Roberto D. Herndndez COLONIALITY OF THE U-S///MEXICO BORDER Power, Violence, and the Decolonial Imperative xe| | | 1 At Home in the Nation On the Structural Embeddedness of Vigilantism and Colonial Racism We rededicateourseoes today... the principles that made America great: the dream, the prize, the honor—American citizenship. Good Fences Make Good Neightors antinmigrent aly We are simply a big neighborbood watch group. Chis Simeox, Minstemen cofounder ian patrols operating along the U-S///Mexico border, both in San Ysidro and beyond, in order to interrogate shifting discourses of citizenship and ‘belonging, the persistent colonial logics of racism, and some ofthe mechanisms ‘that I argue, uphold this structurally embedded violence. I situate this chap~ ter on the local particularities of the U-S///Mesico regions within a longue durée analysis ofthe raced/gendered logies of nations and violence that Anibal Quijano has termed the coloniality of poser as outlined in the introduction. I ‘xamine the physical and discursive manifestations of violence atthe hands of (Gemiorganized groups, some including Vietnam “lifers," who heve organized themselves as civilian patrols on the U-S///Mexico border and continue in ‘the long-standing American tradition of Indian~ and Mexican-hating, This chapter seeks to understand the actions and collective subject formation of these nonstate actors, the civilian patrols, and arguably to provide insight into the gunman responsible for the McDonal’s massacre discussed in chapter 3,by historicizing them in light of theix previous incarnations associated with three distinct historical moments and conceptual frames: the frontier, the border, and globalization. I thus argue that the distinct manifestations of violence, frontier | N THIS CHAPTER, I focus on the rise between 2004 and 2008 of the civil= | | AcHomeinthe Nation 37 vigilantism, and civilian border patrols follow an interwoven trajectory rooted in the dominant episteme ofthe first colonial encounter dating back to the end of the fifteenth century. In other words, recalling Fanon, the anti-Indian colonial violence exerted upon Indigenous-marked bodies that shaped the frontier has been relocated to the border (frontiers end) in the guise of anti-"immigrant™ and anti-“Latin@” sentiment. ‘The inital colonial encountersin the Americas gave shape to the socially and discursvely created categories of race as we know them today and made them the central organizing axes that ordered social relations.” Tis process has been intricately gendered and tied to heteronormative conceptions of nation consti- tuted from their inception as larger-scale replications of the ideal patriarchal family ot home.” In other words, the concepts of home and nation (e.g,,home~ land security) are meant to be mirror images of one another, and it isthe role ‘of Homo patriarcs (via exclusionary violence performed on racialized/gendered bodies) to ensure that such is the case, Maria Lugones’s analysis of the colo- sial/modern gender system is important; she elucidates how the male/female divide upon which the heteropatriarchal family is predicated, and subsequently institutionalized asthe site for the exercise of unequally distributed power cela- tons, is itself constructed on the premise of the simultaneous marking of racial and gender difference in bodies.’ Situated within this specific element of the coloniality of power and the modern/colonial gender system, make three dis- tinct but interrelated arguments about the civilian patrols historically and theie resurgence in San Ysidro and the broader border region. First, I consider the shifting and gendered discourses of home and nation through which the national imaginary’ boundaries of belonging are expanded and contracted both legislatively and discursvely to create changing narratives, about who constitutes the nation/home, always in relation to an “other” of, as Chantal Mouffe has articulated, a selfaffirming constitutive outide. These «constitutive outsides have historically included the savage, the slave, the insmi- ‘grant; those whom Gloria Anzaldta called fronteriz@s, nepantler@s, the queer and the squint-eyed. The rich Manichean and dimorphic constructions have served to distinguish a “them” from the “we.” They have served to illuminate ‘what Caribbean philosopher Syivia Wynter refers to as a process for making sense of the prapter nos, the “for our sake" —that is, for the sake of the nation/ race/civilization.‘ While today the “them” of the nation is frequently defined as the “terrorist,” the “them” or constitutive outside against which the border watch groups make sense of @ constructed “we-ness” (as American-ness) hasChapter historically ben the Native andthe immigrant. In other words, the propter non the “forthe sake of the nation, "is currently defined in relation toa nebulous ter. rorist, who along the border has become somewhat synonymous with migrants and refugees. Worse yet, in the portrayals made by some civilian patrol groups, there has been a metaphorical if not literal collapsing of the later two into 8 new form of immigrant-refugee-terrorist—who even has a driver's license, as was so vividly represented by a billboard campaign by the Coalition for a Secure Driver License, which made targeted efforts in states across the country against providing licenses to migrants without proof of legal status (igure 2) Second, through the published and public statements of recent civilian Patrols along the border, I trace what I argue isan ironie triangulated com- ‘ative ouside. But in this second case, itis the Minutemen and other civilian patrols thet fintion asa distinct bu related "them or constitutive outside thet serves to normalize and naturalize the imagined normative inside ofthe nation ‘trough the extremity of thie discourses of exclusion directed atthe primary constitutive outside—namely, migrants. By the imagined normative inde | ‘mean what many observers, irrespective of partisan leanings, eft to as “middle Ametice,” “mainstream America."or—pechaps most importanty as it cates to ‘he racialized and gendered constructions of the nation—"your average every. day Jo" (whether Joe Six-Pack or Joe the Plumber). This normative inside is soled at anti-immigrant rallies by demonstrators wearing shirts designed in San Diego that read “Here Legally (figure 3) Te follows that when the civilian patrols are portrayed as “vigilante” fore ations as extremists, as bigots, as racists (which many of them admittedly are) double manewer is performed in which their “extremism” discutsively constitutes them as an “outside” co the “mainstream.” The result is an effective FIGURE 2 The above ad was widely circulated during 2006, Similar billboards were posted in other states, including New Mexico. From the website of Coalition for « Secure Drivers Lense FicuRe 3 Popular shirt among anti-migrane crowed during 2004-6 protests, Image taken fom www mikedesiga biz, legitimating of a kinder, gentler racism on the “inside,” including the main- streaming of anti-migrant politics/legislation—such as the Sensenbrenner bill (HIR4457), the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and the series of anti-migrant laws passed throughout most of the 1990s in California and surfacing in various states and small towns across the United States today. Lastly, these first two interrelated arguments lead us to a third argument regarding the structural embeddedness of vigilantism and border violence Through the work of Kerl Polanyi and Mark Granovette, and in conversation with Wayne Comelius onthe “structural embeddedness of demand for labor" — along with what he separately terms a persisting “ethnocultural objection” —I argue that gendered discourses of home and nation function to reproduce Eurocentric and heteronormative narratives of nation, property, citizenship, and belonging; I reframe Cornelius’s concept to suggest that there is a colonial/ racial objection at work. To understand what I mean by ths distinction between ethnocultural and coloniaV/racial objection, we can recall the images of choice in Samuel Huntington's now infamous Foreign Policy article “The Hispanic Chal- lenge” (figure 4). Whereas evinccultural is suggestive of a long list of literature on European immigrants who have assimilated after a few generations, which argues in par- ticular that Latin@s, like previous generations of immigrants (Italian, Polish,40. Chastert FIGURE 4 The above image, oiginally by Edward Keating / New York Times Photos, is from the opening pages of Samuel Huntington's article “The Hispanic Challenge” in Parsign Peli tc), will assimilate, the data on the topic is mixed and suggests otherwise. While indeed some Latin@s assimilate, effectively being incorporated into the United States mainstream and sharing varying degrees of success, those who do s0 usually (though not exclusively) do it by virtue of actualy having, or being erceived as having, lighter skin, and thus share in a symbolic whiteness! In contrast, among those portrayed by Foreign Policy we see dark-skinned, pre- sumably fertile young female bodies with several children in tow, invoking on the one hand an image of unassimilability, and on the other hand the image of the “Indian,” a long-familiar racia/colonial subject in the imaginary of the American hemisphere; itis these latter “Latin@s” that draw the ire ofthe border ‘watch