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How Drama Can Cross Cultural Borders and Foster International Understanding
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How Drama Can Cross Cultural Borders and Foster International Understanding
By: Réka M. Cristian 

Salzburg Global Fellow Réka M. Cristian explains how American drama and theater can shape the perception of global cultural boundaries

This op-ed was written by Réka M. Cristian, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023. 

In terms of cultural borders and borders in culture, American drama and theater are important loci for understanding boundaries through shaping one’s idea of outer and inner thresholds. Theater as a social art, and as the most comprehensive art form, has always been a complex realm of various border-crossings, fostering many intradiegetic (that is, within the literary text having its internal boundaries) and extradiegetic (such as actors, stage design, backstage, pit, acting methods, casting, directing, light and effects, dance, music, props, technical device, audiences, criticism, adaptation, etc.) connections and even more transgressions of various boundaries due to its performative nature. 

Dramas, in essence, have had similar cross-boundary properties as the textual base of theatrical performances. American drama, in particular, enjoyed a special niche with its transgressive presence, or rather absence, in the American literary canon. Considered a “bastard art” until the 1990s, American dramatic literature finally overcame the lack of attention and the critical bias in academic and critical circles by becoming an important paradigm in literary studies and beyond its primary discipline. For example, in 1979, Gene Wise employed a dramatic metaphor in his seminal essay which mapped the cultural and institutional history of American Studies as a movement. Here the author employed the concept of milestone “representative acts” as “paradigm dramas” in the field of American Studies through a series of “trans-actional interplay[s] in doing cultural history”; this emphasizes the practical, interdisciplinary potential of the dramatic environment as a useful paradigm in charting and interpreting essential events, publications, phenomena, people, etc. that shaped the field of American Studies in becoming the discipline known today. In a similar manner, previously, sociologist Ervin Goffman adopted the theatrical metaphor of “dramaturgical action” to describe the performative nature of human interaction using it successfully in a sociological perspective in the 1950s. 

The versatility of interdisciplinary boundary-crossings is quite imminent, especially in the case of modern American dramas, with a considerable number of plays that were adapted to the silver screen, with film adaptations disseminated globally and making them part of the international cultural canon with profound impact on audiences across the world. 

With its ritualistic roots, drama and theater are typical cultural habitats for trespasses on liminality, and for rites of passage and contact zones (Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, Mircea Eliade, Michel Foucault, Mary Louise Pratt) that have provided distinct representational grounds for many social, economic, political, and cultural issues of individuals and groups of people. By encapsulating and intersecting multitudes of identities both on stage and beyond, modern American drama has contributed to pushing the boundaries of understanding the construction of various identities. 

Moreover, the boundary-pushing potential of contemporary drama concerning the employment of metatheatrical devices, as shown in the example of Thornton Wilder’s 1941 play The Skin of Our Teeth, has enabled the proliferation of the most current subgenre of the so-called climate change plays. This is further enhanced through the collaborative and participatory potential the dramatic text offers, including improvisational performances and the alienation effect that breaks the fourth or the fifth wall. These climate change plays involve a great number of texts written by Indigenous peoples in North America but also from other parts of the world; this corpus of works includes dramas regardless of nation boundaries that reflect the dynamics and anxieties of various societies living across political boundaries.  

What Shelley Fisher Fishkin envisaged in her 2004 ASA presidential speech on “Crossroads of Cultures” as “the transnational turn” in American Studies was anchored in practice also in the dramatic arts. This was particularly done by the aforementioned climate change dramas which, due to the global topic they discuss, adhere completely to a transnational strategy. Further pioneering initiatives beyond the borders in this context are, to give just two examples, the Arts and Climate Initiative and the Climate Change Theater Action, which are platforms managing the dissemination of information and texts on climate change plays and performances, as well as reviews and criticism on the topic. These dynamically proliferating sites foster dialogue between professionals and non-professionals about the global climate crisis, through which they create “an empowering vision of the future and inspire people to take act” by breaking the boundary between fiction and non-fiction to build bridges among people and groups of people. As a result, as Christophe Sohn puts it, the action theater opens a cutting-edge territory where boundaries are seen more as resources than dividing elements, actively disseminating knowledge and building social awareness, thus engaging people in the process, and serving as a practical bridge between entertainment and learning. 

