The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

336 critical reflections
being brought against them (Dunn 1996:81–82). These events were widely publicized
by the press and presumably were approved of by the general public, which
was apparently and erroneously led to believe that “illegals” were heavily implicated
in looting and burning.
Another low-intensity conflict tactic is to enlist civilians in the fight against internal
enemies. California’s well-known Proposition 187, for example, attempted to
enlist health care workers, teachers, and social service agencies in reporting the
presence of undocumented workers and their children. Although teachers and
medical personnel have largely refused to cooperate, other public sector workers
risk their jobs if they do not work together with the Immigration and Naturalization
Service. In an interview, a Chicano intake officer at a correctional institution
in California told me that he and his fellow employees are expected to notify the
INS immediately if they suspect that an inmate they are processing is undocumented.
He says that most inmates who come under suspicion are Spanish-speaking,
and less often Asian. He also says that undocumented inmates report that Irish,
Polish, Italian, and other European construction workers who are illegally in the
country look on while Border Patrol agents take away all the Spanish-speakers. 12
In fact, 90 percent of the people that the Border Patrol detains as “illegals” are
Mexican, even though people from all Latin American countries combined compose
only 40 percent of the undocumented workers in the United States. By demanding
and receiving the cooperation of civilians and local law enforcement agencies
in their campaigns, the Border Patrol teaches them first to be participants in
the categorizing of people into the desirable and the undesirable, and second how
to deploy symbolic violence against the subordinate. It also trains them to participate
in the hierarchical categorization of individuals and communities.
The Border Patrol has taken to sponsoring Explorer Scout groups in Texas.
Youth are given uniforms complete with Border Patrol badges and sometimes are
allowed to accompany agents on patrol. The idea is to teach the Scouts to be “good”
Americans, to build the prestige of the INS, and to undermine the work of grassroots,
largely Latino community organizations that oppose the militarization of the
Border Patrol, support immigrant rights, or have other agendas that are officially
defined as anti-American, “leftist,” or antifamily (ibid.:82). 13 The Border Patrol also
sponsors a soccer league in the Laredo area (ibid.) and conducts public education
seminars and elementary and high school forums in counties in southeastern California
that focus on “how to identify illegals” and “why they are bad for the economy.”
In October 1998 I spent a night in a town in eastern Riverside County, not
far from the U.S.-Mexican border. The local television station aired several spots
featuring Border Patrol agents advertising these seminars. Further, the community
access station televised agents talking about how they do their jobs and which attributes
and aspects of a person—skin color, language, quality of clothing—arouse
their suspicion of illegal status and cause them to search that person and ask for
official documentation. This is, of course, another permutation of widespread and