“Border Granny Wants You!”
“Border Granny Wants You!”
Grandmothers Policing Nation at the US-Mexico Border
This chapter examines how grandmotherhood is performed at the US–Mexico border in service of the new nativist movement in contemporary United States and in the broader ethno-nationalist project to which it contributes. It is the work of women, especially older women, that sustains this project to police the geopolitical, legal, and cultural boundaries of the nation. Through a case study of one active Minuteman chapter and its articulation with national efforts to reach out to women, the chapter elucidates how this collective impulse to protect the border incorporates women in seemingly contradictory ways that nonetheless work together to reproduce hierarchies of power grounded in both race and gender. Indeed, women's work to keep new immigrants of color outside the boundaries of this imagined community we call nation appears inextricably tied to those women's own gendered subordination within.
Keywords: grandmothers, US–Mexico border, nativist movement, Minuteman, immigrants, border control
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.