Jason Oliver Chang
CALLE INTERNACIONAL
During this summer almost half a million people will cross the deserts of the American southwest and the Mexican northwest. They use no roads, no streets. They walk single track paths in the desert. This is the only way, the unseen way. Many of the travelers are ambassadors of their families; they have been chosen and sent. Others are simply following a dream for a better life. This region of North America has always been a location for transience and migration. Before the militarization of the southern U.S. border in the 1990’s death was a rare occurrence in the deserts of Arizona. Every year since the build-up of immigration enforcement along the international divide the number of deaths has increased. The death toll this summer has been three times the rate of last summer. The dramatic increase of migrant deaths in Arizona's southern deserts is a result of border barricading and militarization around urban regions in the hopes that the hostile desert environment would be a passive deterrent. The ones who perish in the desert are casualties of a catastrophic economic system as well as a legal system that prefers their subordinate status. These deaths are avoidable. Current immigration policy is contradictory to the interests of economic stability and basic human rights. The enforcement of immigration policies lead to the adoption of dangerous tactics of deterrence and prevention; tactics that have failed miserably.
The Border Patrol’s Strategic Doctrine of Border Control stipulates an aggressive urban border focus. The redirection of public attention to high-profile, high-tech ports of entry serves many functions. One of these functions is to purify the image of the federal government and the U.S. Border Patrol by “re-gaining” control of cross-border traffic; as if there actually was a point in history when they had control to lose.
Another function of this strategy is that it makes government contractors very rich. The more than tens years of technology and information sharing between the Border Patrol and the Department of Defense has led to the payment of large contracts to just a handful of government subcontractors. Construction costs along with surveillance technology puts a $3 million price tag on every mile that the border is barricaded. There are already more than 300 miles of fencing built. Current plans in Arizona add 250 more miles. Controlling the border is big business. Many of these linkages follow family lines of Border Patrol bureaucrats and political representatives of border states.
In addition, this strategy re-asserts the U.S.’s territorial claims at a time when financial and industrial production processes blur the cartographic distinction. In essence, the Strategic Doctrine of Border Control is an effort to direct and edit the symbolism of a region of immense economic and cultural significance. Controlling the symbols of the international divide, directs the reading of the history of the U.S./Mexico border. The symbolism of state legitimacy includes the hypocrisy of legislation that is both pro-immigration and anti-immigrant. Immigration policy has always worked as the non-public face of economic policy. The defacto effect of current immigration policy has been the maintenance of a large pool of cheap labor ready upon demand for exploitation in a "post-industrial" U.S. economy. If the U.S. is to ameliorate its symbolic legitimacy, then the border militarization must be stopped, legalization available for migrant workers, and real economic development for migrant sending countries.
This summer, groups of churches, community organizations, human rights advocates, artists, politicians, and activists came together to form the No More Deaths Coalition. This political coalition is aimed at national level policy reform to de-militarize the border, broaden the legal category of the immigration system, and economic reforms that regulate financial capital flight. In response to the symbols of inhumane state power, the No More Deaths Coalition has chosen to deploy symbolic resources to demonstrate the humanity of migrating people, respect for their rights and contributions to the U.S. economy, while calling attention to the dire need for legislative reform. To initiate this campaign myself and thirty other activists participated in an event called the “Migrant Trail: Walk for Life”, a symbolic gesture by people who are tired of unfair policies that force out our migrating brothers and sisters into situations of exploitation and death. We followed the path of migrant crossers from Sasabe, Son. to Tucson, AZ. The 70 mile journey is typically done in two to three days with two gallons of water. It took us seven days and five gallons of water a day. As we arrived in Tucson we were met by several hundred people gathering at our destination, the Border Patrol Headquarters of the Tucson Sector. The Migrant Trail Walk for Life is a statement of resistance and a proclamation of hope. We made offerings of the clothing and articles we found while on our journey.
State symbols of power and legitimacy that result in the death of innocent people constitute a need to challenge that system. Violating human rights in an effort to control sources of cheap labor is a long and vile tradition; a tradition in which people have always resisted by creating new symbolic meanings to the official and legitimate structures that oppress them. In this sense, the No More Deaths Migrant Trail Walk for Life is creating a more legitimate meaning of the border through an adherence to dignity, justice, and human rights by transforming the border from an anonymous monument to security and the rule of law to a memorial to the casualties of an economic and political order of inequality. Creating new meanings for the border is an essential method of progressive change and establishing an ethical interpretation of legislative reform for the border lands.
The first action of the Migrant Trail demonstration was a march in the streets of Nogales, AZ to the port of entry where we were met by our Mexican brothers and sisters. We gathered on Calle Internacional in downtown Nogales, Sonora, where we made a dedication to all those who have died crossing the borderlands by placing white crosses with their names directly on the border barricade.
They will not be forgotten.
Still others construct even more elaborate symbols of resistance to the construction of false memories. Artists Guadalupe Serrano and Alfred Quiroz built “Border Dynamics” also on Calle Internacional.
These giants were constructed from post-industrial maquiladora material, an aspect of their identity that complicates their interpretation. Are they pushing the wall down? Are they holding the wall up? Who are they? In light of these interpretations, the two artists continued work with another, artist Alberto Morackis. The three of them designed and built a second installation entitled “Paseo de Humanidad”.
This installation was oriented towards the deaths of migrants in the desert and the humanity of the migration phenomenon. In this piece, the figures are depicted by images from the borderlands. The red figure being chased by the Border Patrol figure is represented by Juan Soldado, the unofficial patron saint of clandestine migrants. In another panel, Jesus Malverde, the unofficial patron saint of narco-traffickers also follows in step with the others. Fruits, vegetables, bombs, the Statue of Liberty, and household appliances all help to build the images of other figures as they represent society on the border.
Every Tuesday in Douglas, AZ for the past four years, activists have been remembering the border crossers who never reached their destination. They met at 5:00 pm at McDonalds, 200 yards from the Douglas port of entry. They gather up several hundred crosses with the names of the folks who have died in the deserts surrounding Douglas and shout out their names while the crosses are placed along the curb of the road.
These demonstrations in the streets speak out for those whose death has made them invisible or whose immigration status has led them to live invisible lives. The streets provide an opportunity to help others imagine their worlds differently. The construction of the border barrier has become an object of resentment and a screen to project a subjugated narrative. The line, the wall, la frontera, has become an entangled paradox as it represents both a monument and memorial telling the story of regional struggles imbedded in the articulation of community. The rush to embrace the wall culturally illustrates a similar story that Marita Sturken tells of the Vietnam memorial, with its contested meanings and public stature. It also demonstrates the power of image crafting and how the spectacular border derives different meanings depending on race, class, and which side you are on. These experiences and images proclaim what critics Ella Shohat and Robert Stam call a poly-centric visual culture, in other words a democratization of space. The streets are not ours alone. They are claimed by the unseen.
text and photography by
Jason Oliver Chang
Center for Public Policy and Administration
University of Massachusetts, Amherst