{"id":7179,"date":"2019-02-13T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=7179"},"modified":"2019-02-12T11:27:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T16:27:57","slug":"revisiting-familiar-fears-in-border-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2019\/02\/13\/revisiting-familiar-fears-in-border-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Familiar Fears in Border Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo of the wall in Nogales that divides Mexico and the United States. Photo by Jonathan McIntosh, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Current pressure for a wall on the United States\u2019 southern border has been a centerpiece in politics and the media, but push for a wall is one recent development in a complex history of border politics. For centuries, the border has been a site for war, conflict, immigration, and trade. A recent <\/span>article<\/span><\/a> in <\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/i> highlights how these historic events have contributed to defining what the border means today, and how — especially in recent decades — this has led to calls for heightened security and enforcement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The border itself is a powerful political symbol. According to sociologist <\/span>Douglas Massey<\/span><\/a>, it is not just<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>a<\/span><\/i> border but <\/span>the <\/span><\/i>border, and its enforcement has become a central means by which politicians signal their concern for citizens’ safety and security in a hostile world.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Recent <\/span>work<\/span><\/a> by Massey highlights how throughout history this \u201chostile\u201d world has been defined and composed of dissident actors — drug traffickers, terrorists, communists, or criminals — with politicians using them as political chips to peddle and spin different narratives on how and why we should protect the border. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This research demonstrates that whether the southern border is an invisible line, physical fence, or wall, it continues to be a symbolic boundary for people who hold a profound fear of those who are non-white or of different cultural backgrounds. For example, recent political positions towards Central American migration to the United States seem to echo historic anti-immigrant attitudes. During the late 19th century, <\/span>Chinese laborers were banned for decades<\/span><\/a> from immigrating to the U.S. for their perceived cultural and economic threat to American society. <\/span><\/p>\n

As debates continue over the construction of a southern wall, it is worthwhile to question if anti-immigrant attitudes and fears are haunting reverberations of the past. Recognition of the complex history of the U.S.-Mexico border and its connection to fear of crime and xenophobic attitudes may be a useful starting point so that today\u2019s politics do not become \u201canother brick in the wall\u201d in the history of the border.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current pressure for a wall on the United States\u2019 southern border has been a centerpiece in politics and the media, but push for a wall is one recent development in a complex history of border politics. For centuries, the border has been a site for war, conflict, immigration, and trade. A recent article in The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,13,85,14],"tags":[19422,116116,40594,39116,27079,253,4051,89,39110,1031,465,39115,39111,82,2050],"class_list":["post-7179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-inequality","category-politics","category-race","tag-border","tag-border-politics","tag-border-wall","tag-crime","tag-crimmigration","tag-history","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-inequality","tag-migrants","tag-migration","tag-politics","tag-race","tag-racism","tag-xenophobia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7183,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179\/revisions\/7183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}