Border Fences Research Articles

Trend Kebijakan Pembangunan Pagar Pembatas Perbatasan di Negara-Negara Eropa Timur

The refugee crisis that took place within the European Union in 2015 has caused a lot of pressure on the bordering countries of the European Union due to the Dublin Regulation policy and the principle of sharing responsibilities that must be carried out by all EU countries. Unfortunately the countries that feel most disadvantaged are increasingly leaving the existing forms of policy, one of which is by choosing a policy of building the border fences in their border areas where refugees and asylum seekers usually pass. This article will look at how Eastern European countries such as Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria are carrying out a policy of building border fences at their borders in response to their disappointment with the European Union and to kee the refugees and asylum out from entering their territories. This article will give a description of how the policy was taken and illustrate the existence of the supporting factors behind the decision such as populist governement factors, geographical factors, and historical factors. Finally, this article is also considered important to see how a policy can become a trend towards other countries due to the momentum, even though the policy may not be the best.

Global opportunities and challenges for transboundary conservation.

Rapid biodiversity loss has prompted global action to prevent further declines, yet coordinated conservation action among nations remains elusive. As a result, species with ranges that span international borders-which include 53.8% of terrestrial birds, mammals and amphibians-are in increasing peril through uncoordinated management and artificial barriers to human movement, such as border fences. Transboundary conservation initiatives represent a unique opportunity to better protect species through coordinated management across national borders. Using metrics of governance, collaboration and human pressure, we provide an index of transboundary conservation feasibility to assess global opportunities and challenges for different nations. While the transboundary conservation potential of securing multinational threatened species varied substantially, there are distinct opportunities in South-East Asia, Northern Europe, North America and South America. But to successfully avert the loss of transboundary species, the global community must be prepared to invest in some regions facing greater implementation challenges, including the nations of Central Africa, where efforts may necessitate establishing rapid conservation interventions postconflict that align with local socio-cultural opportunities and constraints. Sanctioned and coordinated approaches towards managing transboundary species are now essential to prevent further declines of many endangered species, and global policy efforts must do more to produce and enact legitimate mechanisms for collaborative action in conservation.

The Strasbourg Court Judgement N.D. and N.T. v Spain. A Carte Blanche to Push Backs at EU External Borders?

This Paper examines the N.D. and N.T v Spain judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (EtCHR) of 13 February 2020. The Grand Chamber of the Strasbourg Court concluded that expedited expulsions to Morocco (pushbacks or ‘hot returns’) by Spanish authorities at the border fences in Melilla did not amount to a violation of the prohibition of collective expulsions under Article 4 Protocol 4 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Counterintuitively, the Court’s ruling is not a carte blanche for states to engage in automatic expulsions or push backs of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers at EU external borders. The Grand Chamber has confirmed that the notion of expulsion for ECHR purposes covers non-admission border management policies, and it applies to every individual irrespective of seeking asylum or not. It has also held that governments must not instrumentally frame certain parts of their territory through law as ‘non-territory’ to escape from their ECHR obligations in the context of border policies. The Grand Chamber has also demanded that States provide genuine and effective access to legal entry mechanisms for purposes of asylum and employment. The N.D. and N.T v Spain judgement is, however, fraught with legal inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies. It denies justice to voiceless victims of human rights violations. The ruling’s inconsistent legal argumentation leaves crucial nuances to avoid arbitrariness and rule of law violations in states’ border policies. By focusing on the individuals’ own conduct instead of the Spanish authorities’ compliance with the ECHR, the judgement displaces the individual from the heart towards the periphery of the ECHR system. It wrongly applies an ‘own conduct doctrine’ to human rights which are absolute in nature and accept no exception. The judges’ arguments are also factually wrong, chiefly in respect of the practical accessibility by the applicants to legal channels for admission to Spain. The Grand Chamber’s choice to first assess whether the individual is worthy of human rights contradicts Article 1 ECHR and the Strasbourg Court mandate to impartially and independently supervise States parties’ compliance with everyone’s human rights within their jurisdiction. The ruling provides an inequivalent level of human rights calling for lower protection standards in contradiction to those required by United Nations human rights bodies. It is also incompatible with the Spanish government’s obligations under EU law to comply with human rights in border control and surveillance policies, and the fundamental right to asylum.

