In April I contributed a piece to the Antiracism and America series, a collaboration between the Guardian and American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center.

In the piece,  I explore the U.S.-Mexico border as a solution, not a problematic site, and challenge to the nation’s long history of white supremacy.

In the popular imagination and political debates, the border is a fixed perimeter that defines a stark binary. It is a place of violence and insecurity, one that cleaves apart “us” from “them”. But the borderland of south Texas was historically and continues to be a site of racial pluralism and resistance to white supremacy. This land is not rooted in an English colonial history; it eludes the neat categories that both conservatives and liberals exploit. Its identity is shaped by a multitude of cultures and races. And the fluidity of border life has long represented an affront to the administrators of a nation that from its inception have drawn a bright, brutal line around racial groups.