proofed FINAL VERSION De-politicizing border space1 Elaine A. Peña Sometimes bridges perform as walls. Take for example the international bridges that connect Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico (see Figure 1). City planners constructed the first physical link between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in 1889. Today, the port of Laredo boasts four international bridges with Mexico—International Bridges #1 and #2, the Columbia Bridge, and the World Trade Bridge—making Laredo NAFTA's mistress and home of the busiest Wal-Mart in the Americas (Díaz 2005; Duggan 1999; Millman and Gold 2001; Vogel 2006). In 1995, $15 billion in U.S. exports to Mexico and $17 billion in U.S. imports from Mexico flowed through the sister cities (Welcome 1996). In turn, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas—a Border Industrialization Program and a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) darling—attracts hard-hitting power players battling for access to U.S. Interstate 35 (Moffett and Frazier 1985; Payne 1997). Recent kidnappings, assassinations of journalists, bystanders, law enforcement officers (one police chief was gunned down eight hours after taking office), and other acts of macabre violence evince the 2002 drug cartel power shifts in Sinaloa, Mexico (Relea 2005a, 2005b; Marshall 2005; Balli 2005; Colloff 2006). Laredo politicos are in denial; Mexican federal and municipal authorities are powerless. The physical links connecting these sister cities offer a particular border globalization—the seamless movement of goods, capital, and services alongside unequal economic development; centralization of power in the U.S./centralization of labor and 1 This essay is a think piece for the performance text "Brown Nipple: A Spectacular Look at Race, Class, and Citizenship, on the U.S.-Mexico Border." 1 resources in Mexico; the perpetual weakening or disregard of labor regulations and human rights; and a de facto militarized zone. [Fig_1_International_Bridge__1.JPG] Now consider the symbolic bridge that is the Washington's Birthday Celebration (WBC), a commemorative month-long event particular to los dos Laredos. Highlights include the Society of Martha Washington presentation and ball, a Princess Pocahontas pageant, a trip to the state capitol, a jalapeño eating contest, a Señor Internacional gala, a Mr. South Texas luncheon, and the abrazo (embrace) children ceremony. To give a sense of the spectacle, bejeweled colonial gowns and Pocahontas costumes may cost between $5,000 and $50,000. Celebration officials' choice of George Washington and Pocahontas to epitomize American values and border life is representative of Laredo's selective disavowal of Mexican culture, which is the dominant component of the city's historical, cultural, political, and linguistic identity. Theoretically, the festival strengthens bi-national dialogue; it aims to build bridges between Mexican customs and American values. But this communication is limited to a few rituals, most notably the abrazo children ceremony. The rite features two "American" children from Laredo attired as George and Martha Washington and two "Mexican" children from Nuevo Laredo dressed in "traditional" clothing physically meeting in the middle of International Bridge #2 to exchange kisses, hugs, and gifts (see Figure 2). This symbolic act is evocative. Yet interconnected violence in each municipality reminds us that this sweet scenario/diplomatic tourist event elides a discussion of urgent and unattended issues affecting both communities. The annual event underwrites the maintenance of outward political, historical, and cultural interchanges between these North American port cities. [Fig_2_Abrazo_Children_with_Military__Escort.JPG] 2 The production and maintenance of this symbolic border performance creates regenerative effects that are more insidious than any physical wall. Among multiple tangible and intangible products, the WBC didactically teaches spectators and participants what it means to possess United States citizenship, the specific geographic space in which they may exercise this national identity, and how to perform American values, American history, and American ethos. Further, the celebration impels xenophobic attitudes within the Mexican- American community in Laredo by setting the boundaries of self-identification: I am American, not Mexican. Historians and cultural critics have pointed out the obvious historical discrepancies and creative re-imaginings of the Washington's Birthday Celebration (Young 1998; Dennis 1997; Green 1999). Building on these studies, I focus on the temporal, spatial, and economic components of this performatic expression to examine how the strategic embodied transposition of U.S. colonial histories and mythologies de-politicize