ESRI: Envisioning the Embattled Borderlands

PLEASE CLICK MAP for a BETTER VIEW

The map (above) that ESRI geographer Krista Schlyer chose for the top of her photo-map essay response to the so-called border wall is indicative of the care she and the rest of the ESRI team have taken with this entire exhibit. As a geographer who lived in this map for seven years (1990-1994 in Tucson and 1994-1997 in Pharr), I notice a few important things that this map captures nicely.

First, the borderlands are identified by the border, but not strictly defined by it. As Oscar Martinez argues in Border People, it is a zone that extends approximately 100 miles in each direction from the line that gives the region its identity. In every sense except strict legalities, this region is neither the United States nor Mexico. It is a third entity that is both divided and united by a line that meanders through its center. In addition to Border People, I recommend Tom Miller's On the Border as an introduction to the place; I had the privilege of knowing both writers during our Tucson years.

Second, the United States of America and the United States of Mexico are both federal republics comprising a number of states (50 and 31, respectively, plus a federal district in each). For people living in the border region, connections between neighboring states are important. Residents of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas become familiar with Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas.

The cultural and environmental landscape of the border is not well understood by pundits and demagogues who make their living from caricatures of it. The misguided policies that result threaten real damage and will deliver no benefits.

ESRI's Krysta Schlyer has made an important contribution with this well-researched borderlands geography project.

The embedded version of this project condensed -- see the full Embattled Border story map here.

More about borders and The Border from this Environmental Geography blog

The threats posed to the people and environments of the border by outside demagoguery have certainly increased under the current administration, but in many ways are a continuation of a militarization of the border that was under way when I was living in Arizona. Although my own writing on the topic has become more focused in 2017, my earlier writing could also be instructive. I think that my "human sieve" metaphor is especially important, and that the wall is part of a broader effort by politicians who prefer to choose their voters, rather than to allow the opposite to transpire.

Each of these posts includes links and images to the work of many journalists, artists, and geographers.

Take Our Jobs, Please (June 2010)
The Border: A Human Sieve (June 2010)
Murder City (November 2010)
Where Are the Humans? (November 2011)
No se olviden Mexico (June 2012)
Precious Progress (November 2012)
Economic Baggage (April 2014)
Why Walls Won't Work (November 2014)
Not One Human (August 2015)
Hiring Humans (February 2016)
Borders: What's Up With That (August 2016)
Border IRL (November 2016) -- includes a map of all of my border crossings
Bridges and Habilitation (July 2017)
Through the Wall (October 2017) 

Status Check

Cartoon: Lalo Alcarez

When I first saw this map online, I commented, "Wow. I would love to have my old Arizona back."


When asked to explain, I responded that the image reflects the Supreme Court's temporary approval of the new show-your-papers law in Arizona. Police officers there are now REQUIRED to check the documentation of anybody suspected of not being a citizen or otherwise authorized visitor. For example, if a person is beaten or raped and comes to the police station and "seemed" foreign, the police would be required to investigate that victim's status, as well as the crime itself.


I then explained that my comment refers to four years that I enjoyed living in the state. It was very conservative, of course, in many ways the most conservative politics in the country. But it was not a xenophobic place in those days, and freedom of movement and expression were valued. I think they still are by many Arizonans, but a tight economy (exacerbated by true Wild West banking and realty industries in the state) brings out the worst in people.

Finally, I noted that the Supreme Court decision was not final -- the way police actually use their new powers can be examined to modify the decision. In fact, as Jacques Billeaud explains in an AP article, the Court Ruling Leaves Arizona to Rely on Feds. This is a cogent explanation of exactly what the Supreme Court ruling does and does not do. Law Professor Margaret Stock provides a more detailed and expert -- but still readable -- explanation of this aspect of the decision as part of a symposium on the SCOTUS blog.

The decision does, as I mention above, leave in place the requirement that police check the status of people they encounter, but the court will monitor whether this is done in a racially biased way. Moreover, the police will have very limited ability actually to hold people once they are apprehended. This may be a proverbial distinction without a difference, however, as both the law itself and yesterday's decision convey a harsh antipathy to migrants that (and those who "seem" like migrants) that will frighten many people -- including both victims of and witnesses to crimes -- into avoiding police.

I close this post with a second Alcarez cartoon that I noticed while seeking to credit the artist for the map at the top of the post. The image is jarring because it contradicts the widespread assumption that President Obama is not winning the immigration debate. This is perhaps because the constancy of attacks from the most xenophobic wing of the political right cause the media and other observers to overestimate the importance of the President's most ardent critics.

