In/Visible Line: The Physical and Symbolic Power of the US-Mexico Border

ABSTRACT

What does the US-Mexico border mean to people whose marriages are defined by – and defy – this international boundary? Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with 42 mixed-citizenship US-Mexican couples, I demonstrate the imagery and symbolisms mixed-citizenship couples evoke to make meaning of the border in their lives. I find that an individual’s initial encounter with the border, each couple’s current proximity to the border, and the non-citizen spouse’s US immigration status all informed the meanings and descriptions of the border that couples shared. For couples living in the US-Mexico Borderlands, the border looms largest as a physical structure cutting into the landscape, literally separating space and people. For couples living away from the border but who can freely travel between countries, the border/lands are mostly invisible, but also a danger to be avoided. And for couples living away from the border with no legal authorization to travel across it, the border predominantly functions as a symbolic power, dividing individuals from families and communities, past from present, reality from possibility. These different understandings of the border show the physical and symbolic power of the border to divide, while simultaneously revealing how its divisiveness can be overpowered by relationships and community.

KEYWORDS:

• Mixed-status
• citizenship
• border
• family separation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Carlee Dynes and Felipe Larrocha for their help with coding and early analysis for this project; the anonymous reviewers and journal editors for their constructive feedback; and the multiple funding agencies who made this research possible. I would also like to express my gratitude to the couples who participated in this study for their time, vulnerability, and candor.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Additional information regarding study sample characteristics, couples’ backgrounds, and the interview guide can be found in Appendix A of López 2022.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences: [Grant Number SES-1519088]; UC San Diego Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies; University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States.