The Other Meaning of Border: A Memoir of "Not That Border"

As we drove out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to my father's hometown of El Paso, Texas, all I could think about was "how can I get out of this?" Six years old and already plotting how to manipulate my parents.I hated going on those monthly road trips to go see my father's family and his compadres on the U.S.-Mexico border.El Paso was hot, it was sticky, it felt never-ending.And when we would go in to Jurez, I felt the world crashing down all around me. Everything was so unfamiliar to me, people speaking Spanish so fast I could not understand what was going on.Back and forth from the border of El Paso, Texas, and Jurez, Mexico, to the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico.What I didn't realize back then was how similar the border space was between El Paso, Jurez, and Albuquerque and the South Valley.And before I go into the specifics of these geopolitical spaces, I want to make clear that I am not attempting to liken the very real militarized border space and crossing of El Paso and Jurez to that of Albuquerque, the South Valley, and Isleta Pueblo, but more to think through what Michel Foucault calls convenientia: how things that are close to each other begin to resemble one another.1We all know too well the El Paso/Jurez border has been characterized in mainstream media as a place where "gangs and drug cartels" create a tension so high that the border space becomes a "grotesque" bleeding wound that can never heal.2A space that has "degenerated into anarchy."3A place that becomes so "treacherous and exposed" that many are fleeing to different parts of Mexico or the United States to find some semblance of