A Third Border

 

Mike Davis The Third Border he talks about that borders Chicanos and Mexicanos are faced with in the United States. The first border is that of Tijuana/ San Ysidro or El Paso/ Juarez, the second border are the checkpoint that are conducted by ICE to catch the coyotes also the Check point at San Clemente, although the first two are physical borders the third is the situations they are faced with.  Davis informs that after the San Clement check point was established undocumented immigrants began crossing ten freeway lanes to avoid going thru the checkpoint which resulted in huge numbers of deaths and instead of removing the checkpoint the United States. government placed up signs which warned the drivers they could encounter people attempting to cross the ten lanes of the freeway. He gives the example of Lacy Park in San Marino where the City Council began to charge a weekend fee to enter the park because Latinos began to go there on the weekends with their families. By imposing a fee it left out the Latino Population from being able to access the park because they did not have the money to pay.

While reading this article other forms of third borders popped into my head for example how in today the media portrays all immigrants as “Mexicans” they just assume that because they speak Spanish they come from Mexico when that is far from the truth is recent years more and more Latinos from Central and South America have been migrating to the United States. Also Latinos do not make up for all of the undocumented people in the United States. Also another third border is the fact that people assume that because some is a certain skin color they do not have documents or do not speak English. The third border consist of all of the issues Latinos are faced with one they have crossed the first two borders.

            This article made me think of the different experiences which my mother and uncle have shared with my siblings and myself growing up. Both my uncle and mother have very light skin color, their hair is very light brown it almost looks golden and they have colored eyes. My uncle has shared that even though he was in this country as a undocumented immigrant for a period of time he was never faced a lot of the discrimination and racism his fellow workers, and classmates did simply because he did not look Mexican, he fit the descriptions of what a United States Citizen should look like.

            What stood out to me the most from this article was how the U.S. felt they solved the problem of deaths in the freeway simply by placing signs up. I could not believe that they do not care for the lives of the hundreds which are killed annually imply because they are undocumented immigrants who are looking for a better life than the one they had in their home countries. The United States treats these people as criminals and excludes them from reaching a better life even though they are the same ones that are responsible for  people not being able to live in their own countries, with NAFTA, and other programs they have created which instead of helping third world countries leaves them with an even worse  economic and social problems.  

- Alejandra Ibarra