Abstract
This chapter explores the border in visual culture—in the work of the British musician M.I.A. and in three murals in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. M.I.A.’s entire career as a refugee artist is considered, but particular attention is given to the video “Borders,” released during the peak moment of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean in 2015. In the video, M.I.A. moves the listener to encounter the reality of migrants’ lives, working against a commodification of political alliances between Europe and the Global South and eviscerating the superficiality of self-empowerment mantras. Two murals are also examined—a 65-foot one called “Under the Bridge/Bajo el Puente,” designed by Yorch, of the Colectivo Rezizte in Ciudad Juárez, and “, Sister Cities/Ciudades Hermanas,” a creation of LxsDos in the El Segundo Barrio in El Paso. These murals mark historical and contemporary traces of border life, and the chapter makes some of those traces more visible, incorporating the author’s own viewing encounters with the murals. Although the muralists and M.I.A. appear to occupy different artistic terrains, all these artists, employing the aesthetics of visually charged art forms, challenge the norms of border rules and point the way toward abolition.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For more information on these releases, see “Watch MIA’s audiovisual venture Matahdatah Scroll 01 ‘Broader than a Border,’” “M.I.A. Travels with Refugees in ‘Borders’ Video,” and “M.I.A. and Surkin’s Gener8ion Share ‘The New International Sound Pt. II’ Video.”
- 2.
Reports on why M.I.A. was denied reentry into the United States sometimes differ, but a Rolling Stone retrospective on the album Kala states that it was due in part to the artist “match[ing] the profile of a terrorist.” M.I.A. describes her treatment by the US Embassy in London thus: “Suddenly, I was this citizen of the Other World—someone completely threatening and disgusting who, you know, might blow up the Super Bowl. ‘Oh no, she said the word ‘P.L.O.’ in a song!’ So [Kala] became about being an outsider voice” (Rosen).
- 3.
M.I.A. has been subject to this condescension from her childhood days. She “tells a story about moving back to England when she was 10. On her first day at school, her class were working through a sum. Maya put her hand up, because she knew the answer. ‘And literally the whole class turned round and laughed at me,’ she says, laughing herself. The teacher patted her on the head and told her she didn’t have to pretend. But she did know the answer—she just couldn’t speak English. She didn’t have the words to tell them” (Sawyer).
- 4.
To listen to the song and watch the video, see the Apple Music release. For more information on the announcement of the video release, see Monroe.
- 5.
An article in the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily FT explains the history of the holiday: “The first-ever Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) member to embrace death in combat was Sathiyanathan of Kambarmalai. Sathiyanathan alias Shankar also known as Suresh died on 27 November 1982. Seven years after Shankar’s death in 1989, around 600 LTTE cadres assembled at a secret venue in the Mullaitivu District jungles of Nithikaikulam on 27 November. The occasion was the newly-proclaimed Great Heroes Day or Maaveerar Naal as known in Tamil” (Jeyaraj).
Note that Maaveerar Naal is specific to the LTTE and not, and Jeyaraj stresses, not “a day of universal Tamil mourning.” After the defeat of the LTTE in 2009, the Sri Lankan government banned any commemoration or memorials to the organization in 2013, including observance of Heroes’ Day (Perera).
- 6.
For more information on the state of migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, see the 2021 Human Rights Watch report: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates.
- 7.
For an extended account of the abuses perpetuated by the Kafala system, see “Reform the Kafala System.” https://www.migrant-rights.org/campaign/end-the-kafala-system/.
- 8.
M.I.A. explains her own logic for the Pirates T-shirt: “I consciously made a decision to make a separation between what’s cool: arming these people that then become pirates, and separating that from peaceful non-armed human beings, like the migrants and the refugees. The whole project and the video was to define the difference between those two things. We constantly have to face people squashing those two things together—women, children, and real people in need, who get lumped in with armed conflict and militia groups and pirates. I think if you’re talking about migrants or refugees or people generally living in war zones, unfortunately sportswear and football tops are part of the uniform” (Bassil).
- 9.
