For my thesis, I have created a publication and accompanying website through which the publication can be purchased. The website utilizes prevalent nationalistic right wing language and visual cues to promote the publication, entitled “a piece of the wall”. The publication is advertised as a commemorative piece of the U.S./Mexico border wall, but in addition the publication includes information on the effects of the wall as well as brief summaries of relevant historical events. The proceeds collected from the sale of this publication will be given to organizations assisting migrants and refugees.
Through research of the histories of U.S. border security policies, as well as, U.S. economic and military interventions in Latin America, it is evident that the border wall is not only key to creating and securing the u.s. national mythos and identity and consequently, an alien “other”, it is ultimately the continuation of colonial imperialism and the genocide of indigenous and other colonized peoples. The major goal of my work is to confront the hypocrisy of building a wall to keep out the very people who are being pushed out of their home countries by the destabilization and poverty that past and ongoing U.S. interventions are greatly contributing to if not outright fueling.
