JE #8 BarbaAlexandra

How much did you already know about the Juarez femicides prior to entering this class? How did Entry Denied by Ethne Lubheid and Desert Blood by la Profe provide a historical, cultural, political, and social context in which to better understand the misogynistic murders of young women and girls on the El Paso/Juarez border? Be sure to discuss one specific chapter in each book that most moved you, shocked you, or otherwise provoked an emotional response. How effective was Gregory Nava's film, Bordertown, at raising your consciousness about the Juarez femicides? 

I first learned about the Juarez femicides when I took Chicano 10A with you in the fall of my freshman year of college. I had always kept them in the back of my mind but feel so helpless about them because I know how much silence surrounds these murders. Both Entry Denied and Desert Blood served as important sources in helping me understand the historical, cultural, political, and social contexts of these murders. Of course Desert Blood helped me manifest a deeper understanding because the novels’ focus is primarily around these murders.

In Entry Denied I know that chapter 5, Rapes, Asylum, and the U.S. Border Patrol speaks directly about the crimes committed against women at the U.S.-Mexico border, specifically in the section under ‘Rapes That Remain Unrepresentable as Crimes’. This entire chapter was one that moved me the most from this undeniably, shocking novel. While I know that I have learned that women were once seen and treated as property of men and that we just very recently gained the ability to vote, learning about the injustices inflicted on women still shocks and resonates with me. I was appalled after reading, “rape was an offense committed by one male against another male’s property, and the seriousness ascribed to rape depended on the status of the males involved” (pg. 103). Learning that the definition of rape was once utterly and completely connected to males angers me so much, I just do not understand how rape could ever solely boil down to men and the offenses made to them and not to the violence and victims of these acts. It is just so heart wrenching to think that women were placed in a such a low social category that they really did not matter in matters that involve them completely. Lubheid shares that, “Rapes of women of color, poor women, and “unchaste” women often did not count within official categories of rape”. The most shocking was that then says, “… these exclusions also shape contemporary institutional responses”. I know I should not be shocked because I have learned again and again that those in power do not care to help the less fortunate because of all different types of interests, a truth which is highlighted in both Entry Denied and Desert Blood, but it’s a cold, sad truth that I wish were not true. It was also in this chapter that I learned that rape obviously serves a deeper function, to show these Mexican women, quien es el mero mero, who is boss, and in essence to produce, or reproduce the hierarchal social relationships.

In Desert Blood, the chapter that most moved me, or in other words, pissed me off the most, was chapter 45 with the opening being a piece of the newspaper that Ivon is reading regarding the whole scandal she was a part of. As I was reading the article I felt like I was Ivon and as I was getting to the end I started thinking, “No, NO THEY ARE NOT making this J.W. guy a fucking hero right now?!” Sure enough, Officer Jeremy Wilcox was being recognized for “infiltrating” the operation. This chapter, especially the first time I read it, really opened my mind to thinking that the people we trust in may just be the people who harm our communities the most, and many cases have proven this to be true. It is another sad reality to realize that these people can be corrupt and do have the power and power extended from others to cover up their dirty deeds. It is sad that innocent people have to suffer at the hands of people like this and will never get justice because they fall into the categories that Lubheid mentions, poor and/or colored—otherwise seen as unimportant. 

If I had not learned about the Juarez murders prior to Gregory Nava’s film, Bordertown, I know that watching it would have done a good job of raising my consciousness. From his film we learn that solely women are the targets of these murders, also where these murders are taking place, as well as how long they have been taking place. Moreover, we learn that much silence surrounds these novels because no one, especially in El Paso, gives them the magnitude of attention they need and deserve. While I do acknowledge that this film offers great historical, cultural and political context and addresses the femicides, I think that the focus falls perhaps too much on the plot of the film. I don’t know, there is also something about making issues like this a part of a movie that does not sit well with me because I think people distance themselves from the issues as opposed to caring for them, perhaps because I think that they think, “Solo es pelicula.”, you know? For example, people see that in the film, Bordertown, the government is involved with the murders and then they may grow disbelief, but then realize it is just part of the movie as opposed to maybe questioning whether it just may be that the government is in on such murders, and by the end they totally dismiss the issues at hand.