geoups. Here itis useful to recall how the colonial construction of com plex racial caste system in Spanish colonial possessions, which has been effec- tively reduced to an amorphous “mestizo” category, translates largely for many into becoming “Latin@” in t he United States despite having bodies scopically marked as Indigenous” In other words the discourses of vigilantes securing the ontiers from hostils or runaway slaves, the borders from “illegal,"or the outer stretches of homeland security (rea here Ieag, Afghanistan, Ian, Syria, etc) to prevent terrorist attacks “at home” invoke familiar and recycled colonial tropes poHome nthe Notion 4 for the purpose of constructing and legitimating a white supremacist, maseu~ linist rendition of the nation, fre from “contamination” by nonwhite bodies, Tn each of these instances, the head of the household, imagined as brave young man (usually white, though no longer exclusively so, hence the point about the expanding boundaries of inclusion and whiteness), protects his nation/teri tory just as he would his home/property (read: real estate, wie, children). This scale-jumping between discourses of home and nation, as feminist scholars such, as Norma Alareén, Nira Yuval-Davis, and Floya Anthias have shown, intimately ties together notions of nation-building and domesticity, producing myths of ‘women as property, sovereign nations as female/home, and both as private/ domestic realms. The above are all imagined as internally cohesive, pure closed systems and thei leaders or protectors (from threats both real and imagined) as men in the public realm of politics. The result thus structurally embeds the gendered political ordering of the modern/colonial world along the lines of nation-states, with boundaries to be protected by border (or civilian) patos, 0 astocnsuze that all the necessary outsides immigrants, terrorists, other nations seen as invaders or “rapists” (of women and/or nations), and even “extremists” with a shared propter nor—stay in “theie place.” In doing so, “the protectors” ‘ensure that the insides (nations/womnen) remain intact, orderly, secure, sover~ ign, ete. While the above may sound averdeterministic and points to Emma Péree's cautionary note that patriarchy leaves few options, as women notably are mythically constructed as static representations to symbolize “the nation,” Zillah Eisenstein eminds us that “Live women, rather than mythic ones, can always subvert this representation and the national boundaries constructed by i" In other words, asthe struggle over the McDonalds memorial monument (Giscussed in chapter 5) shows, che homogenizing and totalizing tendencies of, coloniality can be (and are) actively resisted. Geographies of War, Then and Now In January 1969, Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, wrote a short artile titled “A Functional Definition of Polit in which he stated, “Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics wich bloodshed.”? Echoing an earlier 1938 statement by Mao ‘Tse-tung rather than merely inverting Clausewitz’ famous dictum that war polities by other means, Newton was advancing a distinct logic that recognized polities itself as war, thisvas to say that when it came to matters of rae, colonial war that began when Columbus set foot on the island of Hispaniola has been ongoing, making the distinction between polities and war a misnomer at best. Newton also noted the United States! obsession with was, as exemplified by the insistence on war against everything—war on poverty,war on drugs, war on crime. This obsession, he suid, was reflective of the country’s collective unconscious tying to come to sips with its self-delusion over its racil/colonial history and practices. With respect to the United States’ global “war on terror,” following the above tis possible to argue that Newton had his finger on the pulse ofthe spatiotempo~ ral workings of coloniality as a form of racial/eolonial power. Nevertheless the ‘battleground of this “war” has taken on many fronts. While Afghanistan and Iraq have come to symbolize the landscape ofthis global war, the U-S//Mexico border has also been a focal point of various politicians and anti-immigrant ‘groups who argue that the defense measures of homeland security—as part of the same toa—require further militarization of the southern border. One image that was actively circulated among civilian patrol group net~ ‘works, for example isa map originally created to delineate the proposed border ‘wall buildup in San Diego County (figure s). The depiction, however, has been altered by one of the civilian patrol groups to include arrows signifying troop ‘movements ona military battlefield. Yee another civilian patrol group altered an Image of a map to suggest other battlefield plans forthe “war on teron"on the U-Si//Mexico border, in an interesting intersection with proposed legislation at the time, In that image (figure 6), the collapsing of racial/colonial politics and waris evident. It shows Osama bin Laden looking at a map, presurmably of Alighanstan, but made to suggest the U-S///Mexico border, in the caption bin Laden says: “Guys, dont worry ll we have to do i get across the border. Then once [Twenty-Sixth District Congressman David) Dreier’s amnesty program kicks in we will be both US Citizens and Terrorist [eT got tall figured out Mexico is the key..." Its worth noting that Congressman Dreier is a Repub- lican who in 2004 ran a dificult campaign amid allegations that he supported an amnesty program. Those claims, represented by the map shown here led Dreier to take much harsher stances on “illegal immigration,” crime, and the “war on terror" in his 2006 reelection bid Border enforcement and immigration policy had generally stalled at that time, in part due to President George W. Bush’ conflicting sets of supporters— restritionist,anti-migrant Republicans such as Pat Buchanan on the one hand, and neoliberal, free-trade business interests chat rely on migrant labor on the eae) FIGURE 5 ‘This map was circulated onfine with the tie "Map Showing Invasion from “Mexico” by anti-immigrant groups who altered ito depict troop movernents from Mex ico. In both this version and one focused on San Diego County San Yeidro is notably absent, ling to register on the radar of either the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or anti-migrant groups alike, Taken from the website of American Border Patrol FIGURE 6 Thisimage shows Osama bin Laden looking ta map of Afghanistan, yet the commentary is meant to suggest that his eyes are set on the U-SM/Mexico border. Tis Ss a higher-quality re-creation by the author of « meme created and circulated online by an anonymous commentato; t retains the memes original language.24 choptert ‘other. Nonetheless, stricter border enforcement measures without comprehen- sive immigration reform have since passed in the form of piecemeal legislation atthe federal level, and deportations have been conducted at a faster pace since the election of President Barack Obama.” Equally troubling, restrictionist laws a8 the state and local levels have also proliferated and intensified" In retoo- spect, however itis clear now that the ambivalence of offical policy helped give ‘se to the complaints by the most populist formations of anti-migrant civilian patrols atthe time about what they called 2 porous U-S///Mexico border. As ‘with Congressiman Dreier’s shift to harsher policies from 2004 to 2006, the solidification of a push from civilian patrol groups helped to drive “the center” further tothe right. ‘The reemergence of such civilian patrol groups, particularly after Septem- ber 1, 200% also meant an increase in anti-migrant hostilities, and in some cases outright physical violence. Howeves, when viewed historically a contin- ‘uum emerges: one that geographically, discursively, and corporeally follows a trajectory from early notions of “the frontier” to current images of lawlessness associated with the border in the American imaginary. It mus also be acknowl- ‘edged, though, that the trope of the savage or racalized undesirable has also ‘transcended the national-teritorial boundaries said to contain the nation-state {and presumably its violence) in a nurnber of colonial expeditions informed by «economic, militaristic, and other motives. This same trajectory can be noted in the discourse ofthe dangerous would-be terrorist suspect or constitutive outside that now informs the perpetual “war on terror.” By examining the history of frontier violence and the patrolling of the U-S///Mexico border by groups such as the Minutemen along with the post- 9/sx“war on terror” with its ‘preemptive strike” paradigm in the occupations of Afghanistan and Trag, this chapter asks the following questions: What, if any, are the connections between the violence of the frontier, the ongoing violence on the border, and the violence accompanying globalization, particularly in its ‘post-g/ia manifestations? What are the foundations, premises, and operative ‘mechanisms of such violences (fronties-border-globalization) and how are they ‘mobilized in San Ysidro and El Paso? What connects contemporary civilian patrols to historical incarnations of vigilante formations? How have the civilian patrols and other nonstate actors facilitated a shift in the rhetoric around the issue of migration as it relates to questions of legality, property citizenship, and