Defining priorities for global snow leopard conservation landscapes

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is an apex predator on the Tibetan Plateau and in the surrounding mountain ranges. It is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN's Red List. The large home range and low population densities of this species mandate range-wide conservation prioritization. Two efforts for range-wide snow leopard conservation planning have been conducted based on expert opinion, but both were constrained by limited knowledge and the difficulty of evaluating complex processes, such as connectivity across large landscapes. Here, we compile >6000 snow leopard occurrence records from across its range and corresponding environmental covariates to build a model of global snow leopard habitat suitability. Using spatial prioritization tools, we identified seven large continuous habitat patches as global snow leopard Landscape Conservation Units (LCUs). Each LCU faces differing threat levels from poaching, anthropogenic development, and climate change. We identified ten potential inter-LCU linkages, and centrality analysis indicated that Tianshan-Pamir-Hindu Kush-Karakorum, Altai, and the linkage between them play a critical role in maintaining the global snow leopard habitat connectivity. However, international border fences, railways and major roads can fragment LCUs and potentially obstruct linkages. We propose LCU-specific conservation strategies and transboundary cooperation that should be highlighted in future snow leopard conservation. This effort represents the first range-wide, systematic landscape conservation plan for snow leopards, and provides a rigorous and analytically sound basis for further survey and evaluation.

You Shall Not Pass! How the Dublin System Fueled Fortress Europe

This Article examines the recent proliferation of walls and fences in Europe, fueled by the Dublin Regulation’s failure to distribute responsibility for asylum seekers equitably among European states. Legal scholarship does not lack literature bemoaning the failures of the E.U.’s Dublin Regulation — which dictates, generally, that the country where an asylum seeker first enters the E.U. is responsible for processing his or her claim for protection. Yet scholarship on border walls and fences, and what induces European states to construct them, is not prominent in the literature. The critiques lodged against the Dublin Regulation have primarily focused on its futility and unworkability. This Article argues that Dublin has failed asylum seekers in a more insidious way — by catalyzing the construction of Fortress Europe. The actions of European states during the contemporary refugee “crisis” illustrate this phenomenon particularly well. Section II of this Article examines the contours of the international principle of responsibility-sharing; a principle that is supported throughout the history of refugee law as an ideal modality for managing refugee flows. Section III provides an overview of the Dublin Regulation and how it distorts the international responsibility-sharing principle and violates E.U. law requiring “solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility” among member states. Section IV traces the proliferation of border walls and fences in Europe around the height of the recent refugee crisis, arguing that the Dublin Regulation’s failure fueled European states to erect physical border barriers. It also explores the formidable combination of physical and legal barriers and how these mechanisms violate member states’ non-refoulement obligation. Section V analyzes proposals for improving Dublin, including efforts to better protect refugee rights and achieve a more equitable sharing of responsibility for protection seekers. This Article concludes by questioning how the E.U. can move forward and uphold the right of all persons fleeing persecution to seek and enjoy asylum in Europe.

Caging Out, Caging In:

Border fences have a long history in the United States, and that history is deeply entangled with the rise of the carceral state. As fences along the U.S.-Mexico border grew over the course of the twentieth century, they increasingly restricted the mobility of migrants both as they crossed the U.S.-Mexico divide and once they were within U.S. territory. This article analyzes how fear of being apprehended, arrested, detained, or deported has forced migrants to remain in the shadows; and it argues that as border fences expanded in length and height, they transformed the United States into a massive, carceral state.

Immigration In Spain: Migratory Routes, Cooperation With Third Countries and Human Rights in Return Procedures