Réka M. Cristian is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Szeged, Hungary. She is the author of Cultural Vistas and Sites of Identity: Literature, Film and American Studies (2012) and co-authored (with Zoltán Dragon) Encounters of the Filmic Kind: Guidebook to Film Theories (2008). She founded and is general and editor of AMERICANA e-Journal of American Studies in Hungary.  

Réka attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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The Power of Literature in Redefining Borders
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The Power of Literature in Redefining Borders
By: Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo 

Salzburg Global Fellow Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo explores how words can reshape geopolitical and epistemic boundaries

This op-ed was written by Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

The border, the fence, the wall, the line,"herida abierta", the open wound... There are so many ways to refer to the geopolitical boundary as a mechanism that divides and separates; there are many different ways of looking at it, depending on which side one is standing on, and perhaps more importantly, on who the crosser is. An insurmountable barrier or just an easy pass, the line seems to have the ability to mutate right under one’s gaze. Yet, and as a caveat, it is essential to establish that whatever particular perspective we assume cannot distract us from the fact that people die trying to cross to the other side every day, be it in the Mexican-American borderlands, the liquid line that separates Africa from Europe, or one of the many other instances.

But the boundary is not only the geopolitical line, that presumably clearly demarcated contour that separates one country from another, this side from that side, here from there, order from chaos, law from lawlessness, and citizen from “illegal alien”; this open series reminds us that "order" is part of the word "border". Those clearly defined lines that we see on maps cannot equivocate us into believing that once you are on the other side, you are in. As Etienne Balibar says, the border is no longer, or rather, not only, at the border. The reason is that the border is much more than a traceable boundary. As an epistemic tool, Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson claim that the border structures the way we look at the “Other”, at whoever does not look, sound, or speak like us. The border creates meaning as it separates, labels, and transforms people into categories that depersonalize individuals. The power of this classification is clear in Mary Pat Brady’s words, as the border “functions as more than a site, a metaphor, a location, an image, or a fantasy”. For Brady, the border mechanism resembles an abjection machine that carries out its own border “alchemy” as it transforms people into “‘aliens,’ ‘illegals,’ ‘wetbacks,’ or ‘undocumented,’ thereby rendering them unintelligible (and unintelligent), ontologically impossible, outside the real and the human”.

Amid these geopolitical and epistemic structures that allocate individuals, cultures, and languages to particular groups, sides, locales, warehouses, detention centers, or camps, the issue is what role literature and culture can play. Words have proven their incantatory power in creating catchy phrases such as “build the wall”. As Jessy Bloom claimed in another context, “we embrace stories that have simple plots, good and bad characters” and the “build the wall” refrain provides limits, definitions, clearcut divisions, and alliances. As integral parts of our political imaginary, walls and boundaries are not just state artifacts but also potent symbols, claim Reece Jones and Corey Johnson. Yet, words can also allow us to see other bodies and hear other voices and languages. Words and images may have the ability to dismantle the order of the border, not only as it creates meaning for those on the other side of the boundary, but also as it resignifies us, on this side, in relation to that separation. Words can also create “hope spaces”, places that are not partitioned by the border or by any other epistemological attempts at “creating” different orders that are reminiscent of the same old structures of meaning.

One of the most eloquent ways of illustrating what literature and culture can do has been expressed by Toni Morrison in an interview: “I stood at the border, stood at the edge, and claimed it as central. And let the rest of the world move over to where I was.” That is the hope, that just as words create narratives that separate and discriminate, they can also create instances for exchange, understanding, and for putting ourselves in the place of whoever is on the other side.

Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo is a professor of American literature and culture at Universidad de Salamanca. Her publications have appeared in journals such as South Atlantic Quarterly, Journal of Modern Literature, Canadian Literature, and publishers such as MLA, Cambridge UP, Brill, Oxford UP and Peter Lang.

