Guillermo Gómez-Peña: Border Interrogation: La Pocha Nostra

This week we will be discussing different conceptions of (and differences between) the borderlands and the border.  Are the borderlands a dystopic or utopian site?  Do they have the potential, as Mike Davis suggests, to promote-- even demand-- transnational collaboration and cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico?  Might the borderlands cultivate a kind of psychic nepantilism among its inhabitants and the world, as Gloria Anzaldúa hopes, bringing "an end of rape, of violence, of war?"  And what do we make of la linea, the borderline itself?  Is it a symbolic and somewhat arbitrary line that divides two fairly indistinct cultures to its immediate north and south, or does this "line" itself seem to wield the power of life and death in the real world?  To get you thinking, take a look at this video clip by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, la pocha nostra.