The Normalization of Surveillance and Strategies of Resistance for Mexican Americans on the Border

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 22: Criminalizing Race

Abstract

The U.S.-Mexico border has been of particular interest to the Trump Administration in its ongoing efforts to restrict immigration. Though unauthorized immigrants are the purported targets of measures to increase border enforcement, U.S.-born individuals of Mexican descent living along the border also bear the consequences of nativist policies. Focusing on later generation (third-plus) Mexican Americans, I use 42 in-depth interviews to explore individuals’ experiences with surveillance by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) in Nogales and Tucson, Arizona. In this study, I ask: What does surveillance look like for U.S.-born Mexican Americans on the U.S.-Mexico border? How do people cope with the presence of surveillance in their everyday lives? And what are the effects of anti-immigrant policies on late-generation Mexican Americans? I find that the pervasiveness of surveillance elicits a mixture of fear and resignation from residents as they simultaneously grow accustomed to surveillance while navigating an ever-changing political terrain. Finally, I explore responses to the authority of CBP, which vary from strategies of compliance to strategies of resistance. These varied approaches are complicated by the liminal status of Mexican Americans in the United States, as both a racialized group and a community that benefits from some of the privileges of holding U.S. citizenship.

Author

• Adriana Nunez, University of Colorado