According to reports, “Nearly 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees are living in India in dozens of camps across Tamil Nadu, of which nearly 20,000 are students who live in a state of despair and uncertainty about their future” (Sivagnanam). M.I.A is well aware of their predicament: “In South India there’s 132 camps with Tamil refugees and they’ve been there forever. The people that are in my video, that age group of kids in the camps are actually second generation, they were born and bred there—they didn’t come across in the boats, it was their parents. That’s how long they’d been there. But they’re still restricted: They have curfew, they have to have a day pass to get out, get a job, but they’re not actually citizens” (qtd. in Bassil).
- 10.
The Guadeloupe Hidalgo Treaty of 1848, which saw the United States annexing more than half of Mexican territory, also established a US–Mexico boundary along the Rio Bravo, which divided the city then known as El Paso del Norte into two unequal parts: El Paso, Texas, and Paso del Norte, Chihuahua (renamed Ciudad Juárez in 1888).
- 11.
No contemporary account of the Borderlands is complete without acknowledging Gloria Anzaldúa’s groundbreaking Borderlands, La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987).
- 12.
There is a long history of mural painting within Mexican culture, stretching back to pre-Columbian times. Certainly, over the last 100 years, especially since the revolution, a diverse and world-renowned muralist tradition developed in Mexico, spearheaded by Los Tres Grandes: José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The public art created by the muralists highlighted the achievements of ordinary people, focusing on a politically emancipatory life rooted in socialist politics. This trajectory of celebrating and affirming the lives and labor of workers remains an integral part of the murals created by a range of contemporary Fronterizos artists. Anthony Lee’s Painting on the Left: Diego Rivera, Radical Politics, and San Francisco’s Public Murals and David Carey and Walter Little’s “Reclaiming the Nation through Public Murals: Maya Resistance and the Reinterpretation of History” offer an important account of this tradition.
- 13.
For an excellent account of this history, see Justin Akers Chacón’s The Border Crossed Us: The Case for Opening the US-Mexico Border. See also Oscar J. Martínez’s. Ciudad Juárez: Saga of a Legendary Border City.
- 14.
“The Mexican government established the maquiladora industry in the 1960s—a maquiladora being a foreign-owned assembly plant that imports components and exports finished products duty-free—to take advantage of the border by providing cheap labor for foreign-owned industries who could then export their goods to the United States. Juárez became the collection point for deportees, for migrants ho** to enter the United States, and for migrants attracted by work in the maquiladoras. Private interests controlled the planning, or lack thereof, of urban growth, and the migrants and workers generally settled in colonias around the outskirts of the city” (Boudreaux 393).
- 15.
For a grim account of the gender violence, the feminicidios that have accompanied the rise of the maquiladora industry in Ciudad Juárez, see Nina Maria Lozano’s Not One More: Feminicidio on the Border, Melissa Wright’s “Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the Mexico-U.S. Border” and Katherine Pantaleo’s “Gendered Violence: An Analysis of the Maquiladora Murders.”
- 16.
There are several memorials, for example, for activist and artist Isabelle Cabanillas de la Torre, who was killed in the Juárez Centro on January 18, 2020. Soon after her death, “Women and allies dressed in black, with pink signage and masks, gathered at The Paso del Norte International Bridge between border cities and blocked it off for at least three hours. A few protesters even laid in fake pools of blood in hopes that performance art would help get the message across” (Caraballo). For an analysis of street art dedicated to the memory of Isabelle Cabanillas de la Torre, see Cali Mellin’s “Producing Visibility and Community in Ciudad Juárez: Returning to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera.” See also Elva Fabiola Orozco’s “Map** the Trail of Violence: The Memorialization of Public Space as a Counter-Geography of Violence in Ciudad Juárez.” Orozco points out that “the memorialization of Ciudad Juárez’s landscape constitutes an attempt to decolonize existing gender relations that produce zones of female death by fostering spaces of care and solidarity” (132). Of course, this violence is not confined to these particular borderlands. For a memorial dedicated to those who die in the deserts of Arizona, see the “Mujer Migrante Memorial.” Mujer Migrante Memorial, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5a0f3d3b42634812b33ae64b1924cd9a.