Ana attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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A Theatrical Exploration of Migration and Borders
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A Theatrical Exploration of Migration and Borders
By: Nicole Jerr 

Salzburg Global Fellow Nicole Jerr comments on how theater contributes to our understanding of migration and borders

This op-ed was written by Nicole Jerr, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

Migration, the state of being on the move and crossing boundaries, is happening all around us. We tend to think about this in terms of crossing geopolitical lines, but broadening our context can be instructive.  In the plant and animal worlds, we study migratory patterns with wonder and awe as we notice the resilience and adaptability on display, but also worry about so-called “invasive” species.  In the technological world, we migrate our data to new platforms, sometimes relieved to have better functionality and sometimes frustrated as we are forced into new rules and unfamiliar interfaces. As a society, we are also on the move as our ideals and knowledge shape our behaviors toward others, leading us to construct borders and boundaries, or perhaps to build bridges.

Migration is, literally, unsettling. Perhaps for this reason, literature, theater, and other cultural works are often a crucial means for exploring the mixed feelings surrounding migration.  Zeroing in on my own field of theater, I would also argue that works created for the theater have the capacity to uniquely challenge our ideas and responses by placing us in situations we might not otherwise experience.

Historically, theater has proven to be a rich site for exploring border crossings and the importance of giving refuge to those seeking sanctuary.  Looking back to the ancient Greek tragedians, Sophocles follows Oedipus to the end of his life in “Oedipus at Colonus”.  The self-blinded king is seeking a place where he can be buried, but his circumstances mark him out as “polluted”. In this instance, compassion prevails, but that’s not the case for other tragic protagonists who find themselves in foreign places when their usefulness has run its course.

And what about contemporary American theater? Many playwrights have taken up the issues around migration and border crossing that dominate the debates of our present-day context. In “Hamilton”, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s energetic and racially provocative re-telling of the founding of America, the line, “Immigrants - we get the job done!” is a feel-good crowd pleaser. But Lloyd Suh’s “The Far Country” takes a closer look at the Chinese Exclusion Act and the impossible choices confronting those who nevertheless sought entry to America in the hopes of bettering their prospects. Luis Alfaro’s “Mojada” is set in the present day, but is based on Euripides’ “Medea”.  Alfaro explores the inherent vulnerabilities facing an undocumented Mexican woman in Los Angeles.

These works give voice to the aspirations guiding those taking the risk of migration and demonstrate the many hardships they face upon arrival. They explore in explicit terms what exclusion looks like and how it is fostered.  But I’d like to draw attention to two works, Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” and David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face”, that articulate some of the more subtle longer-term stakes of crossing borders, especially in the American context. These plays explore what inclusion might look like and how it could be cultivated.

In “Disgraced”, Amir Kapoor, of South Asian origin, has arguably achieved every mark of financial and social success as a lawyer in New York, climbing the ranks in his firm, wearing expensive shirts, and marrying a white woman. Similarly, in Hwang’s semi-autobiographical “Yellow Face”, the playwright’s father is an ardent believer in the American Dream, and through his success as a banker, seems to have achieved it.

In both of these works, we learn that it is precisely the success of these characters that generates fear and resistance. Despite the obvious ways in which they have assimilated to American tastes and priorities, it doesn’t take much for those with power to question their loyalties. The plays suggest that American society reflexively acts as a gatekeeper at every step, constantly moving the goalposts for achieving naturalization and integration. Belonging in any appreciable sense seems out of reach.

Theater is well-poised to trace the subtle movements across boundaries of race, class, and gender. After all, actors are always playing someone else, not themselves. Cross-dressing was built in. In the Western tradition, acting was limited to male performers until the late 17th century, whereas in Eastern traditions, the actors were women. 

In Hwang’s “Yellow Face”, he uses this theatrical history to explore what it means to pretend to be a race that is not your own. The plot is too complicated (and hilarious) to detail here, but Hwang creates a character, Marcus, who is mistakenly understood to be Asian and decides to capitalize on this. He enjoys the community that embraces him, even if he doesn’t look (and technically is not) Asian. Meanwhile, the father, who admires the kinds of characters played by Jimmy Stewart in classic Hollywood films, is devastated to learn that he will only ever be seen as a Chinese man by those around him. The aim of the play, as articulated toward the end, is “to take words like ‘Asian’ and ‘American,’ like ‘race’ and ‘nation,’ mess them up so bad no one has any idea what they even mean anymore. Cuz that was Dad’s dream: a world where he could be Jimmy Stewart. And a white guy – can even be an Asian.”