Following a brief overview of immigration in Spain, the present paper first analyses the main routes of illegal immigration into Spain, giving recent data on the number of arrivals by sea and land to the Iberian Peninsula, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands and Spanish territories in North Africa. The sea has traditionally been the main route of entry to Spanish territory for immigrants primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the years 2013 to 2015 proved an exception to this rule, with immigration by land outstripping that by sea due to an increase in the arrival of Syrian immigrants to the cities of Ceuta and above all Melilla. Next, a description is given of the political and operational mechanisms established by the Spanish authorities to control Spain’s maritime borders, especially in the Canary Islands. Such border control is achieved through unilateral surveillance measures (the Integrated External Surveillance System, Spanish initials: SIVE), bilateral cooperation (inter-state agreements with Morocco and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa) and regional cooperation within the European Union (EU). This is followed by a discussion of how immigration routes have been affected by increased cooperation between Spain and African States to intercept immigrants in their countries of origin or during transit. There is likewise an analysis of Spain’s use of summary returns or pushbacks following assaults or jumps on the border fences surrounding Ceuta and Melilla and attempts of arrival by swimming in Ceuta or by sea to Spanish islands and islets in North Africa, within the framework of the 1992 Spanish-Moroccan agreement on readmission of foreigners who have entered illegally. Lastly, we argue that the reinforcement of border control alone is insufficient to curb migration flows: to be effective, it must be accompanied by common policies in the European countries of destination and increased investment in the countries of origin to provide their citizens with the opportunity to obtain a higher standard of living and overcome the temptation to emigrate as a first option.

COPF: Citrus orchard perimeter fencing as a strategy for reducing Asian citrus psyllid (Hemiptera:Liviidae) infestation

AbstractCitrus grove colonization by the Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri) starts from border trees. This behaviour can be exploited by placing barriers along grove borders to prevent psyllid incursion and thwart population establishment and growth. We tested the effects of psyllid‐resistant mesh fencing along grove borders for season‐long control of D. citri populations. Deployment of sticky cards at different heights revealed that most D. citri (>99%) were collected on traps placed at or below 3.7 m along grove border. Thus, psyllid‐resistant mesh fencing (3.7 m in height) was installed along the eastern and southern borders of a 3‐year‐old grapefruit grove to protect against D. citri infestations, while the west and north edges were left unprotected. A similar adjacent grove with no border fencing served as untreated control. A reduction of 55%–98% of D. citri numbers was observed in the grove with border fences relative to the untreated control. D. citri density reductions were more pronounced on the sides with border fences suggesting that the observed effects were due to the mesh fencing. Thus, border mesh fencing as a standalone approach or coupled with other management strategies, such as border sprays, could be an effective psyllid management strategy. The season‐long benefits of border fences are not limited to D. citri population control, but also significant reductions of insecticide input and nontarget effects, thus substantially mitigating the risks of secondary pest outbreaks and ensuring the sustainability of D. citri management in citrus groves.

A crisis of protection and safe passage: violence experienced by migrants/refugees travelling along the Western Balkan corridor to Northern Europe

BackgroundPushed by ongoing conflicts and pulled by the desire for a better life, over one million migrants/refugees transited Balkan countries and arrived in Europe during 2015 and early 2016. To curb this influx, European countries instituted restrictive migration policies often characterized by building of razor-wire border fences and border closures. Among migrants/refugees who received mental health care in Serbia while travelling through Balkan countries to Northern Europe, we assessed the prevalence and patterns of violent events experienced including physical trauma.MethodsA mixed methods study among migrants/refugees attending mobile mental health clinics run by Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) between July 2015 and June 2016, in Serbia – a main transit hub to European countries. Clinics were conducted according to MSF guidelines by experienced psychologists who were supported by cultural mediators. The main outcome measures were violent events and associated physical trauma.ResultsOf 992 migrants/refugees attending MSF mental health clinics, the majority (72%) were from Syria and Afghanistan and included vulnerable groups (14%) such as unaccompanied minors and pregnant women. The most frequent mental health symptoms/signs were anxiety (29%) and adjustment reactions (26%). Of the 992 migrants/refugees, 270 (27%) had experienced violent events during their journey. Signs of physical trauma due to acts of violence were seen in 223(22%) of the 992 individuals, 144 (65%) being perpetrated by State authorities and involving women (11%) and children (13%).Border closures along the Balkan route were associated with a dramatic decrease in registered migrants/refugee arrivals in Serbia. Conversely, among those that made it across the borders, an increasing linear trend in reported violent events was observed at MSF mental health clinics (X2 for linear trend, P <0 · 001). Qualitative evidence corroborated with quantitative findings.ConclusionsNearly one-in-three migrants/refugees seen in MSF clinics experienced violent events including physical trauma along their journey. State authorities, including those in European countries were the perpetrators in over half of such events which were associated with border closures. There is “a crisis of protection and safe passage” which needs to change towards one of respect for the principles of international human rights and refugee law.

