ISBN10: 0817318127, ISBN13: 9780817318123, [publisher: The University of Alabama Press, Alabama] Hardcover Hardcover. The Border Crossed Us explores efforts to restrict and expand notions of US citizenship as they relate specifically to the US-Mexico border and Latina/o identity. Borders and citizenship go hand in hand. Borders define a nation as a territorial entity and create the parameters for national belonging. But the relationship between borders and citizenship breeds perpetual anxiety over the purported sanctity of the border, the security of a nation, and the integrity of civic identity. In The Border Crossed Us, Josue David Cisneros addresses these themes as they relate to the US-Mexico border, arguing that issues ranging from the Mexican-American War of 18461848 to contemporary debates about Latina/o immigration and border security are negotiated rhetorically through public discourse. He explores these rhetorical battles through case studies of specific Latina/o struggles for civil rights and citizenship, including debates about Mexican American citizenship in the 1849 California Constitutional Convention, 1960s Chicana/o civil rights movements, and modern-day immigrant activism. Cisneros posits that bordersboth geographic and civichave crossed and recrossed Latina/o communities throughout history (the books title derives from the popular activist chant, We didnt cross the border; the border crossed us!) and that Latina/os in the United States have long ...
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