A work such as “Yellow Face” challenges its audience to consider how we might better build bridges to belonging, rather than policing differences.

Nicole Jerr is an associate professor of English at the US Air Force Academy, where she specializes in modern and contemporary drama and also serves as the faculty liaison for Steel Script, a performance poetry club.

Nicole attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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Creating Places of Hope and Compassion
A line of Central American migrants seeking asylum board a greyhound bus in McAllen, Texas in April 2019.Central American asylum-seekers board a greyhound bus in McAllen, Texas. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/1377629387
Creating Places of Hope and Compassion
By: Michelle Rumbaut 

Salzburg Global Fellow Michelle Rumbaut proves how a commitment to compassion can create "hope spaces" for migrants

This op-ed was written by Michelle Rumbaut, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

For the past seven years, I have been volunteering with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition (IWC) at the bus station in San Antonio, Texas. In this role, I receive, welcome, orient, and support asylum seekers who are newly released from detention.

Last year, the IWC assisted over 92,000 migrants. This year, we expect to assist at least 50,000. Since 2017, I have had one-on-one contact with over 3,000 asylum seekers at the station. These past years have been exceptionally challenging, with surges of unaccompanied minors, sudden increases of migrants from countries affected by political upheaval or climate disasters, and large numbers of refugees who have little more than the clothes on their backs.

My front-row seat at the bus station has illuminated the outcomes of intentionally cruel and harmful US government policies created for migrants crossing the southern border. The long journey to cross “La Frontera” is perilous, at times involving kidnapping, rape, extortion, theft, malnutrition, dehydration, physical exhaustion, and atrocities of the Darien Gap. 

Upon crossing the border, most refugees turn themselves in to legally apply for asylum. The US government policy dictates that males and females are separated and placed into the aptly nicknamed “hielera”, Spanish for refrigerators, which are rooms with inhumanely cold temperatures and 24-hour overhead bright lights. Extra clothing and shoes are confiscated, and outside communication is difficult. The conditions in the subsequent for-profit detention centers are better, but refugees are treated as prisoners and sometimes sequestered for months.

The lucky ones who make it this far and pass their credible fear interviews are released from detention to reunite with family in the US. As bus tickets are the cheapest form of cross-country travel, many make their way to the San Antonio Greyhound hub. Here, they experience the contrasting “hope space” that the IWC volunteers have created, providing the physical and moral support they need for the next leg of their journey.    

An array of other grassroots local organizations has been an essential part of our support system, providing commitment and resources that are nothing short of phenomenal. Not coincidentally, the City of San Antonio signed the International Charter for Compassion in June 2017. The charter sets forth a commitment for the local government, religious and volunteer organizations, businesses, the community, and educational institutions to unite in recognizing the importance of compassion, as well as to create a shared ethos and safety net for its most vulnerable citizens.    

The City of San Antonio, churches, and volunteer groups such as the IWC have collaborated to effectively respond to each new immigrant crisis; these efforts have included revamping buildings into migrant resource centers, establishing systems for food, clothing, and medical care, and ensuring social work support to connect migrants with separated family and find short- and long-term shelter.

The premise of the charter is deceptively simple - to treat others as one would want to be treated themselves. This philosophy is notably absent from the State of Texas's approach to vulnerable populations, particularly immigrants. This premise is also lacking from our politically divided and stagnant federal government, without even a conversation about how to reform our broken immigration system. It is also intentionally absent from the many narratives that are propagated by politicians striving to create a fear-based “us vs. them” immigration story.

How can societies identify spaces of inclusion, civic engagement, and representation for marginalized communities, including immigrants? Perhaps a larger challenge is how societies and communities can create spaces of inclusion, engagement, and representation. I suggest that such action cannot begin until there is first a philosophical commitment to compassion.

In this context, and within the Charter for Compassion that has been adopted by 440 cities in over 50 countries, the underlying directive is for justice, equity, and respect, alleviating suffering, and a positive appreciation of diversity. The charter specifically condemns hate, violence, exploitation, and denigration of others.