- 17.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced plans to end Title 42 on May 23, 2022, because COVID-19 cases have decreased, and vaccines are widely available. This plan was impeded, however, by a Louisiana federal judge who ruled in favor of upholding the policy, claiming that the Biden administration had not followed proper procedure in terminating Title 42. As of August 2022, expulsions of migrants under this policy were still taking place. Most recently, on November 15, 2022, US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked the use of Title 42, arguing that the order was “arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act” (qtd. in Ward and Gerstein). The current expectation is that the use of Title 42 will end when the public health emergency connected to the pandemic concludes on May 11, 2023.
- 18.
Colectivo REZIZTE is described as “a multi-disciplinary artist collective in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. REZIZTE shows the true image, true of a city like Juárez under attack from several sides. The collective creates graffiti/street/urban/mural art interventions that help to fight to empower the people” (Mural Arts Philadelphia). David Flores, the founder of Ciudad Juárez ‘s Colectivo Rezizte and co-founder of Puro-Borde, offers an introduction to the work of the collective: “the first artists to develop the Rezizte collective were “transborderistas” who used art as a way to develop a fronterizo identity. ‘Colectivo Rezizte was born in 2003 out of the crack that opens between two juxtaposed cultures on the northern border of Mexico […] bringing together different forms of expression and different genres to celebrate the diversity that makes us fronterizos,’ says Flores. When these artists began hosting lively community events, they established themselves at the center of cultural life along the border” (White). Pérez also owns the bakery Panadería Rezizte in Juárez. He directly supports migrants by donating bread almost daily to various shelters in Juárez. Pérez has also offered the bakery as a gathering place for events such as a poetry reading by Guatemalan migrants and outdoor film screenings in the adjacent alley. In turn, some of the shelters have occasionally paid for special orders from Panadería Rezizte, in what Pérez termed ‘reciprocal support,’ especially during the early months of the pandemic that threatened the survival of his business. For Pérez, the mixing of protest, art and bread is as natural as the mixing of people and culture at the border” (Boudreaux).
- 19.
Although I did make contact with the artists, I was unable to acquire reproduction copies of the murals. Consequently, I am using my own photographs of the murals.
- 20.
Martha Pskowski reports that “[s]ince mid-August [2021], millions of gallons a day of wastewater have flowed down the river along the length of El Paso-Juárez …. The Frontera Force wastewater main transports sewage from West El Paso for treatment at the John T. Hickerson Water Reclamation Facility. When the pipeline and its backup ruptured in August, El Paso Water determined a diversion into the Rio Grande was the best way to avoid human contact with the sewage” (“Sewage Discharge”). Local artist, Janette Terrazas places this contamination within a larger context: “The racist policies in the border between México and USA have eroded from our collective memory the notion that the Rio Grande is a living organism. If we re-signify our concept of the river as one of our main sources of life and not as a territorial boundary between the two countries, perhaps many things could start to change.”” The problem of pollution in the Rio Bravo,” she adds, “affects the health of the populations along the border on both sides and its effects flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds of plastics are threatening human life and species in this area” (Terrazas). Most recently, on November 21, 2022 “Blockages in a sewer line caused an estimated 250,000 gallons of wastewater to spill into the Rio Grande flood plain near the University of Texas at El Paso early this week” (Pskowki, “El Paso Water”).
- 21.
The El Segundo Barrio and its adjoining neighborhood Barrio Duranguito have a storied past: “When the Mexican Revolution started, in 1910, the people dislocated from south of the river gave these neighborhoods the character of a barrio. In many ways, the area is as historic for Mexico as it is for the United States. Mexican revolutionary Francisco Madero, for example, kept an office here during the revolution, not long before his brief tenure as Mexico’s president. Pancho Villa’s ghost is everywhere too. Villa spent his exile in Duranguito before returning to Mexico to take over the famed División del Norte. He hoarded guns and gold in houses around the neighborhood” (Hooks).
- 22.