Europe’s Infrastructure Transition: Economy, War, Nature. By Per Högselius, Arne Kaijser, and Erik van der Vleuten (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 454 pp. $90.00 cloth $29.95 paper

On May 6, 1994, Queen Elizabeth II of England and President François Mitterrand of France ceremonially inaugurated the Channel Tunnel—a highly expensive assemblage of underground and underwater passages and steel railroad tracks that promised to afford a new and deeper level of connectivity between the island nation of Great Britain and the continent of Europe. Barely twenty years later, in a referendum held on June 23, 2016, a majority of British voters determined that at least some aspects of this greater connectivity were not so desirable, voting to withdraw from the European Union.This ambitious and wide-ranging survey of the development and use of European infrastructures from c. 1850 to 2000 takes as a central concern the tensions between their perceived promise for increasing wealth and for enhancing peaceful interchange among peoples and nations and the more complex ways in which these technological systems have actually been deployed. Topics discussed include the ways in which railroads, telegraphs, and other transport and communication technologies helped to shrink space and time and the actions taken by governments to channel and constrain this connectivity through such means as constructing border fences and reconfiguring railroad lines to run through only a few border-control points. East Germany even deployed devices to derail trains exiting the country without permission of authorities. The authors also address the evolution of infrastructure systems and the logistics of war; the relationships between basic infrastructure and system building in various industries (for example, communications infrastructure and the financial industry, coal gas manufacture, and the chemical industry); efforts to map and intensify the use of land, water, air, and electromagnetic resources; and initiatives to preserve natural ecosystems through urban green belts, linked systems of nature preserves, and other strategies.In disciplinary terms, the book builds upon a strain of history of technology scholarship developed by Thomas P. Hughes (to whom the volume is dedicated) and others that is concerned with the “study … of large technical systems and their interaction with society” (xxiii). As such, the historical account is highly attentive to the social and political, as well as the material, elements of technological systems. The authors also explore the links between the history of different infrastructures and the shaping of such disciplines as meteorology, geodesy, and hydrography—for instance those between weather observatories and telegraph networks in the emergence of an increasingly sophisticated “meteorological knowledge system” starting in the nineteenth century (313).The book features findings from a range of disciplines, including geography, business history, economic history, planning history, and social studies of science and technology, though sometimes in a superficial manner lacking in analytical bite. As a case in point, a promising geographical discussion of financial flows and stock exchanges would have benefited from a more systematic discussion of the relationships between specific financial and infrastructural developments. Moreover, a bibliographic essay would have afforded the means for a deeper engagement with the subjects discussed.That said, this book is an impressive example of how scholarship that engages with a wide range of disciplines can present a richly textured account of how the world in which we all live, for good or for ill, came to be the way it is.

Border Fences and their Impacts on Large Carnivores, Large Herbivores and Biodiversity: An International Wildlife Law Perspective

Fences, walls and other barriers are proliferating along international borders on a global scale. These border fences not only affect people, but can also have unintended but important consequences for wildlife, inter alia by curtailing migrations and other movements, by fragmenting populations and by causing direct mortality, for instance through entanglement. Large carnivores and large herbivores are especially vulnerable to these impacts. This article analyses the various impacts of border fences on wildlife around the world from a law and policy perspective, focusing on international wildlife law in particular. Relevant provisions from a range of global and regional legal instruments are identified and analysed, with special attention for the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species and the European Union Habitats Directive.

The influence of trees on the thermal environment and behaviour of grazing heifers in Brazilian Midwest.