An intentional commitment to compassion can guide communities on how they view and treat vulnerable populations. This, in turn, can result in the positive outcomes I have seen at the San Antonio bus station, with migrants feeling respected, grateful, engaged, and eager to give back.   

It could be seen as naive and simplistic to expect such a basic philosophy to transform societies, but a lack of compassion is the foundation for ignorance, exclusion, and a guaranteed repetition of the worst chapters of human history. 

Within just a few weeks following our program in Salzburg, there was an escalation of war, climate disasters, violence, and rising authoritarianism across the globe. In order to prevent further mass tragedy, it is essential that governments, leaders, and the most advantaged populations intentionally commit to creating mutually beneficial, compassionate safe places of hope for those living on the margins.

 

Michelle Rumbaut has been volunteering since 2016 with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition in San Antonio, welcoming newly arrived refugees at the Greyhound bus station. She has worked since 1986 at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center in Seguin, currently in the role of project administrator, and has also served the boards of various non-profit organizations with environmental and cultural missions.

Michelle attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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The Migration Dilemma Facing the US and Europe
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The Migration Dilemma Facing the US and Europe
By: Mark Wenig 

Salzburg Global Fellow Mark Wenig writes about borders and humanitarian challenges in migration to the US and Europe

This op-ed was written by Mark Wenig, who is a member of the Salzburg Global American Studies Advisory Committee and attended the program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

The global landscape of migration

Borders definitely contribute to national identities, as without them, there would be no concept of nationhood.  A country can only be sovereign if it can control who comes into it and who is allowed to leave. In short, all countries in the world have and need borders.

What makes this concept of borders so controversial at the moment is the mass migration of people, brought about by political, economic, and climactic changes. Europe is grappling with a huge influx of illegal migrants, of whom many or most are actually economic migrants, escaping poverty and economic hardships in their own countries. But they are also fleeing from repression in places like Syria and Afghanistan. Most are willing to risk their lives to pay traffickers to get them to Europe or from Europe to the UK.

The southern border of the United States has also been inundated with mainly Central American migrants from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and other places. Added to this mix are now people from Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela, as well as people from other South American countries. Most of these people are also economic migrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Most will only be able to qualify for admittance if they can claim and qualify for asylum, but most will also not meet the criteria to qualify for it.  

Urgent considerations for the US and Europe

What must the US and Europe do to address this migration crisis? What must happen so that people no longer take risks to cross the Mediterranean Sea in rickety boats provided by paid traffickers, or to cross the dangerous Darien Gap in Panama as they head north to the US? These are the central questions of our times.

I think this will continue as long as these migrants believe that once they cross the threshold and set foot in a European country or the US and ask for asylum, they will be allowed to stay. If the majority of economic migrants who don’t qualify for asylum realize they may not be allowed to stay and risk being sent back to their home countries, they would not make these dangerous journeys. The laws that govern asylum under the auspices of the United Nations were written at a different time, meant to give protection to those who face persecution and even death at home. But these laws have been exploited by traffickers and others who offer hope to would-be economic migrants, who pay them huge amounts of money to help them cross physical barriers. I believe these laws need to be updated to clarify who is an economic migrant and who is a bonafide asylum seeker. This change would allow countries to accept those who are genuinely facing danger and to reject those who only seek a better life, as laudable as that goal is.  

We had been used to seeing mainly young men trying to get to Europe, in order to send money to their families after obtaining work. But in the past year or two, we’ve seen entire families with women and children trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.  Hundreds died recently when their overcrowded boat was left adrift and not sufficiently assisted by authorities, although the reasons for what happened remain unclear.  African migrants have been imprisoned in places like Libya, as they try to get themselves into boats to get to Europe. Thousands of would-be migrants remain trapped in Mexico without the possibility of getting to the US to even request asylum, so they cross the Rio Grande and try to make it there illegally.   

These are huge problems brought about by borders, but the EU and the US, the prime destinations for these migrants, must take some actions to try and reduce the pressure of illegal migration. In the case of Europe, countries like Greece, Italy, and even Spain, due to their location, are the ones receiving most of the illegal migrants. Spain’s two enclaves within Morocco, Melilla and Ceuta, have been “rushed” by people crashing into and taking down the border fences to get into Spanish territory, believing that once they get in, they’ll be allowed to make it into Europe. Obviously, this cannot continue and solutions need to be found.  What can those solutions be?  

