Borders and Loyalties

The dictionary defines the word loyalty as a strong feeling of support or allegiance. Schools across the nation stand every morning, put their hands on their hearts and pledge their loyalty to their country. The novel Ship Breaker is about a young boy named Nailer who works to break ships apart in a futuristic society. His mom died and his father, Richard, became an addict leaving them very poor and reliant on Nailer’s income. One day, Nailer is walking the beach with his friend Pima recovering supplies after a hurricane, there they find a massive clipper ship with one survivor inside. The girl inside, Nita, was fleeing capture from her family’s enemies and shipwrecked. Soon after, Richard Lopez and his crew found Nailer, Nita, and Pima and captured them, planning to sell Nita to her enemies. With a stroke of luck, the three manage to escape from Richard. Nailer and Nita fled to New Orleans with an unfaithful member of Lopez’s crew. While in Orleans, the trio finds work, allies, and an escape from Nita’s enemies. Then, Nita is captured by the enemy who has allied with Richard Lopez. In response, Nailer set out on the clipper ship of his dreams to find her, and unknowingly, to find himself. True loyalty doesn't come with any ties, it is unconditional and without hesitation. In Paolo Baciagalupi’s Science Fiction book Ship Breaker, use of symbolism and conflict tell the story of Nailer Lopez and his journey to find that loyalty doesn't just lie in family, it's who has your

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).

Globals, Locals, and Mobals: In the book “The Power of Place,” Harm de Blij introduces a new viewpoint of geography. Geography is much more than the terrain and physical makeup of the world. It is the culture, education, conditions, foods, politics, language, and opportunities. These things make people and places unique, and capture the true meaning of Human Geography.

“Borders”, by Thomas King, takes place at the Canadian - American border. The main character is a mother who is Blackfoot. The mother refuses to identify herself as either Canadian or American; instead, the mother insists that she is Blackfoot, and because of this she and her twelve-year-old son have to stay in amidst the border offices of Canada and the United States. The title of this short story, “Borders” indicates two borders; one is the physical border amid Canada and the United States and the other is a metaphorical border between someone’s identity and citizenship. In Thomas King’s “Borders” The story shows proudness of citizenship and it portrays where you are from is a huge part of who you are. The three arguments that I will argue to prove this thesis is that the mother is proud that she is a Blackfoot, It is rare and improbable for a young women to leave the reserve, and that the mother dislikes the Americans because she was proud of her own people.

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.

The North was not willing to give up the border states for many reasons. For example, in paragraph six, “If the South could gain control of these states, its armies could be ready to attack Northern states from Iowa to New Jersey” (“The Value of the Border States”). This shows that the North was not willing to give up the border states because the South would have attacked their states and that wouldn’t be good for the North. According to the article, “...the North was equally determined not to let them go. Northern strategy early in the war aimed at making sure that the border states stayed within the Union” (“The Value of the Border States”).

The Unlawful border crossing in the U.S. Southern border has been of political interest for the past decades. It has been the primary source of the illegal trades into U.S. from Mexico. Despite the government efforts to end the act, there have not been long-term solutions to the Menace. The vital approach is to understand the structural nature of the border and the socio-cultural nature of the inhabitants that facilitates the illegal act across the border. The lawful bill in place seems not to offer a practical solution to combating the problem. The existing border and immigration policies should be revised to provide a possible settlement to the illegal trade across the borders. Also, the border barriers should be adequately constructed and guarded with border security officials. Another crucial area for consideration is the cooperation between the two countries in combating the illegal trade across the border. A cross-border initiative like Merida by President Bush would have been the significant initiative in promoting the U.S. Mexico cross-border collaboration in combating the Illegal Border Crossings. Due to the well-coordinated nature of these criminal networks, full federal cooperation like Boarder Enforcement Security Taskforce (BEST) should act in combating the organized gangs.