The intensification of the livestock production system has gained prominence over the last decades. In addition to the reduction of grazing areas and increased productivity per hectare, the intercropping involving forest tree species and ruminants has been established as a sustainable production model, generating income and valuation of natural capital. Besides the social, economic, and environmental aspects, the animal welfare is a noteworthy factor. The objective of this study was to evaluate the microclimatic conditions in an open-pasture and in silvopastoral systems, considering the Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and alterations in animal behavior. Three different pasture arrangements were analyzed in this study: total absence of trees in an open-pasture (ArrA), presence of peripheral trees (Eucalyptus spp.) along the border fences (ArrB), and an intensive wooded area aggregated with pasture (ArrC). A herd of 24 crossbreed heifers (3/4 and 7/8 Holstein-Girolando breed) was evaluated. Behavior data were collected every 15 min starting at 08 h00 with readings ending at 16 h00. THI was used to evaluate the environmental comfort. The THI found in the system with open-pasture and in the two systems with silvopastoral arrangement reached critical levels. The two arrangements with eucalyptus rows were not capable of eliminating heat stress in the conditions found in the north region of Mato Grosso State although better conditions were obtained under the tree canopy. The differences between the microclimatic variables for the three arrangements modified the behavior of the animals regarding their location and activity, except for water consumption.

THE SPANISH-MOROCCAN COOPERATION ON IMMIGRATION: THE SUMMARY RETURNS CASES OF ISLA DE TIERRA-ALHUCEMAS (2012) AND CEUTA AND MELILLA (2014)

The Moroccan territorial claims over the Spanish territories in the North African coast has not been an obstacle for cooperating with Spain on immigration. This political question has not prevented the States from adopting Agreements of a political nature, ad hoc, specifically for the return of Sub-Saharan immigrants from Spain to Morocco after attempts to cross the border fences at Melilla in 2005 and the arrival on the Isla de Tierra-Alhucemas in 2012, enabling this latter episode to revive the bilateral Agreement on readmission of foreigners who have entered illegally, adopted in 1992. But the Spanish practice on hot returns of migrants let us analyze the violation of human rights and the procedural guarantees for the immigrant removal.

Mury Ceuty i Melilli. Od wykluczenia do autoseparacji

The article discusses the phenomenon of border fences erected in the 1990s in Ceuta and Melilla. The fences are understood as objects which have a specific agency and whose existence raises a number of activities in the political sphere, as well as having a strong impact on the symbolic sphere. On the one hand, as a consequence of the material existence of fences, there are nume-rous decisions made that influence practical legal solutions concerning immigrants. Immigrants themselves are also forced to take actions and decisions they would not do without the physical presence of the fence. On the other hand, recordings and photos of people who try to cross it serve as the visual message contributing to the creation of a simplified and negative image of immigrants in Europe. Furthermore, fences constitute a material representation of a new spatial paradigm existing in the world, which consists in exclusion and strengthens the binary opposition between a “worse” and “better world”.

Understanding and saving big predators The Carnivore Way Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators Cristina Eisenberg Island Press, 2014. 325 pp.

Understanding and saving big predators <b>The Carnivore Way</b> Coexisting with and Conserving North America's Predators <i>Cristina Eisenberg</i> Island Press, 2014. 325 pp.

Bajalta California

Michael Dear examines the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, from the first commission formed to map and delineate the physical border to the border fences constructed in recent decades as a response to illegal immigration and fears of terror threats. He considers this place in between two nations to be its own third country, which he calls Bajalta, where the border isn’t a division but the connective membrane of the borderlands.

Two Thought Experiments on Immigration Reform

Immigration today presents two distinct but related problems. The first, and most neglected, relates to the money supply and currency values: due to the global availability of Western Union and Moneygram, remittances to home countries have exploded in the last decade, with estimates running into the hundreds of billions per year. While this massive transfer of currency initially helps alleviate poverty in developing countries, remittances have reached a level that can cause stifling inflation and “Dutch disease” (stagnation of exports) in the recipient countries, and deflation or currency instability in the United States. Yet money transfer services remain almost completely unregulated and under-taxed, leaving economies on both sides vulnerable. The second problem with immigration is a tragedy of the commons or collective action problem. Abrupt, large-scale immigration can result in surpluses of workers, social disruption, and other externalities that make migrant workers collectively worse off overall. Nevertheless, each individual stands to gain more personally by migrating than by coordinating or staggering the migration, because the harm of over-immigration is diffuse, spread across the whole population. Left unchecked, the problems simply escalate. This essay, the introduction to a longer work in progress, assumes that there is some optimal level of immigration and remittances, and that we should adopt policies that allow our government to achieve optimal levels rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach to the issue. An adjustable tax on overseas money transfers, one that the Executive Branch could calibrate year to year, would allow the government to monitor and limit the amount of currency leaving our economy, while nudging immigration rates to an optimal level. Evidence shows illegal immigration to be price sensitive, fluctuating with the value the money sent home. Compared to misguided and ineffective tactics of border fences, workplace raids, and deportations, country-specific transfer taxes provide a more rational, measured, and humane way to influence the influx rate of undocumented workers and to moderate the rate of dollar outflows from our financial system.