El Plan, as it was then known, was supported by politicians and businessmen. Beto O’Rourke, then an emerging politician, was one of the voices calling for this reinvention of the neighborhood. According to reports, “The redevelopment plan was drawn up behind closed doors over two years by the Paso del Norte Group, a civic organization of wealthy oligarchs, industrialists, real estate developers, and politicos from both sides of the border” (Welsome). For a sample of the “visionary” hopes of these “leaders,” consider this statement: “Wouldn’t it be fun if there was this neat urban center with lots to do downtown? That’s what we’d like to see for El Paso,” says Kathryn Dodson, the city’s economic development director. “It would be great for El Pasoans to go to a Starbucks downtown” (qtd. in Welsome). See also Alena Semuels’s “El Paso’s Learning That Not Everyone Hates Sprawl” in The Atlantic (January 2016).
- 23.
One of the ways in which murals in this neighborhood and the spirit of resistance are celebrated is the Borderland Jam street art festival. Myker Yrrabali, a muralist and tattoo artist from El Paso, who has been involved with the annual event sees these occasions as a way to resist the division imposed by outside forces: “This is our land, this is our home …. Many people here have family across the border. Many come back and forth for work or school or both. It is our sister city and they are trying to block the view of her beautiful face. We want our work to say loudly, ‘you can’t keep us out, and you can’t keep us in!’” When asked about the contentious border wall, Yrrabali seems undaunted. “We hope it’s paintable because both sides will shout till it crumbles. It does not belong in our landscape. This land is beautiful, the world is beautiful, and it is greedy to want to corral it in and tear families apart, and prevent learning and appreciating other cultures” (White). The Borderland Jam Graffiti Art Show returned to El Paso after five years in February 2022, over President Day’s weekend. Over 100 artists from Europe and the United States accompanied local artists to paint murals in the South El Paso neighborhood. See the El Paso Times article “Photos: The Borderland Jam graffiti art show returns to El Paso after five years” to view the various murals.
- 24.
Eduardo García comments that “[m]uralism in the city of El Paso, Texas has historically been linked to societal issues affecting the members of its barrios. From the early examples of murals linked to social institutions providing services to the members of the community to the lineage of Chicano and transnational sensibilities instilled through Bowie High School art programs in post-Civil Rights El Paso, it is evident these traditions have a long-standing importance to the community” (García). For an analysis of how a mural became a point of contention for the Anglo community in El Paso, see Martin Paredes’s “What A 1994 Mural Controversy Says About Who Speaks For El Paso.” El Paso’s distinctive history of mural-making was also featured in a 2021 New York Times piece, “Art Without Borders.”
For a detailed history of mural art in El Paso, see Miguel Juárez’s Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso.
- 25.
See Nicholas Saunders’s edited collection, Icons of Power: Feline Symbolism in the Americas (1998).
- 26.
Another well-regarded artist Jesús “Cimi” Alvarado, captures this element of binationality even while acknowledging both the labor of border women and their vulnerability. Not far from the Segundo Barrio, his Pachuca Blood mural is located in the underpass bridges connecting Mexico to the United States in the Lincoln Park area. Alvarado captures the Chicana woman, known as the Pachuca, with the two flags of the United States and Mexico. Describing the significance of this mural, García points out: “The Pachuca stands tall and with fierce determination on her face, reaffirming her proud yet liminal placement in between two countries. Alvarado dedicated this mural to the women affected by the violence of the late 2000s throughout Ciudad Juárez, the border city plagued in recent years by cartel drug wars, government corruption, and silenced femicide” (García).
- 27.
The lives of ordinary people in this region counter the popular representations of Juárez as the epicenter of crime and terroristic activities. For an oppositional reading of such representations, see Carlos Gallego’s “‘Juarez, the Beast’: States of Fantasy and the Transnational City in Sicario,” a film in which Juárez is depicted “as a menacing entity encompassing everything that is threatening about the US-Mexico border” (66–67).
Works Cited
Agresta, Michael. “How a Public Art Project in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez is Spurring Cross-Border Conversations.” Texas Monthly, 13 Nov. 2019, https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/border-tuner-art-el-paso-juarez-rafael-lozano-hemmer/.
Ali, Lorraine. “Music: A Refugee Gone M.I.A.” Newsweek, 27 Mar. 2005, https://www.newsweek.com/music-refugee-gone-mia-114505.
