The short film “Border Nation” begins with the following quotation by J.B. Harley, Geographer, “As much as guns or warships, maps have been the weapons of imperialization.”
The border separating the US from Mexico slices the Tohono O’odham people’s ancestral lands into two parts. Years ago, Ofelia Rivas drove the backroads 25 minutes to visit her the village in which her father was born. She now must drive 3.5 hours around a mountain range, often navigating police harassment, to the official (militarized) border crossing.
Regarding the surveillance towers and wall being built:
“We’re praying all the time and trying to protect our land and way of life, but it seems that it doesn’t matter. They’re determined to build them to protect the American way of life but, you know, destroying our way of life.”
(Click the picture to view the film)
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