The need for comprehensive solutions

First, the EU as a body must come to the aid of these southern European countries to help them deal financially with the influx of people. Migrants housed in places like the Greek island of Lesbos, which is near Turkey, or the island of Lampedusa off Italy, or places in southern Spain must be treated properly while those countries shouldn’t bear the entire burden of caring for them.  

Greater efforts should be made by the EU to stop traffickers from putting would-be migrants on rickety boats and sending them adrift in the Mediterranean Sea. These traffickers are operating all along the North African coast from Egypt to Morocco and this is big business. EU navies must also be deployed to stop those boats. Ultimately, most of these migrants who don’t qualify for bonafide asylum reasons will have to be repatriated back to their own countries. The message has to go out that even if you get there, you haven’t “gotten there”. Any result that doesn’t achieve that goal will not succeed and the result will only be more people willing to risk their lives.  

In the US, more money needs to be spent to differentiate bonafide asylum cases from those who are coming for purely economic reasons. More courts, more judges, and more resources to deal more quickly with these cases are all needed. Right now, asylum claims take years to adjudicate, giving those requesting asylum time to settle in the US and making it more difficult to expel them later. It is important not to forget that most of these migrants will accept jobs that many Americans don’t want and they are willing to work for far less money than people who have legal status. Let’s also not forget that legal immigration to America has always been part of the country’s history.

The US should also improve its relations with the countries from which these people come. The US boycott of Cuba needs to be ended, as it has never worked to force regime change there and is only driving more Cubans to attempt to leave the country, almost all of whom are economic migrants. But the bottom line is finding ways to speed up the processing of asylum requests and coming up with an immigration program that works. As this problem has lingered for decades in the US and is now a partisan issue, I don’t expect any solutions anytime soon.

European countries have typically not been immigrant countries, and so their governments and people are more reluctant to accept any immigration. The war in Ukraine has upended this history in places like Poland and Romania, less so in Hungary. Austria has accepted its share of Ukrainians, mainly those with more resources and family links in the country. We should not forget that most of the Ukrainian migrants will return to their country once the war is over, and these host countries know that. Even so, these same countries have been resistant to accepting migrants from poorer, developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

In conclusion, borders have been front and center in the current world migration crisis. Given the current political polarization in both the US and Europe and the resulting public backlash against waves of illegal immigrants, we shouldn’t expect this issue to go away anytime soon.

Mark L. Wenig is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer with the United States Department of State and before its consolidation, with the United States Information Agency, having served in his last posting as cultural attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo from 2014 to 2017. Mark's previous assignments, all in public diplomacy working in press and cultural sections, included tours in Warsaw, Poland; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Wellington, New Zealand; Leipzig, Germany; Bucharest, Romania; Port Louis, Mauritius; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as in Washington, D.C., for a total of 23 years in the Foreign Service. 

Mark attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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Shifting Frontiers: The Evolution of Border Narratives in US History
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Shifting Frontiers: The Evolution of Border Narratives in US History
By: Jørn Brøndal 

Salzburg Global Fellow Jørn Brøndal traces historical shifts in the narrative of US borders from Manifest Destiny to the Trump era

This op-ed was written by Jørn Brøndal, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

Historically, borders played a distinct role in US mythmaking. As Richard Hofstadter noted in "The Progressive Historians", Frederick Jackson Turner saw the American frontier as different from any European: “in the European complex a frontier was a border, a boundary, a limitation, a place that is costly to defend […], whereas in America the frontier was the edge of the new and unused, a source of opportunity, a place where one might earn a reputation or a fortune.” 

The continental United States reached its present shape through vast territorial expansion, from the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Westward movement was celebrated as “Manifest Destiny”, which was a “white” vision that relegated Native Americans to oblivion and Mexicans to at most second-class citizenship; enslaved African Americans were viewed mostly as an impediment to national unity.

