Analysis Of Borders By Thomas King

This voluntary (yet forced) alienation makes for psychological conflict, a kind of dual identity--we don’t identify with the Anglo-American cultural values and we don’t totally identify with the Mexican cultural values. We are a synergy of two cultures with various degree of Mexicanness or Angloness. So I have internalized the borderland conflict that sometimes I feel like one cancels out the other and we are zero, nothing, no one (1590).

In the short story, there is a conflict between the mother and the guards at the border. As the mother and son approach the American border the mother refuses to give her citizenship as either Canadian or American. Once she reaches the border, she has a conversation with the guard:

This book depicts the national and cultural status of the immigrant mother, who is able to preserve the traditions of her Indian heritage that connect her to her homeland. Ensuring a successful future for her American-born children is coordinated with the privilege of being an American citizen. Ashima yearns for her homeland and her family that she left behind when

The mother, throughout the short story, is proud to be a Blackfoot. The first piece of evidence that supports this is that the mother blatantly refuses to identify as Canadian or American. When the mother said, “Citizenship?” “Blackfoot”. The mother knows she has to identify as either an American or Canadian but she refuses to because of how proud she is of her people. Next, after the border officers were being nice and pleasant to her and explaining that her identifying as either a Canadian or an American was a

In a world where seven billion people can communicate in fractions of a second across the globe, share thoughts and exchange cultures, the way we choose to identity ourselves can often ‘’mark’’ us. You can often tell a lot about someone who proclaims to be Quebecois before being Canadian. And theses thing are often present in areas that have a clash of cultures, such as Québec in the former example. But the author Thomas King dives deeper into the subject with his short story Borders. King’s characters do not attach themselves to the place they were born, instead they take pride in their parents’ legacy, their heritage. By writing through the eyes of a twelve year old boy and using opposition, King displays the importance of such things and how minorities are slowly losing them.

In “Illegal Alien” Pat Mora writes about the problem of the difficulty people have communicating when they are of different backgrounds. For years now people have been judged by their skin color, their race, or where the originally come from. In “Illegal Alien” Pat Mora gives us a good example of this as the character in her poem goes through this trial of being from both the Mexican and the American cultures. Pat Mora indicates her difficulties that she is going through being born into two different cultures.

King illustrates that when the mother is questioned about her citizenship she replies ‘Blackfoot (King, 137)’. The mother regards her Blackfoot citizenship as superior her ancestors are the founding fathers of this nation. According to the Canadian Mandate “we are a nation which strongly believes in the principles behind multiculturalism and equity for all citizens.” For immigrants in Canada they are willing to give up their prior citizenship in order to be a Canadian citizen. However the mother in the story repeatedly points out the fact that being a Canadian citizen is of no value to her. The mother should not be categorized in the mandate due to her direct ties to the land. Carry Dawson confirms that for Aboriginals, loyalty to land is of greater importance than that of being a Canadian citizen. In her literary study entitled “An Indian Without a Country” at Dalhousie University she argues that for Aboriginals loyalty cannot be held equivalent at a higher status than being a Canadian citizen. Loyalty cannot be held equivalent because it “obviates the history of people with communal identities and land.” Through the use of the physical border King communicates denying the mother access from crossing the border as a metaphor for undermining Aboriginals mobility and movement.

Currently there is six million Natives living in between the United States and Canada, and only "25,000 Blackfoot Indians between the two countries"(Reddish). In the short story "Borders" by Thomas King, the treatment of natives is shown to light in a common practice. While trying to cross the United States-Canada border to visit her oldest daughter in Salt Lake City, Utah, a woman and her youngest son, of Blackfoot Indian decent, are stopped at the border. She is questioned about her nationality and calmly states "I am Blackfoot, neither American or Canadian"(King, 918). She is not allowed to enter the United States nor Canada and is stuck in a neutral zone. News channels and Newspapers cover this story as the bureaucratic dilemma ensued, many people were shocked with the treatment of Native Americans. They are eventually allowed to pass through to the United States, however this leaves many people wondering about the treatment of Natives Americans, which King displays through conflict.