Alvarez, Priscilla. “Federal judge blocks Biden administration from lifting Title 42 for now.” CNN, 20 May 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/politics/title-42-biden-us-mexico-border/index.html.
Alvarez, Robert. “Reconceptualizing the Space of the Mexico–US Borderline.” A Companion to Border Studies, edited by Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan, Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012, pp. 538–556.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands, La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 4th ed., Aunt Lute Books, 2012.
Baca, Annette. “Puro Borde murals show the colors of hope in the border cities.” Borderzine: Reporting Across Fronteras, 17 May 2012, https://borderzine.com/2012/05/puro-borde-murals-show-the-colors-of-hope-in-the-border-cities/.
Bassil, Ryan. “M.I.A. Talks About the ‘Borders’ Video and Why She’s Getting Legal Threats for a Soccer Jersey.” Vice, 12 Jan. 2016, https://www.vice.com/en/article/64y57q/mia-interview-2016.
Boudreaux, Corrie. “Juárez artist, baker depicts border life in murals and pan.” El Paso Matters, 10 Jan. 2022, https://elpasomatters.org/2022/01/10/juarez-artist-baker-depicts-border-life-in-murals-and-pan/.
———. “Public Memorialization and the Grievability of Victims in Ciudad Juárez.” Borders and the Politics of Mourning, special issue of Social Research, vol. 83, no. 2, Summer 2016, pp. 391–417.
Boudreaux, Corrie. “Public Memorialization and the Grievability of Victims in Ciudad Juarez.” Borders and the Politics of Mourning, special issue of Social Research, vol. 83, no. 2, 2016, pp. 391–417.
Caraballo, Ecleen Luzmila. “’Ni Una Más’: Hundreds Demand Justice for Isabel Cabanillas and Countless Other Femicide Victims.” Remezcla, 20 Jan. 2020, https://remezcla.com/culture/isabel-cabanillas-femicides-mexico-juarez-protest/.
Chacón, Justin Akers. The Border Crossed Us: The Case for Opening the US-Mexico Border. Haymarket, 2021.
Chavez Leyva, Yolanda. “Lxs Dos: The Power of Fronterizx Art.” Fierce Fronteriza, 28 June 2017, https://www.fiercefronteriza.com/fierce-fronteriza-blog/lxs-dos-the-power-of-fronterizx-art.
Chen, Min. “Catch Me at the Border: M.I.A.’s negotiation between art and politics culminates in her video for ‘Borders.’” Proxy Music, 21 Nov. 2018, https://proxymusic.club/2018/11/21/mia-borders-video/.
Clover, Joshua. Roadrunner. Duke University Press, 2021.
“Colectivo Rezizte.” Mural Arts Philadelphia, https://www.muralarts.org/artist/colectivo-rezizte/.
Conlon, Deirdre and Nancy Hemstra. “Detention Economies: Commodifying Migrant Social Death.” Migration and Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, and Survival in the Americas, edited by Jamie Longazel and Miranda Cady Hallett, Temple University Press, 2021.
Cox, Jamieson. “M.I.A. embarks on a refugee’s journey in her new ‘Borders’ video.” The Verge, 27 Nov. 2015, https://www.theverge.com/2015/11/27/9807064/mia-borders-music-video-matahdatah-album-refugee-crisis.
De Genova, Nicholas. “The ‘migrant crisis’ as racial crisis: do Black Lives Matter in Europe?” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 41, no. 10, 2018, pp. 1765–1782, https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1361543.
Dunn, Timothy. Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation that Remade Immigration Enforcement. University of Texas Press, 2010.
“‘EU must militarize chaotic immigration, identify states behind Middle East crisis’—Zizek to RT.” RT, 22 Apr. 2016, https://www.rt.com/news/340562-eu-refugee-policy-chaos-militarization/.
Feeney, Nolan. “Why M.I.A. Made a Video About the Migrant Crisis and Put It on Apple Music.” Time, 24 Dec. 2015, https://time.com/4160294/mia-borders-apple-music-migrant-crisis-interview/.
