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P.O.V. kicked off the discussion by asking
Elijah 6 initial questions, the same 6 we are asking all the featured
guests.
P.O.V.: In your work, you consider the notion of 'borders.' What
is a border to you?
Elijah: The main border I am dealing with in my book is the physical
one between the United States and Mexico. This is a particularly
interesting one, in historical terms, because of the completely
different meanings it has for Mexicans and Gringos. (I use the term
Gringo because of its specificity. I could say American, or North
American, but Mexico is, after all, part of North America as well...)
Mexicans are acutely conscious of the fact that all of the Southwestern
United States used to be part of Mexico, and that the current border
cut off Mexicans on one side from Mexicans on the other. Hence,
the line in last year's hit "Somos Más Americanos" (We
Are More American) by Los Tigres del Norte: "No crucé
la frontera; la frontera me cruzó." (I didn't cross
the border; the border crossed me.")
In my book, "Narcocorrido," I spend much of the time dealing
with the ballads of drug smugglers. For the smugglers, the Mexico-U.S.
border is a barrier, but it is also what makes their business possible.
If the border were not there, they would be out of work. For many
ordinary Mexicans, the songs of the smugglers are symbolic of a
more general dislike of that border, and admiration for those who
cross it, bravely defying the national boundary that was imposed
after what we Gringos call The War with Mexico. Along with the corridos
(ballads) of smugglers, there are also many about the lives of immigrants
on the US side of the border, and the way that line cuts them off
from their roots and homes. Much is made of the fact that, while
it is a difficult (and sometimes deadly) business for Mexican workers
to cross "the Tortilla Curtain" into the US, Gringos can
cross whenever they like, without any restrictions.
I think that people in the US get very caught up in the symbolism
of non-geographical borders, using the word metaphorically, in part
because the Geographical ones are easy for us. For other people,
from relatively poor or undeveloped countries, they are far realer.
P.O.V.: What's an important border that you've crossed in your life?
Elijah: There have been so many. I spent a dozen years traveling
around the world as a wandering musician. Usually, having a US passport,
I had no problems, but I became very conscious of the fact that
the situation is very different for people with passports from Algeria,
say, or Zambia, or Guatemala... For me, the most important one was
probably Spain, because that was the first country where I arrived
knowing that I would try to live there, for an extended period,
and therefore was stepping into a new world. I also had plenty of
time to experience that one, because I was hitch-hiking in a truck,
and it was kept 12 hours at customs...
To me, there is always something magical in crossing a new border,
wondering what it will be like on the other side. In fact, those
political lines often do not make for major changes, but in some
case, like the US-Mexico line, they really separate completely different
ways of living and of looking at the world.
P.O.V.: If you could erase any border in your world, what would
it be?
Elijah: I am not a big fan of borders, and would erase as many as
I could — for people. The great injustice of the modern world
is that borders are being toughened for people, at the same time
that they are being loosened for goods and money. That is the tragedy
of NAFTA for Mexicans, that rather than allowing people to travel,
it jails them in a poor country, but allows companies from rich
countries to use their labor as if they lived up here. I would reverse
this, having controls on the large-scale movement of goods, but
none on individuals.
It is easy for us to forget that this is exactly how borders functioned
until very recently. Formal passports only came into widespread
use after World War I, within the living memory of many people.
The world did just fine without them, until less than a hundred
years ago.
P.O.V.: When and how are borders useful?
Elijah: Rather than asking when and how, I would ask, "For
whom are borders useful?" Borders, like all walls, are designed
by some people to prevent other people from passing. There are very
few poor people who are protected from anything by borders, while
for rich people most borders are easily passed. Those who feel protected
by borders should ask themselves why — whom the border is protecting
them from, why those people want to cross, and what created the
imbalance.
P.O.V.: This episode of P.O.V.'s Borders concentrates on borders
as a physical reality, in terms of people moving from one place
to another and having to cross mental and literal borders to do
that. What, in your experience, is the most contested border?
Elijah: There is no one answer for that. Historically, the most
contested borders tend to be those that have the least reality as
anything but legal impositions; those where the people on either
side are very similar. (Alsace-Lorraine is an obvious example, or
Kashmir.) The US-Mexico border is becoming more and more like that,
as cities like Los Angeles become overwhelmingly Mexican. But there
is a difference between most contested and most bitterly hated.
The US-Mexico border has a rather special status in terms of hatred,
because it is the most drastic divide between the first and third
world, and the ability to cross that line can mean the difference
between unending misery and hope. (Not that life up here is heaven,
but anyone who does not believe that there are incredible opportunities
up here compared to what is available to an illiterate peasant south
of this border is nuts.)
P.O.V.: Expand our borders. What's a book, movie, piece of music,
website, etc. that challenges or engages with the idea of 'borders'
that we should know about but perhaps don't?
Elijah: I would highly recommend the movie "Little Senegal,"
though it is not easy to find. It follows an old West African as
he tries to trace the descendants of his relatives who were sold
in the US, and is confronted with the barriers between black Africans
and Americans, even as he tries to cross them.
I would highly recommend the book "An African in Greenland,"
by Tete-Michel Kpomassie, one of the few travel books by someone
from outside the developed world. Also "Coyote," by Ted
Conover, about the lives of illegal Mexican workers in the US.
Musically, I would recommend the work of the LA corridistas, especially
El Original de la Sierra and Lupillo or Jenni Rivera, who are making
Mexican ranchera music about life on the streets of LA. (If you
don't speak Spanish, this will just sound like a lot of accordion
or brass band polka music, but if you do, it can open up a world.
And El Original's "Loco" album has a hidden track of English-language
gangsta rap.)
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