“Legal Alien” by Pat Mora is a poem that describes the life of a Mexican American girl, she was born in America but her parents are Mexican. In the poem Mora mentioned that she is “Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural, able to slip from How is life to Me estan volviendo loca” (Mora 370). She is caught between two cultures. She feels that she does not belong to any society, people from America see her in different ways “viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic, perhaps inferior, definitely different” (Mora 370), but also Mexicans have a different opinion “ viewed by Mexicans as alien, (their eyes says “you may speak Spanish but you are not like me”)” (Mora 370). In this poem exists the cultural border, she does not fit either in America or Mexico “An American to Mexicans a Mexican to America” (Mora 370). She is confused about her culture, and has a cultural border problem.

Territorial expansion impacted national unity socially, economically and politically. As new settlers and immigrants came to America, the need for land grew, forcing people westward. People of different backgrounds migrated and settled among each other, creating new and diverse communities. As the west became more inhabited, the government became involved and decided which states would become slave states and which states would become free states. The new states and territories created more room for political differences among citizens. Economically, it made sense to move westward, where there was more land for farming. Farmers that had more land could grow more cotton and own more slaves. The production of cotton benefited the country greatly

“American Dreamer” by Bharati Mukherjee scrutinizes the problems involved with culture fusion and identity. Within the essay, Mukherjee provides her story of traveling to the United States to expose America’s problem with the fusion of other cultures. Fusion, according to Mukherjee, stands as the idea of multiple cultures uniting together within the context of a country under one supreme set of ideals regardless of previous beliefs and cultural influences. However, both resident countries and immigrants struggle to coexist with their conflicting societal influences. The refusal to accept cultural differences provokes division within society.

Your Citizenship please? At a point in time, people encounter this question when you are about to cross the border into a different country, whether it is by car, train or plane. It questions one’s identity as to who they are. Most people answer with the current country they live in but does one ever answer with the country that they were from? “Borders” by Thomas King, is an intriguing story about a mother that has pride in her culture and values where she comes from. Along with her two kids, she resides in a native community. The mother has to declare her citizenship at the border, where she persistently presents herself as “Blackfoot.” The story, “Borders”, illustrates how difficult it is for Aboriginals to maintain their cultural

Two hundred forty-one years. In that small amount of time America forged its self into a vast landscape of different cultures. A combination of numerous cultures mongrelized together to form “We the people” in America today. Due to all the mixing in the pot, an uncertainty about the countries identity arose. For all the beauty that the melting pot brought, it also created a darker side, as aspects of each cultures fought for superiority in the nation. This fight emerges throughout American history and as a new era of deporis rises, the issues are becoming more relevant. In American Dreamer by Bharati Mukherjee, she shares her own experiences as an immigrant and the fight she partook in to have her own American identity seen. Mukherjee’s fight mirrors hundreds of naturalized American citizens who are trying to realize their identity, however it also shines light on native-born Americas struggling as well. The need for a unified American identity produces a nationwide identity crisis.

Lytharón, an ancient land at the edge of the Great Sea, is rich in history and yet so very young. Lytharón is separated into five factions. In the west, by the sea, are the Democian people, a strong nation that has proven itself in numerous wars. Democia is the largest of the five factions, and was founded when their ancestors came from across the Great Sea. Their territory extends from the western shore, including control over the Sea Isles off the west coast, to the winding river across the plains. This river runs from the northern mountains straight down the middle of Lytharón, before the Pondürian Mountains force it to cut southeast. The river continues on this new course before eventually disappearing underneath

Power is present in many forms. In his book Lost Geographies of Power, John Allen suggested that power can be found where relationships and social interactions exist. (Allen, 2003). The network of people coming from war torn countries and personal hardships to seek asylum in Australia is just one example of how power can be exercised. The Refugee Council of Australia defines an asylum seeker as a person who has sought protection as a refugee, but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been assessed. (Who are asylum seekers?, 2016) This definition is further extended by Amnesty International, they provide that not every asylum seeker will ultimately be recognised as a refugee, but every refugee is initially an