the inability of the State to “control” its borders? Specifically, how do the patrols “jump scale,” shifting between discourses of home and nation to penne nn arn etome inthe Nation 45 (te)spatialize and obscure constructions of an “immigration problem,” and therefore its root causes and the possibility of secking fundamental jstice and remedies?” ‘Ananya Roy's conceptualization of “propertied citizenship” (my emphasis) is useful for understanding the resurgence of anti-migrant vigilante groups patrolling against undocumented migrants on the U-S///Mexico border. I raw on Mark Granovetter’s elaboration ofthe concept of embeddedness” vis- avis Karl Polanyi’ “socially instituted processes,” as well as Wayne Cornelius’ usage of both in his articulation of the “structural embeddedness” of Mexican labor, to ask: Are anti-migrant vigilante groups and the concomitant violence on the border a structurally embedded featare of geopolitical boundaries?” And, if so, what is their celationship to the State? How does their presence legii- mate a gendered/racal state and the geopolitical ordering of che globe into an interstate system? While a right-wing nativist “intelligentsia” composed of figures such as Samuel Huntington, Pat Buchanan, and Victor Davis Hanson helped fuel the ames of anti-migrant sentiment at the tur of the twenty-first century I here interrogate how the “ground troops,” or “Civilian Homeland Defense," as one group calls itself function to bring about a rearticulation of legality and belong- ing that extends earlier equations of whiteness and citizenship to reluctantly include some within the nation ("assimilated” Latin@s or Asian Americans, {for example; here too ie the attempts to recruit a cadre of African Americans {nto several of the civilian patrols) at the expense of those deemed perpetually external to it (foreigners, migrants, terrorists). It is my contention thet “fringe” groups said to exist outside the State—extralegal, extrajudicial elements such as the Minutemen, which is to say vigilante types—nonetheless function as an integral, intemal mediating mechanism that allows the State to posture as ‘neutral in the fice of such blatant racism. In other words, vigilantes as ftinge clements, in their extremism, are themselves a sructurallyemBedded mechani, a triangulated constitutive outside or an inside/outside tat allows for the legitima- tion of a presumably moderate and neutral inside, the State, making this inside seem tolerable when itis nonetheless systemically racist; such a mechanism has arguably given rise tothe Trump presidency today. At the time that the civilian patrols were most active, Democracy Now's Juan Gonzélez’s statement that “racist leters”he received made Lou Dobbs seem ‘positively warm and cuddly” exemplifies this point. While Lou Dobbs has largely vanished fiom che public ‘eye, he nonetheless was instrumental in legitimating anti-migrant sentiment,45 Chaptert Dobbs was key In ensuing that “the énmigraton issu” was perceived 48 a U-S//Mexico borde-specic problem, or an ant-Mexican or ant Latn@ problem, despite his claims to the contrary. Such isthe long are of obfuscating the racial/colonil order bebind Trump's border wall As such formal nemberatip in nation-states is reartcalated by vlan patrols ‘8 Properted citizenship: membership is transformed into the embodiment of “the (white) American dream?” of (home}owmership, while presumably “tran- Sens” prodominanly dack-bodied immigrants, themselves this ow separate SSeond: rte sovercgns, become distinct nationless or *homeles” subject in Ls context. They become onsite onside, ciminalzed and equated with thieves and burglars in someone else's (Americsn) home/nation; therefore, they ite seckes of undeserved shelter an privileges at best, cximinals and rapes at ‘ers though some are presumably good peopl,” as candidate Trump declared hen he frst launched his 2016 presidential campaign Structural Embeddedness and Colonial/Racial Objection kv clasts essay drawing from Karl Polanyis work on “socially instiguted pro- cesses” Mark Granovetter offers a critique of what he sees as oversocalined and undersocialized considerations of socal structures, particularly, though not cxclusvely economic structures (eg the market)” Granovetter articulates bye “eval structures are constructed from various social networks that function ‘s serututally embedded intermediary mechanisms (between the micro and the macro) and which themselves consttue the necessary ssiality of these Structures even when they are articulated as purely asocial, asin the cate of the marker’or “th secular bureaucratic state"s autonomous spheres Wayne Comelus (1998) draws on Granovetter to interrogate Menican migrant labor in California and argues that itis Structurally embedded” in the economy, focusing on ovo issues. He points to the way in which employee socal nenworks function [6 Ser new workers with litle oF no efort on the part of employers, and a nBEARentepreneus' practices of hiring from a predominandy migeane labor pool In both cases, the demand/supply of migrant labor Comeline ‘argues remains steady and largely unaffected during Ractuations in the econe cm While conceding that major changes inthe economy have historically ‘ffcted migrant labor pools, Comeius suggests that social networke of Mex “Sen migrant workers and thir relaonships with (largely) migrant employers | | | AvHomein the Nation 47 ‘dependent on such labor ae “structurally embedded” and as such not dependent con the vagaries ofthe economy. A corollary made by Cornelius to cis argument only four years later posits that there isan “ethnocultural objection” to migrants that exists and is itself not subject to shifts in “the market” bt dependent on “noneconemic factors (espe~ cially ethnicity, language and culture)’ (emphasis in original) In other words, anti-immigrant sentiment exists not justin times of economic hardship, but due to a rejection of migrants more generally. Notably, his argument regarding the persistence ofan ethnocultural objection has received litle attention compared to the rest of his oft-cted corpus of work. Ye it is important, I argue, for in (Comelius’ argument there is something else at playa dynamic or logic that is itself colonial/racial (as opposed to “ethnocultural") and also structurally and ‘istorically embedded in the United States in/through the colonial/racial social structures that preceded the formal founding of the nation, Further stil, this colonial/racial objection incorporates immigrants as acon stitutive outside that reinforces the sense of a socially constructed inside, an ‘imagined “we" ofthe nation—what Wynter called the propter nos. At the same time, it depends on vigilante groups or “racial extscits” on the other end as a distinct form of constitutive outside whose (potential for) violence functions to legitimate the systemic inside/center (i. the State) or an internal anti-migrant sentiment of a particularly racial/cofonial kind, The history of racial exclusion vis-d-vis violence and the role ofthe frontier as the ‘out there” that normalized the here and now” of a colonial enterprise bear witness to a colonial/racial objection.* The subsequent nation-building and “progress,” the contemporary militarization of and violence on the bordes and the role of civilian patrols such as the Minutemen in maintaining a propertied sense of belonging and citizen ship through discourses of nation and home further demonstrate how migrants are constituted as outside the home/nation, Race, Nation, and Citizenshij The Western Frontier and Belonging ‘The United States prides itselfon having been built on the principles of equality, democracy and justice, yet its trajectory has been a living experiment in ethno~ ‘entrism, slavery land theft, violence, and racism.» Separating themselves from. 4 regime that did not administer their rights, the founding fathers’—beyond‘ny sinpl seplcation of power and privilege—commited atrocities agsinse ‘asious Indigenous peoples ‘on the frontier” and enslaved AMfcans in the col, ‘nies in acts worse than any that white American colonists ever endured at the hans ofthe British, as Ronald Takaki has pointed out.” While Takake distinguishes two socio-spatial places or sites of violence here, the two ster sate points of reference as well as perpetrators of said violence, Cental rg that moment of solonil independence” was a select group of people om the Save mits refered to asthe Minutemen, who were suid to be prepared to fight forthe feedom of the early colonists at a minute’s notice vere the Batch troops to arrive, The militias were themselves composed of “free able-bodied ‘white male citizens" who would provide for an “inherently racial... eoremon defence’. .in the contest of slaveholding on the one hand and fonties Cement on the other" Thus the militias, and che Minutemen in patil stongside the founding thers, played an important patt in the establsherene ofthe nation and the accompanying national imaginary thereafter, Upon independence from Britain, however, the colonists continued existing practices of slavery displacement, exploitation, and imperialist expansion Assuch,“Mesican@s"in the newly established nation tothe atthe tare) ane, ‘ieee who in ra had also just achieved their own “colonial independence” fom Spain, would also fill within the clutching grasp ofa merciless wessnaed pancment Peace lf and