Fences Impede Long-distance Mongolian Gazelle (Procapra gutturosa) Movements in Drought-stricken Landscapes

Human-generated landscape barriers are especially problematic for species whose life histories entail long-distance movements. In May 2008, hundreds of Mongolian gazelles (Procapra gutturosa) became entangled in border fences as thousands attempted to move from Mongolia into Russia. Typically, the root cause of such (non-migratory) mass animal movements can only be superficially described. Here we draw upon satellite imagery and a fortuitously timed field study to investigate a likely hypothesis. At the same time that gazelles were attempting to cross from Mongolia into Russia, gazelles equipped with satellite-linked collars repeatedly attempted to emigrate from Mongolia into China. Satellite-derived estimates of vegetation productivity demonstrate that a decade-long decline in available green biomass in Mongolia’s steppes underlies the gazelles’ attempted mass emigrations. Given the potential that this trans-boundary movement event will occur within these drought-stricken landscapes in the future, modest fence modifications suitable for other similar open habitat ungulates may be sufficient to allow the gazelles to maintain their nomadic movements.

Border Conflict, Border Fences, and the “Tortilla Curtain” Incident of 1978–1979

Border Conflict, Border Fences, and the “Tortilla Curtain” Incident of 1978–1979 Oscar J. Martinez The current debate in the United States over proposals to build an impenetrable barrier along the U.S.–Mexico border for security reasons and to stop undocumented immigration is the latest chapter in a long history of many initiatives to erect border fences. Some of these initiatives actually led to the building of real fences while others never got off the drawing board. This article focuses the notorious “Tortilla Curtain” episode of 1978–1979 that resulted in the erection of new fences in El Paso, Texas, opposite Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and in San Ysidro, California, opposite Tijuana, Baja California. Heated controversy broke out when the public learned of the design of the fences, which included barbed wire with sharp razors that would have the potential to maim climbers. The dispute over the proposed new barriers, which lasted several months, assumed international proportions when the Mexican government expressed outrage at the physical harm that would befall immigrants attempting to enter the United States. Part 1 of this paper provides a historical sketch of boundary making and border conflict. The description and analysis provide context for understanding the tensions generated by the Tortilla Curtain. Part 2 chronicles fence building on the border before the late 1970s to the extent that extant fragmentary data have permitted. In part 3, I relate the story of the Tortilla Curtain from my own perspective as an observer of events as they unfolded in El Paso and as a professor and researcher at the time at the University of Texas at El Paso. Legacy of Border Conflict Safeguarding the border from unauthorized human intrusion and smuggling of goods has been an ongoing concern for both the United Oscar J. Martinez is Regents’ Professor in the Department of History at the University of Arizona. Journal of the Southwest 50, 3 (Autumn 2008) : 263–278 264 ✜ Journal of the Southwest States and Mexico since the early nineteenth century, when the formal relationship between the two countries began.1 When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, Mexicans and European Americans had no choice but to contend with problems arising from a shared boundary line. From the early 1820s to the early 1850s, the biggest issue had to do with the actual location of the boundary. The United States wanted to acquire land that Mexico refused to sell. Determined to significantly increase its national domain, the U.S. government aggressively and successfully pursued an expansionist agenda against its weaker neighbor, eventually forcing the movement of the border south to the Rio Grande and west to the Pacific Ocean. As a result Mexico lost half of its national territory. The process of forced border change began in the 1820s with the legal and illegal entry of tens of thousands of European Americans into Texas, a Mexican frontier province whose boundary with Louisiana and its coastline along the Gulf of Mexico could not be adequately secured by the Mexican government for lack of resources, including insufficient military forces. Dissatisfaction with Mexican rule and ethnic tensions drove the newly arrived European Americans to launch an insurgency that culminated in the creation in 1836 of the Republic of Texas. During the rebellion, volunteers and arms from the United States poured illegally into Texas, assuring the success of the movement . Mexico, however, refused to recognize Texas’ independence. In 1845, the United States annexed Texas, an action that greatly alarmed the Mexican government. For Mexico, annexation constituted an act of war because Texas was still considered part of its national domain. Yet Mexico did not declare war on the United States over the Texas question. Mexico’s refusal to accept the loss of Texas to the United States would play a central role in the U.S. declaration of war against Mexico in 1846. The United States claimed the Nueces River–Rio Grande land strip as a part of Texas, and ordered troops to that location, precipitating the skirmish with Mexican troops that started the war. President James Polk justified the declaration of war on the grounds that “American blood had been shed on American soil.” In reality, the...

