How to Tame an Imaginary Border: Critical Transgression in Immigrant and Refugee Education

Abstract

We are immigrants. And the descendants of immigrants. And the descendants of the descendants of the descendants of those unwillingly dragged across waters and borders. The offspring of attempted erasure. We inhabit lands where shifting boundaries breed border consciousness and border tongues (Anzaldúa, 1987). We are the transgression. We are the hemorrhaging and the scab and the healing all at once. We be untamed crossroads, a confluence of the imaginary borders that sought to bind us, but birthed us instead. Periodt. In 2017, South Korean artist, Kimsooja, showcased an installation entitled, To Breathe – Zone of Nowhere, depicting the intermixed symbols of 30 different national flags layered onto each other to the point that they are not individually distinguishable (Kimsooja, n.d.). However, this cross-pollination of nationhood symbols is not working to convey the corny melting-pot message that we are used to in the United States—one that purports inclusion by luring everyone into a boiling cauldron of whiteness. Instead, it works to challenge the illusory intent of state sovereignty and nationalism that lay the foundation for exclusionary and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Over the last three decades, increasing mainstream anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States has been paired with educational legislation that underscores America’s ongoing disregard and contempt for immigrants and refugees of color in America: English only laws that seek to sever students from the languages of their people under the assertion that “immigrant parents are eager to have their children acquire a good knowledge of English, thereby allowing them to fully participate in the American Dream of economic and social advancement” (Arizona Secretary of State, 2000); laws banning Ethnic Studies to prohibit any form of education that “advocates ethnic solidarity” (House of Representatives, 2010); and laws attacking “Critical Race Theory” and banning books centered on the ethno-racial, linguistic, cultural, and historical identities of people of color (Alfonseca, 2022).