human dignity all godly attbutes sid to guide Protestant values, were unheard of in the wake of what was billed as “Gude ‘wills Manifes Destiny.” The push westward would result in the deathe snd ‘moval to reservations of many Indigenous peoples further west; ater some Frotld be displaced to urban centers. Not long aftr, war with Mesieo would be tigered and the U-S census would declare the “end ofthe frontes"in 189 flowing the massacre ofhundreds of Lakota women and children t Wounded Knee Frederick Jackson Tuer’ proclamation of the significance af the fron: Seri telling the frontier, Turner argued offered “fee land” that had once been uside the reach or contol of the westward-moving “progres” embodied in Euro-American men. He further defined the frontier as “the ‘meeting point between saragery and civiization”" The end or taming of the frontier shan Sinifd sevage wildemessorterstory coming “under contel,"s Spanish and then briefly Mexican “controt” of lands was seen as no control a all Zhe attudes of Anglo superiority over Natives (and derk-bodied “mes: ‘i208’ by extension) that called for the “civilising” of the fonts eventually Jato the usurpation of nearly half of Mexicd teritory atthe time, tuming | ‘many Mexicans who remained into “foreigners” overnight. The violence of the frontier, upon which the American character came to define itself, was soon ‘complemented and replaced by violence on/aczoss the newly demarcated bor- des, the geopolitical boundary designating the “limit” ofthe “tamed” frontier” ‘Many have documented the history and legacy of antagonism and violence since 1848 by “marauding Indians” and “Mexican bandits” on the one hand, and ‘Texas Rangers, the Border Patrol, and other vigilante-lke formations on the ‘other "The war between the United States and Mexico and the resulting legacy ‘of antagonism has since left generations of Mexicans in both nations resentful of the United States, yet economically dependent on it" Ironically, the depen dence is itself a byproduct of the same U-S military, political, economic, and cultural invasions that created this resentment and perpetuate it today, most ‘evident in the ongoing history of migration between the two nations. Historically the United States’ move to redefine the country in its national discourse as “a nation of immigrants” did not occur until after the 19608, in ‘esponse to social movements’ demands for decolonization; in theory, a dis- tinction between legal and illegal migration has long been used to keep many out. This official distinction as well asthe lack thereof (in practice), has become. «vital source of discrimination, particularly or those who entes, or are believed tohave entered, the country from Mexico, whether “legal” or “llega.” Viewed in light of Comelius’s thesis of structural embeddedness, current immigration pol- icy, despite its questionable effectiveness, ignores the vital role that foreign’ and trade policy playin creating the conditions abroad that inevitably force people to migrate. Rather than addressing the economic complexities that protect and serve to benefit U-S interests, the United Seates'national imaginary has histor- ically designated migrants as friends or foes according to economic necessities. In times of economic turbulence, migeants are targeted as the perpetrators of most societal ils. But asthe economy flourishes, 0 does the relative accep- ‘ance of migrants who provide a source of cheap and exploitable labor. While some point to the historical discrimination against, for example, the Irish of the “Okie” as evidence of the overcoming of differences and eventual inclu sion into the dominant society, these cases instead illuminate the reasons for searticulating Comelius’s ethnocuttural objection” as “colonial /racial objection.” ‘The*ethnocultural objection” that,in Cornelius's argument, overrides economic trends has coexisted with the need for and continued use of migeant labor and 4 political (racial) efficacy in maintaining such an order. So, even though some groups of people have been historically excluded only to be later included, the50. Chaptert point here is that “Iater-included” groups that were initially excluded on the basis of ethnicity or euleure (even if it was articulated as “ace”) were subse ently included precisely because of “ace,” or because of ther tacialization a8 partof (or into) the dominant "white" racial group, according to the intersection ofcolonalty and race. That is, given the way in which race operates to order socal relations, the Irish, Italians, and Jews, for example, have Jecome “white” despite ethnic diferences, Meanwhile, for others (nonwhites), cheir rejection has been and continues to be based on “race” as marked scopicaly on ther bod, ies, hereby limiting their possibilities of ever attaining any “racial inclusion," Conversely while some ‘ethnic’ Latin@®s may be integrated into dominant soci- 23 this usually occurs only tothe extent that they ae vsually/scopcally —that #5 “scally’—white, Such schizophrenia in popular sentiment and policy can have devastating consequences and complicate the corresponding responses of migrant rights advocates. Inthe decades following World War Il the United States developed another ‘enemy; 2 new outside was articulated in both fascist Germany and, ina more substantial and prolonged way, the Communist USSR. The subsequent fil ofthe Soviet Union, which marked the ofcal end of yet another was the Cold Wy, stso prompted a search for a “new” enemy/outside to rationalize a multibillion. dollar budget for the defense industry. As the United States applauded he ‘oppling ofthe Berlin Wall in 3985, plans for a similar wall, the 1-foot-tal tee! fence that now divides the United States and Mexico, were well under way. Given the importance (tothe defense industry) of maintaining a militarized ffont at home—keeping an entre nation fearful ofan imagined ouside evil. and abroad to protect U-S investments, the “enemy” (of focus) constructed ‘© promote the United States'“national security” spending had become for- ‘ign “teorists years before the September 1, 2001, atacks. Although current national discourse is one of defending the homeland against terrorism, the ste. ‘eovpica image of passionately anti-American, dark-haired, turban-weating, bearded Middle Eastern men accelerated the targeting of communities of colon anc migrants in general. Despite the Timothy McVeighs, the Ted Kaceynski, and the Naz insignia -wearing high schoo! kids spraying bullets on school eam. Prses across the county it is stil the Rodney Kings, the Amadou Diallo, the ‘ones who drive while black (or brown), and the Muslims or Arabs who “ft the Seseiption.’ Accordingly in response tothe bombing of a federal building in Okiahoma—a terrorist attack bya “white,"U-S-bor, right-wing “extremist” Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the Antiteroriam and Effective Death Penalty Actin 1996, which, among its provisions eargeted both legal and illegal migrants, requiring immigration officials to detain and deport legal migrants convicted of felonies, even if they had already served time in prison for the crime.” This law marked the beginning of the current shift toa blucring of the anti-migrant and parallel anti-terrorist discourses ‘The post-Cold War “enemy” has thus taken vatious shapes across the United States, varying geographically both depending on and feeding off the fears of| particular populations. The Border Patrol, “Concermed Citizens,” and Terrorism While che lates war" has manifested itself in various forms, ts primary domes tic battleground has become the U-S///Mexico border, where migrants have become the most visible and viable “enemies” and defense against terrorism hhas translated into defending the border. This fear and this nativise impulse have led toa resurgence of vigilantism and of extralegal as well as legislative or legal efforts agaanst migrants, Despite the buildup of policing that emerged as «centerpiece of Clinton's administration with policies such as Operation Hold the Line in El Peso, Texas (993) and Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, Cal- ifornia (1994), and which was exacerbated under President Bush and President (Obama, anti-immigrant nativists commonly argue that the government has failed 10 do its job of controling the border. According to Peter Andreas, this “nostalgic narrative” that imagines a border ance “under control” and provides a rallying call to “regain control,” as was done with the frontier* While the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the one-time patent agency of the Border Patrol, has been reonganized as Immigration and Customs Enforce- ment (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and US. