impart, so I\u2019ll likely try to work things out with him.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what humans do, according to the authors of the Declaration of Independence; it\u2019s in our nature to \u201csuffer, while evils are sufferable,\u201d to try and mend relations and seek connection. It\u2019s what Danielle Allen thinks we should do\u2014Americans, that is, not necessarily my cousin and I\u2014and it\u2019s what I still try to do in my scholarship on Latinxs and the border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since November 2016, I\u2019ve unfriended one family member on Facebook, and have been tempted to unfriend others. I blocked a cousin who lives in Texas and posted about Mexicans taking American jobs. It wasn\u2019t anything beyond the pale; no matter how much research complicates this idea, it\u2019s one of the most common assertions of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[154,773,775,774,469,336,161,91,716],"pbpartner":[],"section":[],"pbseries":[2284],"class_list":["post-16456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","tag-american-studies","tag-border","tag-danielle-allen","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-latin-america","tag-mexico","tag-racism","tag-the-big-picture","pbseries-the-big-picture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Big Picture: Building the Wall - Public Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since November 2016, I\u2019ve unfriended one family member on Facebook, and have been tempted to unfriend others. 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