Legislation supported the notion of a “white” republic. The 1790 Naturalization Act limited access to citizenship to white immigrants. To be sure, another such act, passed in 1870, five years after the abolition of slavery, expanded access to citizenship to migrants of African descent. Such progress notwithstanding, the American Colonization Society, which existed from 1816 until 1964, remained committed to sending Black Americans “back” to Africa.

For white Americans and many white Europeans planning to migrate, the idea of the US as a virtually borderless society remained alive until 1917. Not so for other groups. From the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 until 1924, migrants of Asian descent, already barred from citizenship by naturalization legislation, were systematically excluded from entrance. In the 1920s, by which time most European arrivals were of Catholic, Jewish, or Christian Orthodox background, two restrictive quota laws in 1921 and 1924, along with the 1929 implementation of the principle of “national origins”, led to a dramatic reduction in European migration. By 1929, the idea was to return the nation to its white and mostly northern European “origins”. Cartoons of immigrants from this restrictionist era began depicting a United States surrounded by a wall.

In the 1960s, when the immigrant share of the US population approached a new historic low - by 1970, it amounted to just 4.7 percent, as compared with the high of 14.8 percent in 1890 - the United States underwent one of its most turbulent decades. Black protests, student unrest, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations rocked the nation, while presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson offered expansive visions for the future; Kennedy talked about a New Frontier and sending a man to the moon, and Johnson signed a pivotal immigration act in 1965. With that act which prioritized family reunification and skills-based migration, in that order of priority, the United States opened its borders again, even as it set numerical limits to migration from the Western Hemisphere. A new law signed by George H.W. Bush in 1990 did not reverse that trend. With this legislation came the immigration multiplier, unanticipated by the authors of the 1965 act, as the number of US arrivals skyrocketed. During the first two decades of the 21st century, 20.9 million people arrived, especially from the Western Hemisphere and Asia.

Demographic projections now predict that by 2030, migration will surpass births as the main source of US population growth. By 2045, the “white” population will no longer constitute the majority. In 2060, the immigrant share of the population will reach a historic high of 17 percent.

Donald Trump’s angry rhetoric about building a wall should be viewed from this perspective. His immediate scapegoats are the unauthorized migrants, whose numbers actually declined from some 12.2 million in 2007 to 10.9 million in 2016 when he was elected president. But the looming threat, as MAGA Republicans see it, is that the white population is in relative decline and in danger of being “replaced” by other groups. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi once claimed that when Trump said, “Make America Great Again,” he actually meant “Make America White Again”. She was right.

Previously, white Americans celebrated the westward-moving frontier and virtually no borders for European arrivals. The idea of a firm border arose with Asian migration and was strengthened when the majority of white arrivals were of southern and eastern European descent. With mass migration picking up again after 1965, Americans wary of dramatic demographic change began listening to politicians crying for more border security. They ended up supporting Donald Trump’s demand for a wall. Thus, the whole idea of US borders has undergone a process of Europeanization. Trump is the ultimate European demagogue.

 

Jørn Brøndal is professor and chair of the Center for American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. He specializes in US political, ethnic, and racial history.

Jørn attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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How Borders Shape the Character and Identity of a Nation
A photo of the main immigration on Ellis Island in New York harbor with trees and an American flag in the foreground.The main immigration building on Ellis Island in New York harbor
How Borders Shape the Character and Identity of a Nation
By: Fernando Garcia 

Salzburg Global Fellow Fernando Garcia outlines the case for a "New Ellis Island" at the US-Mexico border

This op-ed was written by Fernando Garcia, who attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program "Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism" from September 19 to 23, 2023.

If it's true that borders can define the character of a nation, America can be the perfect example. In the American case, it all begins with the fact that the nation is exceptional because of immigration, because it was indeed built by immigrants. Therefore, in its conceptual form, borders have created narratives that have defined what America is or is supposed to be as a nation.

Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and the Nation of Immigrants

In the late 1800s and the first quarter of the 1900s, more than 15 million Europeans migrated to the US. These included families, children, women, and the elderly. The vast majority came through the northeastern border: Ellis Island. Millions of people, with and without visas, came to that port, which soon became the essence of a new face of America. Those migrants who arrived at Ellis Island were fleeing religious and political persecution, violence, internal conflicts, economic depression, and poverty. They came from all over Europe, from countries such as Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Russia. It was then that that border, Ellis Island, helped to shape the idea of America as the promised land. The conceptualization of that border as such was not only impactful for those arriving migrants but also to the identity of America itself.