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), all under the new Department of Homeland Security, which has since become one of the fastest-growing federal agencies, some are still not satisfied. As the largest federal law enforcement ageney, with, over eighteen thousand agents (more than twice its membership numbers in +2001), the Border Pattl is, as of 2010, ironically over s2 percent Latin@®. While, according to Timothy Dunn, the Cold War has shifted to a low-intensity war at the nation’s edge under the rubric of the new “war on terror,” what some nativists want is a full-scale militarization ofthe border.” To date some of their wishes have been granted, as witnessed by a greater number of Border Patrol52. Chaptert ‘gents than ever before, increased use ofthe National Guaed, and even several nmanned Predator B drones hovering above the U-S//Mexico border, yet calls to “regain” control of the border echo louder than eves, from San Yeiceo and El Paso on to Washington, D.C, ‘The Border Pawols growth over the years has been accompanied by “help” Som several groups of ‘concemed citizens,” some paramilitary in orientation, ‘who have unofficially joined into assis in “controlling” the bonder, Tis neq ‘evs it has been occurring in San Diego since the 1970s, yet a renewed svave began inthe mid-r9gos.In San Diego, as early as 994 amidst the debate oes Fropotiton 7-—a measure that sought to deny services to any “suspeced™ undocumented migrants—a group calling itself he Citizens Patrol began ile sally impersonating federal officer sits members combed San Diego's Lind bergh eld Intemational Airport asking Lain@ for thc green cade Reported atacks by another group, the Border Militia, on unsuspecting would-be border Crosser east of San Diego also signaled that such “vigilante” efforts were on the ‘se. Chris Simcox, co-founder along with Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project interestingly made this point: "We are thee years post September, 200%, and sill our government is more concerned with secuting the borders f fvcign lands than securing the borders ofthe United States." Veiled ins newer {anguage of compassion and citizenship, freedom and benevolence, the Minuee, then Pave also gone to great lengths to appear matasteam, tng fo example the likes of resident John F. Kennedy on their homepage: “We need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who aze not only prepared to take arms, but citizens whe ‘eair the preservation of icedom asthe basic purpose of ther dllyife"" They ‘ciltionally embrace « language of benevolence toward immigrants ia theie campaigns aguinst them: “We Minutemen are not content witha sohion that ‘evant those who capitalize onthe misery of others. Bu the status quois good cnough for the so-called ‘human rights activists who are not offended when People are treated no better than chattel."® The group's mission statement con ‘Snues, “When Minutemen stand against the open borders coalition, we stand fins systematic ape, abuse and exploitation of our fellow human beings, We bring water and food to those who are dying in the desert. We did not vite ‘hem, others did; but we will not abandon them to die as their enslavens dor" ‘The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a reorganization ofthe intial Min- seman Project of 200s stil alludes, however, to the threat of terrorism in ite ‘ationale fr policing the border, while attempting to connect itself to the Min, utemen of 773: ‘Minutemen fought valiantly fr liberty across New England and, togethee with the regular Continental Army, brought an end to British tyranny in the Col- ‘nies. In recent times the legacy of the Minutemen has been honored by Americans who share a concern for homeland defense... .[SJince the infamous terrorist attacks of September 1,200 the term hus also been applied to groups ‘of volunters that seek to protect Americas borders from unwelcome inruders Although the “enemy” has been defined as “terrorists, "presumably Islamic fan- damentalists in the United States current imaginary, nativist groups have advo- «ated sealing the border to stop illegal migration as a way of keeping “terrorists” from coming into the councry, implicitly blurring the distinction becween the ‘vo, making a traditional call to arms with modified “Uncle Sam Wants You!" Posters (gure 7) alongside new calls. or example, the civilian watch group California Border Watch's web page “Stating Your Own Border Watch Group” ‘exemplifies this trend: Starting a Border Watch unit i what every ed blooded citizen and legal alien ould be doing chess lays. The number one threat t everything you know and love isnot so much overseas anymore Its a porous border! The enemies of our ‘wel being [i]. The destroyers of our children’s futures ae among us, including Al (Qued,says the rank and fle Border Patrol Agents, says union leader T] Bonner Lid... Al Queda is acros the street planning the next slaughter of millions and you ston your hands and watch “Love Lucy"renuns. You need tobe onthe border with or without Border Watch, Form your own small o lange unit and go for it ‘Making an appeal for fellow “ted-blooded citizen{s]"to form theie own border watch group and “go for it,” the California Border Watch makes a point of {including “legal alien(s]” and jumps from “overseas” to the border to “across the street.” The nation, in their eyes, is figured here as the home where one watches I Love Lucy and a site where one must suspect one’s neighbors in the homes across the street, as they might be members of Al-Qaeda plenning the nex? “slaughter of millions.” ‘While one might wonder where the group gets its figures from, ina different article on their website Minuteman Tim Donnelly gives audiences a colorful idea of how CBW’s purported “slaughter of millions” might happen: “Terrorists ‘who wish to convert by tyranny all who oppose their warped and radical version of Islam are free today to walk across the border unchecked with chemical,te SECURE wm. US Border The United Seates shat 16 ecery Stabe ie al ‘em Gren and al poe eden ae a “Scaameeieeint ff ‘ste: oe Sect artes and Entec cr tmmigaton unt | Registrations right here at the O.K. Cafe! FIGURE 7 Recruiting poster for the M by Minutemen chapters acros the coun lagom, tutemen, Variations on this image wete used From the groups website, wwwaiauteman biological and even nuclear materials. This is an unacceptable level of national security risk in a post-g/tx world." Weapons not known to be in the arsenal cof any nonstate “terrorist” group are here said to be within walking distance of U-S homes. While not everyone gets up fiom sitting on their hands and forms a border watch group, the efficacy of these groups les in how they have effectively managed to shift the discourse about national security following the Seprember 1, 2001, and subsequent attacks into a broad argument for securing the U-S///Mexico border from migrants. rom their “outside” position as “vig- ilantes” they have facilitated a movement of the political landscape fiom the center further to the sight, legitimating anti-migrant policy proposals. Through the opening ofthe discursive terain that equates migrants with ter- rorists,anti-migrant violence since g/1r has been directed not only at Muslitn or Arab migrants, but also at Sikhs, Indians, and Latin@s—in ll cases regardless of national it the description’ and are confused for ot assumed to be “terrorists.” September 11,2001, gave tise to a new ‘ave of migrant bashing through perpetuation of the logic of the frontier: fear of the “outside,” fear ofthe “other,"fear ofthe migrant, the “terrorist,"and any other “enemy.” The surge uf vigilantism sought to tie itself to the post-o/21 discourse of security and homeland defense, yet history again shows us itis not at all new, Nor will it simply fade into the dustbin of history, for the 2016 presidential race gave it new life and the election of Donald Trump is increasingly normalizing it citizenship status—who increasingly Vigilantism, San Ysidro, and the Shifting Discourse of Citizenship The rise of recent vigilante groups has occurred atthe intersections of reaction 2 nationalist moments (and movements) whose refusal to accept the realities of an increasingly globalized world has galvanized into a populist drive against ‘migrants. Vigilantes have afong history in both the United States and Britain, 438 well as several other countries, most notably as civilian groups organized te protect communities from robberies * What distinguishes vigilante groups in the United State is the extralegal activites they have engaged in and their specific historical and popular connection to the idea of the western frontier and accompanying notions of lawlessness, both real and imagined. While the frontier has been extensively written abous, the dominant trope has been that of a wildemess a terstory beyond the reach or control of formal judicial and86 Chaptert policing boundaries; Abrahams notes that areas “where the long arm of the law... is significantly diluted or resisted have a frontier quality" Similacly, Johnston has argued that the frontier is comprised of teritories noted for their “transitory” state, moving from an “untamed” toa “civilized” form of order and control and undergoing other forms of social transtion.”"To such spatial defi- ations, Melbin has added the idea ofa temporal frontier: the eventual setting” ‘of extended hours ofthe night, after the end of the settling of testoral fron- tiers.* Lastly Slotkin has theorized the frontier and the hunter-hero as mythical ‘ropes constituted by and through violence for the purposes of a regenerative vindication of the racialized expansionism of the “pioneers.” Nevertheless, Abrahams points to the role vigilantes played in securing the fonties from “hos- tiles"in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." Interestingly, vigilante groups also had a significant presence in the U-S Southwest in the years immediately following the 1848 acquisition of more than half of Mexico, particularly in gold rush California and Texas, arguably frontiers themselves.