Gallego, Carlos. “‘Juarez, the Beast’: States of Fantasy and the Transnational City in Sicario.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, vol. 74, no. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 45–72.
García, Eduardo. “El Paso Segundo Barrio Muralism: Barrio History, Memory, and Identity in Community Artwork.” Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Greater Southwest, vol. 1, no. 1, 2021.
González Rodríguez, Sergio. The Femicide Machine. Translated by Michael Parker-Stainback, Semiotext(e). 2012.
Goodman, David, and Edgar Sandoval. “Abbott Threatens to Declare an ‘Invasion’ as Migrant Numbers Climb.” New York Times, 30 Apr. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/texas-border-abbott.html.
Gramlich, John. “Key Facts About Title 42.” Pew Research Center, 27 Apr. 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/04/27/key-facts-about-title-42-the-pandemic-policy-that-has-reshaped-immigration-enforcement-at-u-s-mexico-border/
Hayter, David. “M.I.A.—’Borders’ Review.” 411Mania, 28 Nov. 2015.
Hirschberg, Lynn. “M.I.A.’s Agitprop Pop.” New York Times, 25 May 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30mia-t.html.
Hooks, Christopher. “The Battle for El Paso’s South Side.” Texas Monthly, October 2017, https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/battle-el-pasos-south-side/.
Jeyaraj, D.B.S. “The LTTE’s ‘Great Heroes Day.’” Daily FT, 1 Dec. 2021, https://www.ft.lk/columns/The-LTTE-s-Great-Heroes-Day/4-726794.
Juárez, Miguel. Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso. Texas Western Press, 1997.
Kornhaber, Spencer. “M.I.A.’s Critique of Wokeness.” The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/10/mia-maya-matangi-documentary-interview/571750/.
———. “The Rapper of Refugees: What M.I.A.’s ‘Borders’ Video Really About.” The Atlantic, 30 Nov. 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/11/mia-borders-video-refugees-migration-appropriation/418017/.
Lee, Anthony. Painting on the Left: Diego Rivera, Radical Politics, and San Francisco’s Public Murals. University of California Press, 1999.
Little, Walter E., and David Carey Jr. “Reclaiming the Nation through Public Murals: Maya Resistance and the Reinterpretation of History.” Radical History Review, vol. 106, Winter 2010, pp. 5–26.
LxsDos (Ramon and Christian Cardenas). Ciudades Hermanas/Sister Cities. El Paso, 2015.
Lozano, Nina Maria. Not One More!: Feminicidio on the Border. Ohio State Press, 2019.
Lugo, Alejandro. Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts. University of Texas Press, 2008.
Maher, Bill. “Episode #7.13.” Real Time with Bill Maher, directed by Hal Grant, Bill Maher Productions, 22 May 2009.
Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. Directed by Steve Loveridge, Cinereach, 2018.
Martinez, Freddy. “On the Streets of El Paso and Juárez, “Sister Cities” Art Project Pays Tribute to Border Communities.” Remezcla, 7 July 2016, https://remezcla.com/features/culture/interview-los-dos/.
Martinez, Marta. “Central American women find safety and strength in mural painting.” UNHCR, 18 Jan. 2019, https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2019/1/5c41fa414/central-american-women-find-safety-strength-mural-painting.html.
Martínez, Oscar J. Border Boomtown: Ciudad Juárez since 1848. University of Texas Press, 1978.
———. Ciudad Juárez: Saga of a Legendary Border City. University of Arizona Press, 2010.
Mellin, Cali. “Producing Visibility and Community in Ciudad Juárez: Returning to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera.” English Master’s Essays, 30, University of St. Thomas, 2020, https://ir.stthomas.edu/cas_engl_mat/30/.
Mendoza, Jorge Peres (Yorch). Under the Bridge/Bajo el Puente, Ciudad Juárez, January 2022.
M.I.A. “Borders.” AIM, Interscope, 2015.
———. “Borders.” Apple Music, 27 Nov. 2015, https://music.apple.com/us/post/1062992861.
———. “Paper Planes.” Kala, Interscope, 2008.
———. Performer. “M.I.A.” Colbert Report, 2013.