Brown, Black, and White

Page 12 American Book Review Brown, Black, and White René Martinez There’s no shortage of popular lies: Columbus discovered America, the Pilgrims and Indians got along, anybody can grow up to be President. For the most part, these are benign, allowing for a temporary delight in fantasy. Yet others, while as attractive, aren’t as harmless. One involves the issue of race. School children are told the color of a person’s skin doesn’t matter in today’s enlightened society. Bullshit. Skin color is more important than SAT scores, a college degree, or an annual salary, and denying this is dangerous and foolish. Mexican Americans know this well, especially in a time of border fences and Minutemen, but few contemporary writers of this ethnicity have effectively explored challenges of the situation. Dagoberto Gilb dares to in his remarkable new coming-of-age novel The Flowers, which examines divisions between browns, blacks, and whites and shows racism is alive and well. The novel is narrated by the young Sonny Bravo, whose life is drastically altered when his beautiful Mexican American mother marries the white owner of Los Flores apartments. Sonny is a teenager who steals dirty magazines, enjoys music, and longs for true love. Like the protagonist of Gilb’s previous novel, The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña (1995), Sonny is smart and independent, but unlike Mickey, he initially lacks understanding of how strange things can be. He learns, though, as he works at the apartments; has sex with the girl upstairs ; and attempts, often unsuccessfully, to avoid confrontation with his alcoholic stepdad. This last aspect, the tense relationship between Sonny and “the Cloyd,” is the root of a prolonged conflict between the narrator and white characters. Gilb uses Sonny to develop the brown-against-white idea, subtly by letting readers cringe with Sonny when he overhears his stepdad say, “I love to eat them tacos, and now I even got myself married to a pretty little Mexican gal,” and overtly, when Sonny, on his way home from the bowling alley, bumps into “some old white man,” and after being insulted, gets into a fight and steals the man’s wallet. The fight and theft are despicable acts, and if performed by anybody else, would be recognized as such, but by this point, readers sympathize with Sonny’s plight and believe him when he says, “It was [the old man’s] own fault, but I felt sorry and dirty.” It’s apparent minorities are meant as downtrodden heroes and whites as unredeemable villains. Along with Sonny, the good guys include Pink, an albino black man who gives Sonny a Chevy BelAir in exchange for spying on Cloyd, whom Pink identifies as one of the “‘blue-eyed-devil motherfuckers.’” He tells Sonny, “‘It all gonna change, little brother man, it all gonna change, no other way.’” Cloyd is leader of the bad guys. Cloyd is described as having a smile that always “[comes] out looking stupid,” and he is made to appear foolish for his misuse of Los Flores (the correct form would be “Las”). When violence spills into the streets, he has no qualms about handing Sonny a gun and saying they’re protected if any blacks try to break in. Cloyd’s closest friend is Bud, who insists he’s “‘tired of these kind of people’” in reference to blacks and later that he is “‘Sick of Mexicans too.’” Gilb paints these men as hypocrites who, despite fears they’re losing their country, lust after Mexican women and take advantage of cheap labor provided by minorities. Feelings of animosity between races eventually erupt into riots. The city is never named, though Gilb implies its location in California, and by doing so, parallels actual race riots that have occurred in Los Angeles. These include the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, in which Mexican American youth clashed with white military personnel; the 1965 Watts Riot, in which twenty-eight blacks were killed; and the 1992 Rodney King Riots. Gilb makes it clear minorities won’t stand to be kicked around for long. The message is simple: life is hard for everybody, but it’s harder for people with dark...