* Indian-hating and the lynching of Mexican@s alike were commonplace through the rs. While many Minutemen identify with the above history, James Huberty additionally felt a sense of doomsday aflliation paralleling the protagonist of ‘Be Turner Diaries 2978) ashe stockpiled an arsenal of weapons and food before leaving Ohio for Tijuana and then San Ysidro.* Traditional vigilantism, how- ever, has at times been considered “self-help criminal justice” and has largely ‘been about maintaining certain social orders." The question is: Which social ‘order and in whose interests In San Diego, one of the first vigilante forma- ‘ions in the last couple decades can be traced to Klan Border Watch, formed by Kis Klux Klan figureheads Tom Metzger and David Duke in 19772 Both Mewager and Duke would eventually run for public office. Various other “Light Up the Border” groups would follow the lead of Klan Border Watch and become active throughout the 19808 and 1990s. Legislatvely passage ofthe Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 granted what was seen as amnesty to nearly three million undocumented ‘migrants, bu it would also trigger a backlash that would emerge by the early 19908 in forms such as California's Proposition 187, which focused on migrants 4s an economic burden and would pass by a two-to-one margin, Paraded as a ‘way to stop ilegal migration, Proposition 187 would have done nothing to curb migration, but would only have increased difficulties for migrants already resid ing in the state by denying essential services and justifying the official labeling of all Latin@s as “suspects.” Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego was also a part of the backlash, signaling a shift to prevention-by-deterrence boundary and social policing in response to the new displacement of agricultural workers from Mexico following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January x, 1994. At a “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" rally organized by a group named American Patrol in early 1997, anti-immigrant protesters, including many white senior citizens bused in from as far as Long Beach 120 miles to the north and most wearing red-white-and- blue attr, placed « large Confederate flag directly on the fifteen-foot-tall steel border fence in San Ysidro; ralliers shouted at counter-demonstrators, “Go back to the stinking swamps thet you came from, you stinking cockroaches,” line now memorialized in the documentary New World Border (Peck Media, 2001). ‘The civilian patrol efforts were initially galvanized in Arizona in 2003 by the Bamete brothers and company—a group of armed ranchers claiming to be protecting their properties from “invading hordes” of undocumented migrants by openly holding them at gunpoint—and later under the banner of the Min~ tteman Project, guided by the leadership of Jim Gilehsist and Chris Simcox in April 2005. The media-savvy Minuteman Project would draw alot of atten- tion and wonld itself he later reorganized as the Minuteman Civil Defense Comps under the diection of Simeox, following a break with Gilchrist. Tt helped spawn vigilante groupings of various sorts, which emerged in numerous border regions and in states far removed ftom the nations’ borders such as Tennessee and South Carolina. Minutemen chapters have also attempted to patrol the northern border with Canada, particularly inthe states of Vermont, Montana, and Washington.” However, the efforts did not prove tobe as successful as they claimed on either the southern or the northern border. Among the Minuteman offshoots in California, San Diego County became focal point of activity. Following the media-boosted relative success of the April 2005 launch of the Minuteman Project in Arizona, a group calling itself the California Minutemen would begin to patrol the border east of San Ysidro, in Campo, theee months later Led by Jim Chase of Oceanside, who openly advocated the carrying of guns by his volunteers, nearly forty civilian patrol _members either sat on lawn chairs or roamed areas of the border in the scorch= ing mid-July heat. On that same weekend, however, two Mexican migrants were shot in the area—one while still in Mexico, only twenty or so yards from the actual border, and the other after already having crossed at least two hundred yards into the United States! While authorities and the San Diego Union= ‘Tribune dismissed the shootings as the work of “bandits’in the area targeting58 Cheptert p Aiteme inthe Nstion 59 ‘would-be crossers, the shooting vietims themselves would tell another story. Acconding to their accounts, both were approached in similar ways by people they described as masked gunmen, who, once they were only a short distance away, shot and then ran off into the dark night: In neither case was ether of| ‘the two shooting victims approached and robbed, as has occurred elsewhere on the U-S///Mexico border whea “bandits’ have indeed attacked migrants. For his part; Chase denied that any of his men were involved in the shootings and. argued instead that his patrols were the ones that were shot at ftom Mexico. Sheriff's deputies were unable to confirm Chase's story and found no bullet ‘marks or casings anywhere near his encampments. Chase had been the subject of controversy even before his mid-July patrol in East San Diego County Earlier disagreements between Chase and another civilian border patrol crusader, Andy Ramirez led to a split berween the two after Ramirez accused Chase of “condoning the use of snipers” against migrants. Chases choice of words in his own defense would bear an eerie resemblance to his defense following the July 16 shootings, themselves occurring almost ‘twenty-one years to the date after the McDonald's massacre: “I keep heasing all these things: Tm a rogue. 1m a Rambo. I want to shoot the heads off peo- ple, ....T'ma flower child compared to Gilchrist and Simeox."? While Chase ‘maintained that in Campo those patrolling the U-S//Mexico border with him hhad “not discharged one round yet, not even in practice,” he did state that he hhad come across several other people who were conducting their own patrolling of the border. “The rogue theory is absolutely true," he added.” Two points are ‘worth noting here: first, the idea of “rogues that Chase points to; and second, the way in which he tries to differentiate and distance himself from Gilchrist and Simcox. The mention of a ‘rogue theory” serves to highlight precisely what T have been arguing: That is, the civilian patrols, just lke right-wing anti-migrant politicians, strategically point to an external zeftrent, a constitutive outside pre~ sumably more “extreme” than themselves to legitimate their own questionable practices. In this ease, Chase points to the Minuteman Project co-founders as his own constitutive outside and acknowledges that the various patrols addi- ‘donally attract “nonaffates” or lone individuals out patrolling on their own. At the same time, however, Chase lke other civilian patrollers, refuses to take any responsibility forthe violence thatthe patrols foster on the part of so-called “Tone wolves” not within their own offical volunteer ranks. Also noteworthy is the Rambo reference, which is often seen as one of the constitutive elements of the “Vietnam lifes” on the border. Following the split with Jim Chase end the California Minutemen, Chino~ based Andy Ramirez, would announce plans for a second patrol in the San Diego area this time under the name of yet another civilian patrol organization, Friends of the Border Patrol. Ramirez. was no stranger to politics, as he had twice run unsuccessfully in the mid-19908 fr the California State Assembly asa Democrat. Moreover, Ramirez was also a collaborator of Ron Prince, co-author of Californias Proposition 187 in 1994, and through Friends of the Border Patrol (FBP) began eyeing a run for a federal seat. Nevertheless, the “FBP Border ‘Watch,"ashe called the patrolling action planned for mid-September 2005,.as yet another example of the mixed success of the civilian border patrols, as well as that of the legal observers responding to the border watchers, While claim- ing that over 125 people had been trained leading up to the event, and at one time claiming as many as 2,000 supporters, “Ramirez said that the only armed participants [would] be active or retired law enforcement.” On the eve of the event, Ramirez further claimed that 4oo supporters would be present. Friends ‘of the Border Patrol purposefully chose the anniversary of Mexico’ colonial independence, September 16, for their rally and began with a press conference in San Ysidro, patrolling after this east of San Ysidro in Calexico. The group ‘would subsequently cancel the activities planned for that weekend just hours after they were scheduled to begin, when only about 20 to 30 volunteers showed. up.” Among those that did show up were Ron Prince and Donna Tisdale, an Ease County resident who had been involved with civilian border patrol efforts before." Ramirez would later claim thatthe dismal showing at the San Ysidro- ‘Tijuana border on September 16, 2005, did not result in the cancellation of activites, but rather in their group “going underground” and continuing their patrols on privately owned land in the Boulevard area, where Tisdale owned a large ranch.” Despite the low turnout, the