Paper details
This week we’ll be looking at the state of immigration and we’ll begin the creative non-fiction work, The Line
Becomes a River, a controversial book that was met with a lot of backlash at the time of its publishing, and
its critiques continue to this day. We’ll also watch an episode of Immigration Nation from Netflix in order to
be given the 1st hand accounts of modern immigration diasporas.
Post 9/11 America saw an upsurge of surveillance, further funding of police and the armed forces, and the
creation of ICE. ICE and Border Patrol are two separate organizations, with one tasked with surveilling the
US border and the territories near it, and ICE was envisioned to enforce immigration laws.
We’ll be looking at both organization and consider the factors that drive individuals to join them. As the fact
that MANY members of both self identify as Latino/a,Hispanic, Latinx, etc.
For this week please begin and finish Part 1 of the book, then each week after you’ll read another part until
we conclude this unit.
I will have a zoom session where I’ll stream the episode of Immigration Nation, but thats TBA, and I’ll
announce more details on that a week before.
Prompt:
In 500 words, using the 3rd person, and using evidence, answer the following question:
Consider the difference between observing a violent system and directly participating in it. In what ways are
these two orientations evident in the text, and in the episode of Immigration Nation. Are the members
observers, or participants?