Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 2020 | Page 16

THE AESTHETICS OF A MOVEABLE BORDER
ing federal land in Chicano Park parallels the Native American occupation of Alcatraz
that aimed to revitalize Native American culture and community after decades of eradication
by the U.S. government (see Stone 2012).
Theoretical Approach
Borders do not exist only in their physical locations. Borders can extend deep into nation-states
(Sassen 2006). Indeed, as Thomas Nail (2016) explains, “…the border is
precisely ‘between’ states…so the border is a division, is not entirely contained by the
territory, state, law, or economy that divides” (2) and the border moves not just with
people and things moving across it, but because of decay of border infrastructure and
because “the border is also moved by others…” (5–6). Thus, borders cannot be reduced
to physical locations because their activities extend far beyond their location. This is not
a singularly contemporary issue:
In delimiting the border, U.S. and Mexican officials imagined that they
could easily separate sovereign space. Along with defining national
membership, the ability to establish the territorial boundaries of the
nation and state sovereignty was considered a fundamental function
of the nation-state. In Washington, D.C., and Mexico City, politicians
controlled this process, but on the ground it rested in the hands of men
like Bartlett and García Conde, whose struggles suggested that neither
nation-state actually controlled the territory that they claimed.
(St. John 2012:14).
While this may seem an anecdote from an era of lawless frontiers, the national politicians’
claims of control and the actual functioning of the U.S.–Mexico border have contemporary
echoes. Donald Trump’s plans to create a large border wall to stop undocumented
immigration even though undocumented immigrants more frequently overstay
visas than walk across the U.S.–Mexico border (Warren and Kerwin 2017).
Secondly, the enforcement of the border does not limit itself to the border area, checkpoints,
walls, fences, customs enforcement. As Frelick and Kysel (2016) receiving countries
have chosen to do enforcement in sending countries, e.g. stopping undocumented
immigrants before they get anywhere near the U.S.–Mexico border. Or, the desert areas
within a country�the United States, or even a sending country like Mexico�are
used as deterrence by subjecting immigrants to fatal dehydration or heat stroke (Nevins
2001) or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) making frequent raids on undocumented
immigrants. Thus, the border is not so much just a physical barrier to immigration,
but rather a legal entity that can move outside and within nation-states when
governments choose more stringent immigration measures.
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