In America during the 1920s and 1930s, the National Public Radio (NPR) used to have radio spots (PSA) that were used recurrently throughout the daily programming to describe the American experience as a nation of immigrants and a country that was proud of it. "Being an American" was deeply connected to the idea that our nation was built, created, and imagined by immigrants. It was there and then that politics, academia, and culture embraced Ellis Island, a border, as the physical and subjective space that characterized the American being. This represented a renewed identity of America that called on itself to become one melting pot; this was an idea that we all came from somewhere to become one. This is inscribed in American symbols and mottos, such as "E Pluribus Unum"– Latin for "Out of many, one".

By the middle of the 1900s, regardless of ideology, when Americans would think of the image of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, they would embrace their common identity as the defining factor in the nation’s character. These were the strongest symbols of America, symbols that emerged from an American border, and fundamental symbols that shaped the character of a society and nation.

The US-Mexico Border: The New Ellis Island?

Nowadays, when looking at the US-Mexico border, I assert that it will, again, define our nation's character. Immigrants arriving at the southwest border come with the same aspirations and motives as those who stepped foot on Ellis Island a hundred years ago. Modern migrants also seek the opportunity to partake in the promised land and future, others are fleeing political violence and persecution. However, something is different, as these are immigrants of color, not white Europeans. 

It is quite evident today that the US-Mexico border, in policy, practice, and narrative, is the subject of an ongoing battle for the ideals of America and what America ought to be for the next 100 years, and I see at least two evolving paths of this public battle for the American narrative of its borders.

The first path defines migrants as criminals, as a threat to our nation, and as an invasion. Under this lens, erecting border walls, installing barbed wire and buoys on the Rio Grande River, and deploying thousands of armed personnel seem like the solution to the stated problem, the invasion. Therefore, it seems “reasonable” that the US sees this emerging narrative of the border through the criminalization of migrants and militarization of the border lenses. 

This narrative, somehow optional and hyper-ideologized, presents the border as a war zone where immigrants are the primary enemy, and where border policies and strategies have been heavily infused with racial hate, vitriol, and prejudice. In this version of America, children can be separated from their families, and the indefinite incarceration of refugees and asylum seekers becomes the norm. In this distorted representation of the border, we can militarize the region and treat US citizens and residents living on the border as second-class citizens with a distinct application of the law and the constitution.

Will this be the character of America for future generations? Will the border wall become a new symbol of American society and our nation's character and replace Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty?

In the second path, there is a value-oriented narrative where immigrants are recognized as essential to the development of America, understanding that without immigrants we would not be able to embrace the core value of a “Nation of Immigrants” and sustain the pace of an economy that has exceptionally relied on immigrants and migration. This narrative recognizes the fact that America is a multi-color and more diverse nation that embraces the historical belief that America is exceptional because of immigrants and that the challenges presented at our southern border deserve a solution that aligns with the values and aspirations proclaimed by the Ellis Island ideals and with a human rights approach.

It is precisely here that the Border Network for Human Rights has worked tirelessly to construct a new modern narrative where the US-Mexico border becomes the "New Ellis Island". A space and destiny where the country recognizes that migrants and refugees have an intrinsic place in our society.

So, which of these two border narratives will define the character of our America?

 

Fernando Garcia is the founding director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR). He has spent the last 25 years fighting for human rights in the U.S.-Mexico border region through his organization’s unique community approach and has successfully directed U.S.-Mexico border campaigns focused on human rights. Under Fernando's guidance, the BNHR continues to work tirelessly to educate, organize, and civically engage border communities so that they may empower themselves and demand the changes and rights they deserve.

Fernando attended the Salzburg Global American Studies program on “Beyond the Nation-State? Borders, Boundaries, and the Future of Democratic Pluralism” from September 19-23, 2023. The 2023 Salzburg Global American Studies Program focused on the contestations and renegotiations of boundaries beyond the nation-state, and how they are changing the representation of democratic pluralism.

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