You Can Help
The borderlands of the United States and Mexico harbor unique natural and cultural communities that are being eroded by border militarization and walls. You can help, no matter where you are.
Make Cracks in the Wall.
Walls are physical structures but they are built on psychology, a powerful psychology of fear. A politician knows fear will get him votes and he can say, “There is a threat, I’ll build you a wall to protect you.”
To build a wall in the mind against the Other, makes people feel safe, to build one on land makes them feel extra safe. Walls are a powerful political knife.
But walls don’t stop people.
Walls don’t solve problems.
Walls do have real consequences for the people and ecosystems who are divided by them.
The only real way to fight the wall on the land is to fight the wall in the mind.
But how do we do that?
One essential element of fear-based political power is building the story of the Other—whether it is a person of a different skin color, or socio-economic class or the person on the other side of the border. Politicians and other power seekers, craft the story of the Other as a violent, unpredictable, uncivilized, criminal—someone who threatens you and your family and our very way of life. This depiction is essential, and so it is repeated over and over and over, each repetition a brick in the wall of the mind.
How can we fight against this kind of manipulation?
We can go and see the Other for ourselves. We can tell our friends and family what we’ve seen. We can bring the Other into our lives, into our family, into our minds, where they become a person, just like us.
Thus we make cracks in the wall. We start to subvert the power of those who would manipulate us for their own gain.
GO to the Borderlands
There are many ways to visit the borderlands through travel, books, art, film, music, activism. Below I offer some ideas, in addition to my own work on my Borderlands Project page. Find the path that suits you, then share it with your friends, family, neighbors and those who work for you in the halls of government. Find your own creative ways to break down divisions, to seed cracks in the wall.
Land, Wildlife, People
Tour the Borderlands: Take a trip to some of the national parks, national wildlife refuges and other treasures along the border. Endless possibilities including—Big Bend National Park, Texas; Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Texas; Organ Mountains National Monument, New Mexico; Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona; Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona; Tijuana Estuary Reserve, California
Border Community Alliance: This binational cultural organization offers everything from borderlands tours to a film and literature club to Spanish classes. Much of this can be done virtually.
Sierra Club Borderlands: You can join the borderlands team and be a voice for border communities.
Sky Island Alliance: You can support the efforts of this group working to protect and restore borderlands ecosystems. You can also join them on conservation fieldwork.
Humane Borders: This organization works directly to save the lives of migrants traveling the borderlands. You can volunteer to help them with everything from office work to maintaining life-saving water stations in the Sonoran Desert.
Defenders of Wildlife: Works to protect wildlife of the borderlands.
Music, Books, Film, Art, more
Calexico: Tucson, AZ, based band with borderlands music ethos.
Natalia Lafourcade: Mexican musician, here’s her Tiny Desk Concert.
The Border Chronicle: Podcast collaboration between journalists Todd Miller and Melissa del Bosque.
Charles Bowden: Author of a prolific body of work focused on the US-Mexico border.
Gloria Anzaldua: Borderlands author and feminist theorist.
Lens on the Border: A collaborative of borderlands photographers.
The Undocumented Migration Project: Art installation directed by Jason De Leon, author and professor of anthropology at UCLA.
American Scar: Film about border wall construction.
Up Against the Wall: Article by Julian Smith in Biographic.