Assignment #4

This week we are going to be talking about the role that womyn play along the border, and the intersectionality of race, gender, and class. Specifically, we will be looking at the Juárez femicides, and how U.S. companies have capitalized on and exploited Mexican female bodies, through the establishment of export companies known as maquiladoras and recently, the naming of make-up after these industries. We will be watching the film Maquilapolis in class to learn more about the lives of the womyn who work in these factories.

Your readings for this week are:
1) Ursula Biemann's "Performing the Border: On Gender, Transnational Bodies, and Technology"
2) MAC Rodarte make-up named for Juarez is not pretty
3) An International Tribute, With Love, to Women Killed in Juarez

There is also a blog associated with the art project dedicated to the Juárez murders, located here. It includes pictures of the artwork mentioned in the third article.

Please respond with your thoughts on these readings, including what struck you the most from reading about the horrific mutilations of womyn, and similarities that you see between exploitation of labor in Mexico and in the United States. Other questions to think about:
-Biemann mentions "the entanglement of the female body with technology and image production" (pg. 101). What are examples of this "entanglement" that you have seen in the media? Feel free to includes links to pictures or commercials.
-Did any pieces from the Juárez art project stand out to you? What did you like about it?
-What was your reaction to reading about the MAC make-up with names like "factory" and "del Norte"? What does that say about the commodification of not only labor, but also how womyn are implicated in the oppression of other womyn?

3 more DeCals til spring break!! Are you ready?! :]

Assignment #3

After the past two weeks' discussion on the history of the border, we are moving on to examine how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has contributed to the construction of a border between the United States and Mexico. Specifically, we will look at how NAFTA has led to the rise in drug cartel activity and related violence, and how these issues affect our trip.

Your 3 readings for this week are:
1) Happily Ever NAFTA, a series of articles that present conflicting views on how effective NAFTA has been in fulfilling its promises
2) In the Fight for Immigration Reform, Don't Forget About NAFTA
3) http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war (Pick ONE article from this LA Times series on Mexico's drug war and in the comments section, please list which article you have chosen to read, so that people do not double up.)

In your blog response, feel free to talk about anything that stood out to you from the readings. Questions to guide your thoughts:
-Were you familiar with NAFTA before you read these articles? What did you know about it? Have these articles changed your perception of NAFTA and what "free trade" means?
-How has NAFTA created further inequalities between the United States and Mexico?
-Are you surprised by the multitude of articles from the LA Times on Mexico's drug war? After browsing through them, has your opinion on whether we should cross the border changed? If it has not changed, how has this new information informed your perspective?

Also, please enjoy this video/parody of NAFTA.

Assignment #2

This week, we will be having a tri-DeCal with two other Alternative Breaks trips - Central Valley, which is focusing on migrant labor, and Arizona, which is focusing on immigration in Arizona. We will also be welcoming a guest speaker, Professor Alex Saragoza from the Ethnic Studies Department. Our theme for the week is past and current immigration policy and how these policies have contributed to creating a physical and figurative border between the U.S. and Mexico, between nativism and other-ness.

To that end, our readings are Chapter 2 of Joseph Nevins's Operation Gatekeeper, and this fact sheet on SB1070. Please respond to these readings by posting a 1-2 paragraph answer in the comments section of this entry.

In your response, you may point out anything that stood out to you from the readings and how they relate to your lived experiences. You may also use these questions to guide you:
-What political and socioeconomic contexts gave rise to Operation Gatekeeper and SB1070?
-What similarities/differences do you see between these two acts?
-How has the image of Tijuana as a city of "vice"and "sin," particularly during the Prohibition era in the United States, created and reinforced the idea of a border and of Mexico as a foreign country?

Your response is not limited to these questions by any means, but they can serve as a starting point to guide your thoughts.

Assignment #1

This week, we will be focusing on the history of the U.S.-Mexico border and how various immigration laws have resulted in an increasing militarization of this area. To prepare for class, please refer to this interactive timeline.

Read through the timeline and then in the comments section of this post, pick one of these 8 events to research and present on (briefly) in class:
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
1921 & 1924 Immigration Act
1942 Bracero Program
1953 Operation Wetback
1964 Border Industrialization Program
1965 Immigration Act
1996 Immigration Reform & Control Act [not listed in timeline]

In addition, print a picture that you think is representative of your chosen event. For example, if I chose to research the North American Free Trade Agreement, I might choose this picture to demonstrate how the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are fighting over production and trading rights:

Two other (short) articles I would like you to read for class are:
Mexican Violence Deters U.S. Colleges
Mexican immigrant beaten to death by U.S. Border Patrol

We will discuss these articles further in class, but for now, think about these questions:

Based on your various readings, what are some reasons why U.S. policy favored more liberal immigration laws at some points and more stringent laws at other points in history?