Borders is a topic that has been currently talked about frequently in the news over the past year, which has got me thinking what are borders? A basic definition of borders are physical or imaginary lines that divide geographic areas. However borders are not always tangible, they can be psychological as well. My definition of borders are they are barriers, real or unreal, based on certain ideas that separate for specific reasons. But since there is no standard definition that everyone agrees on, each person has their very own definition of what borders are, what they mean, and what purpose they serve.

Six and a half billion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the approximate cost of a border that would stretch from San Diego to Texas. A chain-linked, steel, and barbed-wire border that would block hard work, dreams, and an inevitable fate. Through the brutal deserts, dehydration, and pain, only about a fourth of the immigrants trying to get to America make it. That means so much because of how many people try to accomplish this feat, considering still around nine-hundred thousand immigrants still make it. In all reality, borders are truly just an imaginary line some important people with wigs created. We, as a whole, decide how important things are. Money's just paper, an MLB star is just a normal human. However, something that always gets us, something that is made such a big fuss about, is a two-thousand mile long border, also known as The Mexican-American Border. Think about this. If we have such a powerful military and border patrol, why would we need such an intimidating wall? Or even why do we disown and hate these immigrants? Better yet, why would we spend all this money when we are trillions

In “Borders” by Thomas King, the story portrays identity as something very valuable. The title of this short story, “Borders” indicates two borders; one of them is a physical border and the other is a metaphorical border. The physical border is the obvious physical border amid Canada and the United States, while the other is a metaphorical border between someone's identity and citizenship, The mother immensely proud of her blackfoot heritage, furthermore she displays makeship nationalistic views. It is rare and improbable for a young woman to leave the reserve, which suggests that blackfoot people do not hate or despise living their. Accordingly they have no aspirations to move out. The mother feels strongly against America and would not betray her own identity by identifying as an American or a Canadian. In Thomas King’s “Borders”, the story shows proudness of citizenship and it portrays where you are from is a key piece of who you are and your identity.

Alberto Rios claims that the border is unnatural, complex, and seen as a boundary. He discusses empathetic relationships in a global society when he uses many literary devices to claim that the border is an unnatural thing in a natural world, it has become so complex that it is unrecognizable, and that many people view it as a boundary when it should be viewed as what joins us together. The border is unnatural because it is something manmade placed in the natural world as if the people believed that it was supposed to be natural as well. What started as a simple rancher’s fence to fix a simple problem, quickly escalated to be something as complex as a third grader trying to understand calculus. The people view the border as a boundary meant to divide when in reality, it is what joins us together as a global society.

Shelby Steele’s article, The New Sovereignty, deals with Steele looking back at a talk that he gave at Midwestern University. He discusses his knowledge of his parent’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, his views on the movement and the way America functions, education, and how some of these things have influenced his life.

The article written by Natalie Hess in the TESOL webpage named “Understanding and Outreach in a Border Community is by far my favorite. It is written about the city of Yuma where I spent nine good years of my life. The facts of the article struck home with me and have been a part of my life since living there. She addresses the issues of border living with tact and truth. It is applicable to our living and teaching here in Tucson today.

Turning your back on your father to join a group of strangers to me is an example of un loyalty and betrayal. The character that grabbed my attention since the beginning was Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son. Nwoye’s reaction to this cultural collision when the Christian's had arrived and taken over the village took me by surprise. Nwoye had gained an interest into the new religion that was part of the whites culture and was willing to abandon his own in order to convert himself into Christianity. Nwoye’s actions and decisions say a lot about his character based on his reaction to the new culture the village comes across to and tests their loyalty which becomes a challenge for Nwoye and an effect on the text.

Another one of Pratt's Arts of the Contact Zone is also a key in maintaining your national identity is Transculturation. Transculturation is the combining of two cultures or traits from two different cultures. This can help in maintaining national identity by having the cultures meet half way, instead of conforming and letting your identity slip away from you. Here, pull an example of transculturation from Said's text. For instance, the use of the Mercedes. Even though Said describes it in negative terms, the use of the Mercedes has come in handy for Palestinians. This is just a suggestion, you may find another example.