Season 01 - Episode 05: "Immigration, Discourse, and Trump's Border Wall"

Anthropological Airwaves

This episode features timely interviews with Jason De León and Hilary Parsons Dick about immigration policy and immigration discourse in relation to Trump's border wall, as well as the roles and responsibilities that anthropologists have in the public sphere. Full episode transcript.

Credits:

Interviewer - Diego Arispe-Bazán

Executive Producer - Arjun Shankar

Producer - Diego Arispe-Bazán

Editors - Nooshin Sadeghsamimi and Kyle Olson

Featured Audio:

Calle 13 - "Pa'l Norte" feat. Orishas

Gustavo Canabarro - "Malaguena"

Calexico - "Fake Fur"

Buzzfeed Video - "Heartbreaking Confessions of Undocumented Immigrants"

Featured Quotes:

"I went to a Trump rally in Warren, Michigan [in] February of last year and its just a room full of Michiganders chanting "build the wall" for almost an hour before he comes out... and of course it's me and a Mexican friend and I just remember thinking you know 'build-the-wall, build-the-wall', like that's the more politically correct way to say I have so many misconceptions and if I chant build the wall its really about security and protecting america, not about how much i hate people who look differently from me" (Jason DeLeon).

"There is actually already a wall, that never gets mentioned. Trump's vision of a "wall" is that it will cover the entire border, but there's already been several -- we've been fortifying and militarizing our southern border with Mexico since the 1980s, including several waves of newer and bigger and longer walls. We've been militarizing and profiting off of the degradation of human life along that border for many many decades now. And I get a little frustrated that that can fall out of the conversation -- "build the wall" is the apotheosis of the worst part of our immigration policy, but it's not new" (Hilary Parsons Dick).