What Are The Usa-Mexico Border Stereotypes

INTRODUCTION The United States-Mexico border has always been viewed as a location or space of immense chaos, often a place for criminal stories, where families are separated, where social imaginaries and representations can be constructed. This is the image often portrayed through social media, reinforcing and creating such border stereotypes (Iglesias-Prieto, “Border Representations” 186–87). In spaces like these, individuals, more specifically, children, create perceptions and social representations, as they experience the impact of the border settings. Social representations are ways of viewing the world and because social representations function as powerful interpretations of reality and guide actions, it is important to understand the extent to which the U.S.-Mexico border is significant in children’s social representations of themselves and others (Moscovici).
ARGUMENT
This essay aims to understand the level at which the U.S.-Mexico border is significant in Mexican children’s social representations of themselves and others.
What are the differences between children living near borders in the U.S. and in Mexico? How do these children define their situations through allowing influences of the U.S. Mexican border to shape their social imaginaries? As a product of immigrant parents, and as a person who has experienced these spaces of social influence of borders, identity confusion, feelings of belonging, illegality of family. I question traditional representations and perceptions of the border. In what ways are borders settings changing children’s perception of their surroundings and understanding of the
world? Today, in the 21st century, borders are very much prevalent and continue to matter and impact individuals, children in particular, literally and metaphorically. Their lives are entangled by what borders represent, which can be, identity, citizenship, inclusion, belonging, community and security (Children and Borders, 2013). The border between the U.S. and Mexico, has created many inequalities, but also has made important interactions, integration, and economic interdependence. These interactions are shown in the many exchanges and flows between borders. By interaction in the U.S.-Mexican border, it is meant the frequency, intensity, directionality, scale of crossing, type of material and symbolic exchange, and the social and cultural meanings attached to such exchanges (Iglesias-Prieto, Emergencias). This is how children develop their social representations. As these occur more often and at a great intensity, there is a greater cultural capacity and richness, complexity in the ways children perceive and represent the border, and richer concepts of self-identity. With this in mind and we attempt to better understand the relation between border influences and the complexity of social representation utilized by children.
ARGUMENT SUPPORTING EVIDENCE Contrary to the stereotyped childhood idea that understands children as simply being passive actors, children have become active agents in the social and political world around them. Children living near borders have been influenced in their sense of belonging and identity making. Children can be actively involved in processes of construction, reconstruction, and at times, border crimes. Children’s who are exposed to border interactions express acknowledgement of both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ border: while the existence of this border provides a sense of security for both sides, the act of crossing it can also offer interesting opportunities at the socioeconomic, temporal, and affective level, like emotion-laden journeys into different ways of life, or a gateway into families’ pasts.