“Let the Atrocious Images Haunt Us”

Abstract

The last twenty years have seen a proliferation of documentaries and films dealing with the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the Mexico-US border, some of which portray the migrant body. This article examines three films routinely included in ethnic studies courses, anthropology courses, and Latin American studies courses: Dan DeVivo and Joseph Mathew’s Crossing Arizona (2006), Rebecca Cammisa’s Which Way Home (2009), and Marc Silver’s Who Is Dayani Cristal? (2013). Of particular interest are the films’ rhetorical devices, imagery, and affective charge—how they politically engage viewers. Guided by extant scholarship on stereotypical depictions of the migrant body, the essay’s first part critiques Which Way Home as buttressed by necroclichés, defined here as rhetorical devices that situate migrants as condemned to slaughter. The essay’s second part activates diverse theoretical interventions to show how migrant lives—even when indelibly associated with images of broken bodies—become poignant to the viewer. Notably, with Which Way Home and Who Is Dayani Cristal?, the inclusion of religious motifs renders the migrant body “grievable.” By taking to heart the profound relationship that Latinx communities have traditionally maintained with Christianity’s redemptive message, this article interrogates whether entirely secular arguments can be elaborated to confront the Borderlands’ humanitarian catastrophe.