American Civil Liberties Union, Border Angels, and other legal observers were out in fall force to monitor any civilian patrol activity. While these observers believed that their presence and the lack of FBP volunteers had led to the cancellation ofthe border watch, their celebration was short-lived, as roving patrols of observers later reported that a migrant had been shot out inthe Boulevard area near the Tisdale ranch. Questions surfaced over ‘whether this was the work of Ramirez and the FBP volunteers or of “rogues” who were potentially still out patrolling, In either case, the fact remained that even if the FBP event had been cancelled, it nevertheless had created the pos- sibility for yet another violent attack on migrants in the area.60. caper "The woekend ended on a somber note. Observers retuned home for no ‘more than a temporary rest, since another group, the Simcox-afiiated Min- uuteman Civil Defense Corps, was next in line” Their leader Tim Donnelly had already announced another patrol, this time in Jacumba on the weekend of October 2, 2005, date thatin San Ysidro and San Diego more broadly had long been commemorated by the local Mexican community asthe anniversary ‘of the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City on the eve of the 1968 Olympics. The ‘third patrol in the San Diego area in less than four months went largely without a hitch, as civilian patrollers and observers again roamed the rugged terrain of East County” Meanwhile, Ramirez and his Friends of the Border Patrol sought out real estate near the border to purchase for a permanent training. and patrolling encampment for border watchers. Amid the growing tension in the summer and fall of 2005 in San Diego, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed a migrant who was trying to cross the border just east ofthe port of entry in San Ysidro.” Its inthis context of state-sanctioned and extralegal violence that California governor Amold Schwarzenegger welcomed the “Minutemen” border watchers to his state. “Block by Block” and Back Again (One crucial distinetion between the Minuteman erize and previous vigilante ‘soups is the Minutemeris careflly crafted discourse, regardless of their actual activities, as noted in the documentary by the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, and Project Witness, Rights on rie Line: Vigilante atthe Border (2005). The “new” incarnations of the Minutemen Ihave gone to great lengths to appear mainstream, citing even a decontextualized Dr. Martin Luther King, Js, in ther all for volunteers for a border watch opera~ tion: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”® ‘The language of terrorism has been paradoxically accompanied by an inclu- sive discourse claiming compassion for migrants and acceptance of and concern for other American “minorities.” As one speaker noted ata rally in support of a state border police: “Something has to be done about the unsecured border. {Take back Los Angeles block by block. They're going to run all the Americans cout of there, Blacks, and whites, everybody who is not Hispanic and there are «lot of good American Hispanics who feel the same way I do."* The issue of belonging is thus inevitably brought back to a rearticulation of citizenship as ‘ownership, Taking back Los Angeles “block by block” marks a jumping of scale from the nation to the neighborhood and back again, in which the “sanctity” of the home and its surrounding blocks must be protected at al costs by securing the U-S///Mexico border. Blacks and “American Hispanics” are included in the above equation, though somewhat reluctantly, pointing to the ambivalence the civilian patrols have toward nonwhite peoples generally. “The discourse of home and of ‘mmigration as home invasion is even more evident in the following comments by Minutemen backer John Main at the same Sacramento rally in support of the California Border Police Initiative: “You keep your door locked. .. [If] you have a welcome mat, that means you hhave a right to choose who comes in and who doesni."® California Border ‘Watch leader Britt Craig echoed the above sentiments: “Tes a matter of sover~ cignty. .. Lfyou dorit claim your vight to real estate, you lose it. Perhaps one of the more glaring examples of such scale-jamping and the use of gendered discourse is the formation of a group called MAIA, or Mothers Against Ile- gal Aliens. Their emblem reads: “Protect Our Children, Secure Our Border” (igure 8). Here the protection of the nation, its social fabric, and its borders is equated with the need to “protect our children” in a home that is imagined as under threst of invasion ‘While the border has become the spatial manifestation of the contest over Jmmigration, itis the broader imagined home (i.e, the nation) that has become the axis of this debate and of increasingly violent confrontations on the border. ‘The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Sheriff Robert De La Garza of Goliad County, Texas, upon visiting a local offshoot ofthe Minuteman Project, ‘was alarmed atthe questions they posed him as sheriff: De La Garza recounted how a “tiger happy” crowd's comments were dominated by attempts to find excuses and justifications for degaly shooting migrants in self-defense: “They kept talking a lot about shooting illegals, and what they could and couldn’ do to make it self-defense of life or property. .. .One woman kept asking, Well, ‘what i they reach for e rock, can we shoot them then? Whatif they're on private land? Can we shoot them for trespassing?”™ Whether the woman cited above ‘was a member of Mothers Against Illegal Aliens remains unclear, bu the idea of “trespassing” into the nation/home should not. Barbara Perry points to the victimization and “revictimization’ endured by migrants at the hands of both Border Patrol agents and vigilantes alike “because of their particular fears of reporting abuses by civilians and state agents." Tt is precisely this vitimiza- tion and the consequent inability to seek due remedy because of fear that castMOTHERS AGAINST ILLEGAL ALIENS a ov MOTHERS AGAINST ILLEGAL ALIENS, SNAYTV TVOHTI LSNIV! SNATTV TVDATI LSNIVOV SHAHLOW Protect Our Children, Secure Our Border!” FIGURE ® Mothers Against legal Aliens exemplifies the slippage between woman and nation, Emblem taken from their website, unew.mothersaguinstllegalaliens. or. ‘migrants, both “legal” and “illegal,” as always outside. Yee their position filing the labor needs of the nation maintains them physically present while soc external, constitutive outside that reinforces the imagined white nation Ina similar light, the structural embeddedness of migrant labor, despite & raciaVcolonial objection, has served to normalize anti-migrant sentiment and the complementary civilian patrols that police these social boundaries throughout diferent historical moments. While t occasionally discussed as spontaneous citizen formations, many of their leaders ivilian patrol groups sre and rank-and-file members are longtime law enforcement officers themselves or have other related experience, backgrounds, or political aspirations. In his book on the original Minutemen, David Hackett Fischer states, ter of the Minutemen in 1775 was the product of many years of institutional “The mus- development ...itwas also the result of carefil planning and collective effort. By the time of the Revolution, Massachusers had been training, drilling, and improving their mila for well over a hundred years." Similarly, the recent ‘Minuteman Project and its affiated and nonafiliated offshoots must not be ‘understood in a vacuum. Instead, asin the case of the vigilance committees of San Francisco in the 18505, which sought to overthrow what they saw as a corrupt government, the groups’ long-term planning and engagement with mainstream politics reveals that they are not so extreme of “outside” the mainstream, even if they are con~ stricted as such. A nuanced look at the current “vigilante groups” and the run for office by Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist, or by Friends of the Border Patrols Andy Ramirez in the mid-z9908, as well as Chris Simcox’s short-lived bid for Senate, smacks of some stunning parallels to the vigilance committees of the 18508 and to Metzger’s and Duke's attempts to run for office in the 19708 and 2980s, One Minuteman, Tim Donnelly, won a seat in the California State Assembly for two terms (z0:0-14), san for California governor in 20r4, and is currently making a second run for Congress. In other words, they are very much a part of the political landscape even if they are not recognized as such. In fact, an October 12, 2005 letter to the editor of the Masbingtom Pest pointing out the violence the civilian patrols engaged in or triggered received an immediate response four days later from Simcox, who made an effort to establish ways in which the Minutemen’ efforts had influenced policymakers to take action, thereby attempting to foreground their sense of civic duty and a relative “inside” position. lonicaly President George W. Bush would coincide with some migrant rights advocates in calling the civilian patrols vigilantes. It svas President Bush's comments that triggered my interest in this phenomenon, as they forced me to ask: What does it mean, and what is the function of the civilian patrols, if President Bush is referring to therm as vigilantes? ‘With the