JE#8

Prior to entering this class, I had a sizable knowledge of the mujeres de Juárez femicides, having taken courses during my undergraduate that covered in detail, and having a family member who is one of the women that have gone missing. I grew up with constant attention to this issue, whether it was family members that would lament the latest development on the issue. For example when Abdul Sharif an Egyptian chemist who was sentenced to jail for the murders passed away in 2006, my entire family found it a topic for discussion, my mother amongst them was convinced that Sharif was not the murderer, evident in the bodies that would turn up despite Sharif being in jail. Although I had followed the issue because of my personal and cultural connection to it, I was not aware of the ways in which brown women's bodies had been policed along the border, i.e. Chinese women. Lubheid's text was extremely useful in articulating the specific policies implemented to keep women on a marginal status through immigration. A term I found useful in Lubheid's text was when she discussed the difficulty immigration officials had when trying to enforce racist, sexist laws such as the Page Law of 1875 which kept out what were deemed "undesirable immigrants". Amongst these "undesirables" were "Asian women coming to work in prostitution" (Lubheid, 36). 
Making connections between the juárez murders and the Chinese women who immigrated to the U.S. after the Page Law, it is safe to say that both groups of women are deemed "undesirables" by the American federal government, and are thus viewed as "collateral damage" in the U.S. struggle to secure its borders. This complete disregard for women's bodies shows the destructive and monstrous side the "Shadow-Beast" of U.S. empire and Mexican cultural tyranny. 
From the early days of the Juárez femicides in the early 1990s, little has been seen in popular culture and cultural products that talk about this decades-long femicide, however there is a growing number of texts that are changing that. The novel Desert Blood by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and the film "Bordertown" both of which we read and saw in class are cultural texts that deal with the Juárez murders. I personally feel that Desert Blood successfully depicted the issue in a way that highlighted the U.S. and Mexico's disregards for brown women's bodies, the numerous structures in power such as the Border Patrol, the Maquiladora industry, and the local Juárez police amongst other who are complicit in the muder of these women. In terms of effectiveness in raising this issue to mainstream consciousness, i feel that due to Desert Blood's release date, many who were not aware were introduced to the issue via the novel, and got a more multi-dimensional look at the issue. On the other hand, "Bordertown" starring Jennifer Lopez did not gather the critical acclaim that it sought and had a mixed reaction amongst audiences. The film also employs the white savior complex via its protagonist (played by Jennifer Lopez) whose journalist background enables her to get to the bottom of the murders within a few months. At best, "Bordertown" most likely got the conversation going around these issues, but did not provide enough information for people to have a complex discussion on the femicides.