As I mention in the "Immigration" section of my resent post entitled No se olviden Mexico, the President's handling of certain aspects of immigration policy is actually close to what a majority of U.S. citizens would advocate. Moreover, as the President has actually implemented policies that reduce the volume of extra-legal migrations, it is occurring to a growing number of people that this is not nearly as important an area of debate as are some others.

Depending on how the summer and early autumn unfold, this might become an increasingly positive issue for the president -- even though he is likely never to mention Mitt Romney's hiring of undocumented workers.

Just like Arlo

I was reminded of Alice's Restaurant when I read this article about Walt Staton, a fellow member of the UU church of Tucson being arrested for "littering" in the context of civil disobedience related to something much bigger. In Arlo's case, the war was in Vietnam; today it is much closer to home: a war on peasants. Politicians -- even "Christian" politicians -- grandstand about things they do not understand, and people die as a result.

Actually, we are not exactly "fellow members" in the literal sense. Staton is a young divinity student who attends the UU Church of Tucson, Arizona, where Pam and I were active members in the early 1990s. In those days, the church was pre-occupied with its own internal squabbles. I am glad to see that the membership has turned its attention back to making a difference in the lives of real people. Before our time, in the Reagan years, this church put itself on the line for refugees during the Sanctuary Movement against Reagan's criminal policies in Central America. Today, the church is once again taking a stand, on behalf of the victims of a misguided war on undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America.

In the 1980s, people were fleeing civil wars that were often funded by the United States; then they would be deported if they sought asylum here. Today, the causes of migration are somewhat less severe, but the consquences of crossing the border can be much worse. People are fleeing economic catastrophes rather than wars. Economic pain in Mexico and Central America benefits U.S. consumers who enjoy cheap coffee, cheap clothing, cheap radios and televisions, cheap corn, cheap ... fill in the blank. The relationships are complex, but the short version is that if rich consumers are getting something for less than it should cost, a poor person somewhere is making up the difference.

From living in the border zones of Arizona and Texas for a total of seven years, we learned that the area within about 100 miles of the border is more like a third country than it is Mexico or the United States. Anti-migrant sentiment (which flares up with every recession like a fish rising to bait) has in this instance focused like a laser on the center of that broad swath of land.

Politicians and pundits from far away have sliced the border zone in half with giant walls, creating even more problems. First, walls are built with regard only to political boundaries and not with any regard to cultural, economic, or ecological connections. Impoverishing the border region is no way to solve immigration problems. Second, the walls can actually contribute to longer migrant stays in the United States, as many of those who survive the ordeal are not inclined to repeat it. Third, the walls have been built to block relatively easy crossings, deflecting migration to the most hostile lands. The migrants, however, do not understand this and the coyote smugglers do not care.

The result is that hard-working, ambitious people who have paid thousands of dollars for safe passage across the border find themselves abandoned in the harshest environments in North America. Many, many have died, and people of conscience intervene. They are not encouraging migration, since they are ameliorating a problem that the migrants do not even know about. They are not smuggling; indeed, they are trying to stop the deaths of those who have been victimized by smuggling.

Since the article was published, Staton has been sentenced to community service -- 300 hours picking up litter -- and one year of probation. Further developments will be posted at No More Deaths.

What does this story have to do with geography? Everything. Complex and imbalanced economic relationships drive the migration. An even more severe imbalance exists between quasi-military strategists in the United States and their impoverished adversaries, in terms of access to geographic information about the border region. And lack of geographic education about the border contributes to political support for policies that do not serve the national interest.

Border Foods

The focus of this radio story is a rather unusual hot dog that has apparently taken the Sonoran Desert region by storm during the 15 years since I moved away. Although the particular food is unfamiliar, the broader theme of this essay is quite familiar to me: the blending of cultures in the swath of land along the border between the United States and Mexico. No other border in the world comes close to the economic divide represented here, but the cultural and ecological ties go back several centuries. The lands, languages, peoples, and foods within 100-150 miles of the border often have more in common across that line than they do with the interior of either country. That is, in many ways Tucson is more like Hermosillo than either is like Washington or Mexico City. Having lived and taught in the borderlands for seven years, I am saddened that it has become so subject to the whims of far-away politicians. I am grateful to NPR for the stories it occasionally airs about this vibrant and misunderstood region.

As some of the online comments point out, the story neglects to mention the fourth border state on the U.S. side: New Mexico. It also refers to neighboring states in Mexico without listing them: Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas.