Borders

Although all the guards that Laetitia’s mother and brother meet on their trip to the border speak to them politely—even kindly—they nevertheless choose not to allow mother and son across the border. In the end, it’s only the camera crew’s arrival that compels the guards to let them through, suggesting that the pursuit of accountability and transparency is an effective way of restoring justice in the face of oppressive power. Laetitia’s brother, who is only a young teenager, takes consistent notice of the guns that each border guard carries. Though the guards smile and treat the mother and son with at least outward respect, Laetitia’s brother’s eyes follow the guards’ hands as they fidget with and hook their fingers into their gun belts. The guards’ movements call attention to the fact that even though these particular border guards are behaving gently, they are capable (and implicitly allowed) to resort to violence if they see fit—and they inarguably have the upper hand in this situation.

Of course, just as Laetitia’s mother anticipates their state of limbo at the border and packs extra food and blankets, she might also have foreseen that the only way she’ll get a resolution of her issue is through media attention and dressed in her best clothes for television. When the crews arrive, Laetitia’s mother readily gives them interviews, knowing that being observed in their rigidity and inefficiency will put pressure on the border guards to let her cross to the United States or risk public disapproval. Indeed, the final guard who emerges from the U.S. border office is visibly nervous as the lights of the camera crew flash in his face. With the eyes of the networks’ TV viewership on him, he touches his gun belt, sizes up the cameras, and lets Laetitia’s mother and brother cross without comment on their declaration of citizenship. Here, the graphic novel subtly frames the encounter as a showdown between the guards’ guns and media’s camera, symbols of the government’s power versus the people’s. The camera wins in this situation, and it even records the precedent for other Indigenous people who might cross in the future. In this way, Borders optimistically suggests that calling attention and bearing witness to injustice can lead to real-world reform. However, the fact that the guards are only willing to honor the narrator and his mother’s sovereignty as Indigenous people after the news media show up suggests how reticent individual people may be to take it upon themselves to take a stand against oppression unless incentivized to do so.