border space. In what follows, I analyze the Washington's Birthday Celebration using Henri Lefebvre's conceptualization of the production of space as a dialectical relationship among "spatial practices"/what is perceived, "representations of space"/what is conceived, and "representational spaces"/what is lived (Lefebvre 1991, 33-9). Although I separate aspects of the commemorative festival into these three categories, the objective of this analysis is to emphasize "the unity of the productive process" (Lefebvre 1991, 42). Participation in pageants, balls, luncheons, comedy events, parades, and jalapeño eating contests are the spatial practices. These rituals strengthen the legitimacy of the event and fortify a disadvantaged tourist economy. Less visible is the space of festival planners and sponsors who conceive and shape the ideological foundation of the tourist event. Many of these behind-the-scenes players are politicians, businesspersons, and/or outstanding members of the community who not only work towards validating the historical, cultural, and fiscal significance of the revelry but also towards securing individual and familial status for future 3 generations. Laredoans do not enact nor do they engineer the spectacular practices that shape the festival in everyday life. They do, however, live with the regenerative effects of the celebration year-round. Border residents reproduce and reinforce WBC hierarchies and categorizations through their daily practices—when and where one socializes, makes purchases, attends school, celebrates patriotic and cultural customs, etc. It is within these lived spaces, sites "redolent with symbolic and imaginary elements," that Laredoans self- police skin privilege, class, and citizenship boundaries (Lefebvre 1991, 41). "Representations of [Border] Space": The Improved Order of the Red Men Yaqui Tribe #59 and the transposition of U.S. colonial history Seven flags have flown over the physical space that is Laredo, Texas—Spain (1519- 1821), France (1685-1690), Mexico (1821-1836), the Republic of Texas (1836-1845), the Republic of the Rio Grande (January 1840 to October 1840), the United States of America (1845-1861 and 1865-present), and the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). In addition to Porfirio Diaz's modernization project and his open-armed embrace of bi-national industrial and railroad development, post-1865 shifts in national identity and in the border economy excavated ideological space for power transfers based on physical appearance, class status, linguistic ability, kinship networks, and patriotic will. In 1898, for example, a group of affluent, predominantly Anglo-American men (who either bought out or married into wealthy land-owning Mexican families) joined the Improved Order of Red Men (IORM)—a club modeled after the colonial fraternal society the Sons of Liberty. George W. Lindsay, a nationally recognized IORM member and chronicler, justified the origins and practice of appropriating American Indian culture in The Official History of the Improved Order of Red Men, published in 1897. 4 These early societies [Sons of Liberty and Tammany Societies] turned to the uncultivated field of Red Men's mysteries for their ceremonies and so-called secret work, and in the sublimity and grandeur of the unsullied characteristics of the primitive race, then more plentiful around them, found inspiration for the mystical lore deemed necessary in their gatherings, and suitable for the concealment of identity inseparable from the dangerous work in which they were engaged to found a new nation. (Lindsay 1897, 4) Following this publication, Charles M. Barnes—"a newspaper man of San Antonio" and "District Deputy Great Sachem of the Great Council of Texas of the Improved Order of Red Men"—organized a Laredo chapter to cultivate pure American patriotism on the border (Wilcox 1947). Select citizens adopted the revolutionary tactic of dressing up as Indians to "challenge" oppressive power structures, bolster their masculinity, and publicly perform their patriotic pride. In February 1898, members of IORM Yaqui Tribe #59 disguised themselves as savage Indians (they strategically chose the northern Mexican tribe in solidarity with the region's roots). They performed in the burlesque play "One Night with the Red Men," staged a mock battle on City Hall, and reenacted the Boston Tea Party. The morning of February 21, the first day of the celebration, the front page of the Laredo Times read "Red Men Are Rustlers and Doing Grand Work in Laredo: They Will Awaken Patriotism on the Border and Make us Realize That we Live in the United States" (Wilcox 1947). That evening, IORM performers entertained a standing-room-only crowd with "truly Indian costumes, wild war hoops and lively dances" (ibid.). In addition, Mrs. L.S.