Fear, Vulnerability, and Death for Children and Youth at the US Mexico Border
This chapter examines the USA Mexico border as a case study for investigating fear and violence, violence containment measures, and vulnerability for youth living in and migrating through international border zones. It argues that globalization, "national security," and border surveillance regimes exacerbate structural violence associated with failed economic policies, "drug war(s) policies," and poverty and government corruption which negatively impact young people. Youth, who enjoy limited access to human rights protections, find themselves trapped between remaining in home countries overrun by cartel violence and ravaged by poverty and "choosing" life threatening migration to the USA. Additionally, youth who are rooted on both sides of the border face increasingly C. Bejarano The Interdisciplinary Studies Department, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA e mail: cbejaran@nmsu.edu Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2015 C. Harker et al. (eds. Conflict, Violence and Peace, Geographies of Children and Young People 11, DOI 10.1007/978 981 4585 98 9_10 1 1 narrowed options for their own survival. Cultural nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and the militarization of the border punctuate the economic crises that make membership in gangs, cartels, and the shadow world of drug and human trafficking viable "options" for some. Through an analysis of these structural conditions and global forces, this chapter additionally assesses specific examples wherein youth on both sides of the border confront state violence, economic marginalization, and myriad "deaths." A macro level approach combined with microlevel examples signals both the precarious existences of youth on the border and offers a modicum of hope that young people will survive a geography of uncertainty, dislocation, and fear.