How has the militarization of the border created an “other,” privileging not only racial status but citizenship status as well?

This year, we are excited to be taking a brand new group of participants to the U.S.-Mexico border!

And they are...
Krista Kracher
Iliana Ponce
Hannah Bichkoff
Leila Carranza
Valerie Passano
Ana Reyes
Araceli Vazquez

We had our first DeCal last week and talked about what each participant is looking forward to most on this trip. Some responses were:
-the process that undocumented people have to go through in order to become "legal"
-meeting young children affected by current border issues
-dialoguing with Border Patrol officers, growing as a person, learning from the group
-the maquiladora industry and NAFTA
-experience the border first hand because the media often generalizes the immigrant experience
-seeing the complexity of the border first-hand
-speaking to people who live by the border and recognizing our own privilege

With these thoughtful responses, this semester is definitely going to be amazing!

We did it!

Tomorrow we embark on our last decal of the semester. Words cannot describe how amazing and rewarding this experience has been.

We will make scrapbooks in class and then we are happy to have HECTOR CARDENAS, from the Goldman School of Public Policy, come and give a talk about U.S. Mexico relations and the future of immigration reform. From the GSPP website:

While he was still in the PhD program, he started The Ergo Group, a policy and technology consulting firm that specializes in bringing the digital age to government agencies and thus helping them to do more and better things for more and more people. He has worked at The Ergo Group since 2000 on projects with the Mexican federal government and with state and local governments in the US. He is the president of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Mexico Talent Network and serves on the California Business Advisory Board of Nacional Financiera (Mexico’s development bank). He is back at GSPP to teach a course on US-Mexico relations.

Anyone interested in watching the film, LA MISSION, sometime soon? It comes out in theaters this Friday, and Benjamin Bratt wants us to go:

Dear Friends,

It is with great pride in the efforts of literally hundreds of people
that we write to tell you that our film La MISSION will have its
national theatrical release beginning April 9th.

La MISSION pays homage to the neighborhood and people we grew up around,
and captures the vibrancy, cultural pride, flavor a...nd sound of this
ever-evolving barrio. At the center of the story is Che, an old school
reformed bad boy and single father who has dedicated his life to raising
his 18 year-old son. Jess is a UCLA-bound honors student who is hiding
a deeply-held secret from his macho father: he's gay.

La MISSION doesn't pull any punches. It takes a hard look at some of the
prevailing attitudes that still thrive and do damage within our
communities. But La MISSION also celebrates the humor, the sense of
pride, and the passion for life that exists alongside the everyday
struggles.

Opening weekend attendance is critical. The box office totals determine
the life expectancy of the film, including its afterlife on DVD. If
you, as we do, want to see more films that are authentically
representative of our experiences and our communities, we urge you to
support independent filmmaking by showing up at the theaters and buying
tickets. It's the only message exhibitors understand--they only run
films that will bring in large crowds.

Please check our website (www.lamissionthemovie.com) and also become a fan of
La Mission on Facebook. There you will find details on what cities and
theaters we are playing in, plus photos and information on the film and
its crew.

Thanks for supporting independent cinema, and a heartfelt thanks from us
for your support of La MISSION.

Power to the people!

Peter and Benjamin

American Dream or American Nightmare?

For these last two weeks, we would like to focus on life after the border. We are finally here... and is it truly the American Dream? Perhaps decades ago, life could have been prosperous for any immigrant, documented or undocumented. Now there are reports that with the economic crisis, remittances are down, immigrants are going back home, and the amount of people attempting to cross the border has dropped. Life is hard enough for the undocumented immigrant in the U.S. Most are unable to drive, to work, or to gain access to fair wages and social services such as health care. Yet, during our Spring Break, we worked with organizations such as Casa Familiar, and the Latino film festival, who have demonstrated that despite the furious discussion on immigration, Latino's have developed their voice and have established themselves well.

It seems that this American Dream is no longer a dream for higher wages and a better living. It is a dream for the right to identity. Read this article from the BBC, "U.S. Latino's are finding a voice." The immigration reform dilemma is affecting those without documents. But what about Latino's who are documented? What does immigration reform mean to them? Should they care? Also, what does something like the 2010 Census mean for the Latino community? This LA Times article "Univision promotes the census to Latino audiences" should help you ground some answers to this question.

Please respond to these two articles after this post.