———. “Sunshowers.” Arular, XL Recordings, 2004.
“M.I.A.: ‘How Can the West Turn People Away?’” NPR, 15 Dec. 2015, https://www.npr.org/2015/12/15/459114242/m-i-a-how-can-the-west-turn-people-away.
“MIA reveals audiovisual project ‘Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border’ via Apple Music.” NME, 13 July 2015, https://www.nme.com/news/music/mia-39-1216318.
Minsker, Evan. “M.I.A. and Surkin’s Gener8ion Share ‘The New International Sound Pt. II’ Video.” Pitchfork, 15 June 2015, https://pitchfork.com/news/59974-mia-and-surkins-gener8ion-share-the-new-international-sound-pt-ii-video/.
———. “MIA Releases Audiovisual Project ‘Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader Than a Border’ via Apple Music.” Pitchfork, 13 July 2015, https://pitchfork.com/news/59908-mia-releases-audiovisual-project-matahdatah-scroll-01-broader-than-a-border/.
Monroe, Jazz. “M.I.A. Travels with Refugees in ‘Borders’ Video.” Pitchfork, 27 Nov. 2015, https://pitchfork.com/news/62287-mia-travels-with-refugees-in-borders-video/.
“Mujer Migrante Memorial.” Mujer Migrante Memorial, 5 May 2021, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5a0f3d3b42634812b33ae64b1924cd9a.
Nolfi, Joey. “M.I.A. tackles NFL in ‘Boom ADD.’” Entertainment Weekly, 25 Feb. 2016, https://ew.com/article/2016/02/25/mia-nfl-boom-add/.
Omelas, Omar. “Under the Bridge/Bajo El Puente.” El Paso Times, 4 Jan. 2022, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2022/01/04/border-art-collective-unveils-rio-grande-mural-downtownjuarez/9078448002/.
Orozco, Elva Fabiola. “Map** the Trail of Violence: The Memorialization of Public Space as a Counter-Geography of Violence in Ciudad Juárez.” Journal of Latin American Geography, vol.18, no. 3, October 2019, pp. 132–157.
Ortiz, Victor. El Paso: Local Frontiers at a Global Crossroads. University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Ostroff, Joshua. “Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright: Tamil Pop Provocatrice M.I.A. Wages War on the Dancefloor.” Eyeweekly, 27 Jan. 2005,
Pantaleo, Katherine. “Gendered Violence: An Analysis of the Maquiladora Murders.” International Criminal Justice Review, vol. 20, no. 4, December 2010, pp. 349–365.
Paredes, Martin. “What A 1994 Mural Controversy Says About Who Speaks For El Paso.” El Paso News, 24 Jan. 2022, https://elpasonews.org/2022/01/24/what-a-1994-mural-controversy-says-about-who-speaks-for-el-paso/.
Perera, Melani Manel. “Paying tribute to Tamil Tigers banned in Sri Lanka.” Asia News, 26 Nov. 2013, https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Paying-tribute-to-Tamil-Tigers-banned-in-Sri-Lanka-29648.html.
“Photos: The Borderland Jam graffiti art show returns to El Paso after five years.” El Paso Times, 22 Feb. 2022, https://www.elpasotimes.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/2022/02/20/photos-borderland-jam-graffiti-art-show-returns-el-paso/6866830001/.
Pskowski, Martha. “Sewage discharge in the Rio Grande: One of the biggest border stories of 2021 will continue in 2022.” El Paso Times, 30 Dec. 2021, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2021/12/29/sewage-rio-grande-pollution-water-border-2021-2022/9029724002/.
———. “Spring cleaning at the Rio Grande: River cleanup complete following sewage disaster.” El Paso Times, 6 May 2022, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2022/05/06/rio-grande-cleanup-complete-sewage-irrigation-season/9679314002/.
———. “El Paso Water reports another wastewater spill near Rio Grande.” El Paso Times, 23 Nov. 2022, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/el-paso/2022/11/22/el-paso-water-reports-another-wastewater-spill-near-rio-grande/69670868007/
Qadri, Mustafa. “The UAE’s Kafala System: Harmless or Human Trafficking?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 7 July 2020, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/07/07/uae-s-kafala-system-harmless-or-human-trafficking-pub-82188.
