“We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”

Imágenes de la frontera México-Estados Unidos y de migración

Abstract

Generations of artists have returned to the themes of the US-Mexico border and the impact of its inconsistent and often arbitrary enforcement on the lives of Mexican, MexicanAmerican, and other Latinx communities. Visual art, music, and literature produced from the1930s through the present offer rich data for contemplating shifting representations of the border and immigrants over time and for exploring factors that shape the context, content, and tone of such representations. Because many of these creative expressions emerged in the context of social movement activism, they also allow us to explore shifts in movement politics, including new ways of thinking of about race, class, nation, gender and sexuality in relationship to immigration.