citizen patrol groups still largely constructed as and considered to be extremists of outsiders, their efforts thus serve to rationalize increasingly anti-migrant policies in Congress. As Susan Mains has argued, “While immi- {gation concerns are made more concrete by focusing on physical sites of border ‘crossing, these sites are frequently signifiers for much broader, wide-ranging, and punitive efforts to police national identity.” The efforts of the Minutemen have indeed proven to construct a particular image of national identity by spa- tializing migration as solely a border issue, and therefore one of national secu- rity atthe expense of a larger (intetnational discussion about the root causes of migration, not only from Mexico to the United States, but from the larger Global South to the Global North. While the border has become the spatial64 Chapters ‘manifestation of the contest over migration, itis the broader, masculinized imagined home (i.e, nation) that has underpinned this debate and the increas~ ingly violent conftontations on the border in Texas, Arizona, and California alike, Importantly, the civilian patrols reveal how race and gender are inextri~ ‘ably entangled when it comes to the colonialty of the U-S/i/Mexico border. Conclusion So, who were the Minutemen? Who are those engaged in the civilian patrols? FFor that matter, who are the members of neighborhood watch groups, such as George Zimmerman, the man who fatally shot unarmed Black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012? Are they all depressed, unemployed, angry white men who see themselves as victimized by Mexican and Latin@ migrants ‘who, they think, are taking their jobs? Would James Oliver Huberty have joined their ranks had he not been killed by a police sniper when murdering people at the local McDonald's in San Ysidro? The answers to these questions are both yes and no, as not all ae poor and unemployed. Infact, a number are either ‘current or former military, or current or former law enforcement officers; some are retired and some are unemployed; some are professionals and some ate blue~ collar workers; most are male and white, but many are female and some are even, Latin@s or Aftican Americans. The relatively diverse profile economically and ‘occupationally speaking, though less so racially) ofthese civilian border patrols reveals precisely that ant-migrant sentiment of colonial/acial objection is not necessarily subject to the fluctuations of the economy and, lke the demand for migrant labor, is also a violent yet structurally embedded mechanism of the interstate system mediated by the U-S///Mexico border. Iti a racial/colonial ‘objection that precedes and has outlived the civilian pattols of the mid-2o00s. ‘As such, it follows that if migrant rights edvocates continue to discursively construct the racism of vigilante formations as “extremism” and “outsideness,” then they too implicitly collaborate in the legitimation of a corresponding “inside” to which the vigilante groups function as a constitutive outside; one that differs inform, yet notin substance or in logic. Instead, migrant rights advocates should proceed from the understanding that the so-called “finge” groups are indeed structurally embedded in the logic of home/nation that informs the broader spectrum of mainstream politis—which may be Democrat, Republi- AeHome the Nation 65 can, or Green, yetis always rooted in the same Wester, secular, liberal epistemic and cartographic prison of modemity/colonialty Ironically, many of the efforts to respond to the civilian patrols have man~ ifested themselves in equally masculinist ways, with well-meaning migrant tights advocates yelling atthe top of their lungs, challenging the Minaternen «types to fistfights, or commenting on their moniker as reflective of ther lack of | sexual potency. This seenario raises the question, then, of how to proceed against the civilian patrols in ways that do not reproduce the same entangled dynamic of presumably strong, virile, “masculine” men on the border protecting seemingly weak and defenseless women/nations—the latter in this case embodied by some of the migrants the civilian patrols pursue. In other words, if we are co work toward ‘a just world” and one without borders, then we must inevitably revisit, not simply the constructions of particular borders in which such debates play cout, such as the U-$///Mexico border, ut also the premises, the logics,and the cpisteme that underpin boundaries, be they national-territorial local, or those cof race and gender. How? one might ask. A few examples come to mind, First, by finding practical anti-sexist, anti-racist, and anti-nationalist tactics to disrupt the activities of the civilian patrole, such as the vse of radios to theaw off their motion- and sound-detecting systems. On a discursive level, another ‘example is cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz’s parody of the historical amnesia evident in the question “Why do they hate us?" posed after September 1t, 200% and the response sought by images of the twin towers with the words “Never Forget” above them (figure 9). Alcaraz’ image with the U-S flag as background includes the words “Never Forget,” but the towers are replaced by two teepees: the car~ toon indeed asks us not to forget, yeti forces us to expand the spatial and tem- poral dimensions of our historical memory. The image invokes Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ call for us to have an expanded notion ofthe present —not a past in the sense of a series of temporally distant events, but a “long present”—to make better sense of our social realty today, with ¢ keen awareness ofthe long history that the patterns of colonial/racal objection playing out on the border and elsewhere have, as they constitute modemity/coloniality’s raced/gendered ‘underside.* De Sousa Santos equally calls fo a constricted sense of the future, in order for everyone to (re)invest themselves in the idea thatthe future is now, that we must all take responsibility for our shared furures in the present, “To have an understanding ofa “long present "is to workagainst the workings of epistemicide, which normalize national-territorial boundaries and constructEe FIGURE 9 Lalo Alcare's syndicated cartoon callin for an expanded notion of collective memory following the atacks of September n, 2011. Courtesy of Lalo Alearaz. Image fist distributed by Andrews MeMee! Syndication. ‘the United States as a nation of immigrants by erasing the Indigenous presence ‘on the land, similar to the erasure of different knowledge and mourning sy tems, or the cartographic erasure of San Ysidro from maps of San Diego even as it remains hypervisible in the contest over “illegal” immigration, To think in ‘terms of a “long present” farther requires us to decolonize our conceptions of ‘time, which privilege the short term over a historicity and epistemology of lis- tening that takes the time to learn meaningful lessons from the past. Moreover, to maintain a vision of along present against the workings of colonialty is to make visible the contradictions expressed by the U-S//Mexico border, even as they manifest themselves so explicitly as to desensitize us. While residents of San Ysidro and the U-S///Mexico border have long resisted colonialitys be it in the form of state or extralegal racial violence, in the next chapter I turn to the municipal and territorial domination and subjugation ofan entire community via legal and jucidical means. The annexation of San Ysidzo into San Diego, ‘hich was largely opposed by San Ysidro residents, became in urn a crucial factor in the police response to the McDonal’s massacre. 2 Territorial Violence and the Structural Location of Border(ed) Communities Urbanism, as a general phenemenon, should not be viewed as the history of particular cities, but asthe history of the systems of cites within, beteocen, and ‘around which the surplus circulates... [T]he bistory of particular cities is best understood in terms ofthe circulation of surplus values at a moment of istory within a system of cities, David Harvey, Sociol ustice and te Cy Cities accumulate and retain wealth, control and power because of what lows rough thems, ratber than chat they statistically contain. — Jonathan Besverstock et al, “Won-cty Network: ‘A New Metegeography?” Nis STUDY OF EL PASO DEL NORTE, Victor Ortiz-Gonzlez notably argues | ttt ee ons inte i meni Oe Gonailez is pointing to how cities, as historical entities, must be understood both as locations and as relational spaces of circulation, Through a focus on San Ysidro and its relative invisibility inthe American popular imaginary this chap- ter aims to ascertsin what structural location and function the community of ‘San Ysidro has in relation to both the city of San Diego and the U-Si//Mexico border. Like El Paso, San Ysidro has been a community in the service of some- where else, often thought ofa a transitory space and not a destination inits own right. The example of San Ysidro points to the uses of municipal annexation as. form of metropolitan colonialism. Most scholars of municipal annexations focus on two axioms—namely, economic logics or explanations, and political ones—while instead argue that the annexation of San Ysidro to the city of San Diego points tothe importance of global lows/forces in determining seemingly local territorial disputes.