Remembrance and Resilience: Resisting the Violence of the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

Remembrance and Resilience: Resisting the Violence of the U.S.-Mexico Border Mizue Aizeki (bio) The fortification of the U.S.-Mexico border dominates the current political landscape. This photo-essay goes back to the mid-1990s, when the deaths of people crossing came to the political forefront. Under the Clinton presidential administration, the U.S. government massively increased the size of the policing apparatus on the U.S.-Mexico border, with a focus on urbanized areas. As a consequence, many communities that had previously been sites of fluid migration were closed off, pushing people to cross in isolated areas with dangerous terrain. This led to a marked increase in migrant fatalities. This photo-essay highlights various responses—including political art protesting border militias and activists leaving vital supplies for migrants who pass through the desert—as well as depictions of border militarization and migrant deaths. [End Page 119] Click for larger view View full resolution Día de los Muertos. Oakland, California, U.S.A., November 2001. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 120] Click for larger view View full resolution Terrace Park Cemetery. Holtsville, California, November 2001. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 121] Click for larger view View full resolution Tohono O’odham Nation, June 2004. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 122] Click for larger view View full resolution Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, October 2005. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 123] Click for larger view View full resolution Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico, November 2001. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 124] Click for larger view View full resolution Migrant Trail, Arizona, U.S.A., June 2005. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 125] Click for larger view View full resolution San Ysidro, California, U.S.A., September 2005. Photograph. Courtesy of Mizue Aizeki. [End Page 126] Mizue Aizeki Mizue Aizeki is a photographer whose work has appeared in Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid and Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter. She is currently the deputy director at the Immigrant Defense Project, where she focuses on ending injustices at the intersections of the criminal and immigration systems, including criminalization, imprisonment, and exile. She can be reached at mizue@immdefense.org. Copyright © 2019 Mizue Aizeki