What Are The Usa-Mexico Border Stereotypes

INTRODUCTION The United States-Mexico border has always been viewed as a location or space of immense chaos, often a place for criminal stories, where families are separated, where social imaginaries and representations can be constructed. This is the image often portrayed through social media, reinforcing and creating such border stereotypes (Iglesias-Prieto, “Border Representations” 186–87). In spaces like these, individuals, more specifically, children, create perceptions and social representations, as they experience the impact of the border settings. Social representations are ways of viewing the world and because social representations function as powerful interpretations of reality and guide actions, it is important to understand the extent to which the U.S.-Mexico border is significant in children’s social representations of themselves and others (Moscovici).
ARGUMENT
What are the differences between children living near borders in the U.S. and in Mexico? How do these children define their situations through allowing influences of the U.S. Mexican border to shape their social imaginaries? As a product of immigrant parents, and as a person who has experienced these spaces of social influence of borders, identity confusion, feelings of belonging, illegality of family. I question traditional representations and perceptions of the border. In what ways are borders settings changing children’s perception of their surroundings and understanding of the