“Reform the Kafala System.” Migrant-Rights.org. https://www.migrant-rights.org/campaign/end-the-kafala-system/.
Rivera, Nora K. “Chicanx Murals: Decolonizing Place and (Re)Writing the Terms of Composition.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 72, no. 1, September 2020, pp. 118–149.
Rojo, Luis. Uniting Families and Celebrating a Third Nation: Bridging the Wall, a True Binational Park for the Borderland of Juarez—El Paso. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2021.
Rosen, Jody. “How M.I.A. Made ‘Kala.’” Rolling Stone, 19 Mar. 2013, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/how-m-i-a-made-kala-96345/.
Sadowski-Smith, Claudia, editor. Globalization on the Line: Culture, Capital, and Citizenship at US Borders. Palgrave, 2002.
Saunders, Nicholas, editor. Icons of Power: Feline Symbolism in the Americas. Routledge, 1998.
Sawyer, Miranda. “MIA: ‘I’m here for the people.’” The Guardian, 13 Jun. 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jun/13/mia-feature-miranda-sawyer.
Semuels, Alana. “El Paso Is Learning That Not Everyone Hates Sprawl.” The Atlantic, 28 Jan. 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/el-paso-urban-walkable-americans/431661/.
Spechler, Diana. “Art Without Borders.” New York Times, 8 Apr. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/opinion/el-paso-art-murals.html.
Sivagnanam, Sujatha. “Why Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India attempted mass suicide.” Al Jazeera, 21 Sep. 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/21/sri-lanka-tamil-refugees-india-suicide-tamil-nadu-camp.
Terrazas, Janette. “Rio_Arduino.” Janette Terrazas, (México, 1985)—Contemporary Textiles, 16 May 2021, https://janette-terrazas.matd.work/2021/05/16/rio_arduino-2/.
Thomas, Mary. “Bricozaje: Between Contested Terrains and Aesthetic Borderlands.” Archives of American Art, vol. 61, no. 1, Spring 2022, pp. 44–63.
“United Arab Emirates.” Human Rights Watch, n.d., https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates.
Varatharajah, Sinthujan. “MIA’s Borders: For refugees by refugees.” Sri Lanka and Diasporas, 28 Nov. 2015, https://slkdiaspo.hypotheses.org/4979.
Villagran, Lauren. “Border art collective unveils Rio Grande mural depicting migration history in El Paso, Juárez.” El Paso Times, 4 Jan. 2022, https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2022/01/04/border-art-collective-unveils-rio-grande-mural-downtown-juarez/9078448002/.
Ward, Myah and Josh Gerstein. “Judge Blocks Title 42 Limits at Border.” Politico, 15 Nov. 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/15/immigration-judge-blocks-title-42-limits-00067083.
“Watch M.I.A.’s audiovisual venture Matahdatah Scroll 01 Broader than a Border.” The Guardian, 13 July 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/13/watch-mia-audio-visual-venture-matahdatah-scroll-01-broader-than-a-border.
Welsome, Eileen. “Eminent Disaster: A cabal of politicians and profiteers targets an El Paso barrio.” Texas Observer, 4 May 2007. https://www.texasobserver.org/2483-eminent-disaster-a-cabal-of-politicians-and-profiteers-targets-an-el-paso-barrio/
White, Avery, and Holly Devon. “The Chicano Artists Transcending the US-Mexico Border.” Vice, 3 July 2017, https://www.vice.com/en/article/payvxk/the-chicano-artists-transcending-the-us-mexico-border.
Wright, Melissa. “Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the Mexico-U.S. Border.” Signs, vol. 36, no. 3, March 2011, pp. 707–731.
Žižek, Slavoj. “The Cologne attacks were an obscene version of carnival.” New Statesman, 13 Jan. 2016, https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2016/01/slavoj-zizek-cologne-attacks.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chowdhury, K. (2023). Visualizing Borders: M.I.A.’s “Borders” and Mural Art in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. In: Border Rules. Politics of Citizenship and Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26216-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26216-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-26215-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-26216-6
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)