Week 11: the Americas

The lecture last week proved to be the most helpful of all lectures so far, as it covered the Americas and the US-Mexican border and this week, in Spanish 3, I’m doing a presentation on crossing the border. So it’s a good thing that each topic has a different focus country. Anyway.

Ideas I found interesting:
- State borders are not essential or timeless, they are constantly changing.
- The effects of a border extend beyond the borderlands.
- Latinos are marginal to the imagined community and are considered “outsiders”, yet Latinos were the original inhabitants of much of the US
- Aztlán – a nation that’s neither the US nor Mexico

Mexicans refer to the border as 'La Linea' - the line. And that's all it really is - a line that the US and Mexican governments decided on, despite the fact that it clearly divided communities. Which is another consideration - is the imagined nation stronger than the physical nation?


Just keep on pushing: over the borderline



This was taken on the Mexico side of the border wall between Mexico and the USA, at the beach where the wall extends far enough into the tide so that any attempt to swim around it would be fatal. The barrier itself is actually easily crossed, but border patrol is thick on the USA side.

Image: GuzVenom via deviatnart.com
Text: ~calistardust via deviantart.com