The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

the u.s.-mexican border region 329
THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER REGION
The United States arguably was a colonial power in the American Southwest in
the nineteenth century, a circumstance that created ethnic tension between Americans
and Mexicans and in due course rendered Mexicans and Mexican-Americans
second-class citizens (McWilliams 1948; Anazaldua 1987; de la Garza 1985;
Montejano 1977, 1987). Although there has been significant progress in recent
decades, Mexican Americans and newly immigrant Mexicans (and others from
Latin America) who live in the border area still suffer discrimination, racism, and
both symbolic and physical violence directed toward them by individuals and the
state (Montejano 1999; Zavalla 1987).
Throughout the 1990s, U.S. opinion makers, the media, politicians, and Congress
portrayed the U.S.-Mexican border area and the communities within it as
places “infested” with hordes of drug runners, welfare cheats, and foreigners looking
for a free ride. 4 The Border Patrol, as an arm of the state, has been charged
with keeping the country safe from these “scourges.” Consequently, the Border Patrol
often treats working-class Latino border communities as hostile territory that
gives refuge to undesirables. It also often racializes Latinos and Chicanos and treats
them as lesser citizens. Roberto Martinez, a Chicano, an American citizen, and the
director of the Immigration Project of the American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC) in San Diego, notes: “[Politicians] keep saying this is a country of laws.
Where were the laws when people like me were being arrested and they tried to deport
me? When U.S. citizens are coming across the border and their documents are
being confiscated. We [the AFSC] have three lawsuits going where police and the
Border Patrol are breaking into people’s homes without search warrants. This is
under the pretext of looking for drugs or illegals. Then they beat up the people,
mace them, put bogus charges on them. Then they have to go to court. Why aren’t
they playing by the rules? They lump us all together. We’re all suspects. We’re all illegal
immigrants, criminals or drug traffickers.” 5
Martinez’s colleague, Maria Jimenez, director of the Immigration Project of the
American Friends Service Committee in South Texas, agrees: “Part of our work is
increasing public awareness that we [Chicanos, Latinos] are an abused community.
I have coined that phrase—the abused community syndrome. It has gone on so
long that we no longer see the abuse. This doesn’t happen to other communities.
[Mexican Americans] are the only ones saying, Oh, I’m a 4th generation, 5th generation,
8th generation American. We are continually reinforcing our right to be
here because we are constantly being asked about our right to be here. We are the
only ethnic group in the whole country who can claim to have a national police
force we can call our very own.” 6
Immigrant rights organizations such as the AFSC have established hot lines for
citizens and noncitizens who are caught in INS nets and need legal advice or want
to voice a complaint about agents. In the Nogales, Arizona, INS office, a poster ad