me what it is.”
“Ah. That, that’s a bracelet.”
“How long have you been wearing it?”
“Three years.”
“Why do you always wear it?”
“Because I’m attached to it; it was a present.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“It was tonton.”
“Who is tonton?”
“Er . . . it’s Uncle Sam.”
“Who is Uncle Sam?”
“Little one, you ask too many questions. It’s just somebody who gave it to me . . . Uncle Sam, Uncle Stephen, Uncle Security. It doesn’t matter; you don’t know him.”
“OK, but why is it black, your bracelet?”
“Because those who gave it to me have white faces but black hearts.”
“Why isn’t it gold, like mama’s necklace?”
“Because those who gave it to me don’t have a heart of gold, little one.”
“But Dad, why are you the only person who wears it in Quebec?”
“Not for long, little one, don’t worry. In not too long it’ll be a style, like tattoos; everyone will have theirs. There are already ones in cell phones, in cars, for blue-collar workers, for grandfathers, for babies, for dogs. . . . Uncle Sam doesn’t have a heart of gold but he doesn’t miss anyone.”
—Adil Charkaoui
Imposters
The world is made up of imposters. There is often a will towards authenticity, some semblance of the genuine. And yet, what might it mean to consider the figure of the imposter, not as an aberration or crime but as a standard. To play a part is to perhaps hold a role in the increasingly neoliberal global economy.
In Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lahore, she will smile into a headset. Her voice will chirp with the intonations of Friends actresses whom she has learned to mimic. Her English intonation and slang is more precise than many Middle Americans she talks to. She will talk to Chris in Detroit. Grandchild of slaves, he wears a carving of the map of Africa around his neck and has been laid off for months. “Yes,” he stammers, voice rough from days of Parliament cigarettes and the worries of the perpetually unemployed, “I’m an American citizen.”
She will talk to Judy in Calgary who will discuss her poor credit rating. Judy once attended a seminar about “the Imposter Syndrome,” a self-help workshop teaching graduate students to self-diagnose their anxieties regarding the place of intellectuals in the neoliberal marketplace. Judy went for the free coffee and muffins. Anything she didn’t have to pay for. Judy will remember inspirational maxims she was force-fed along with crusty baked goods, proclaiming that she is a doctoral student who is confident that she will find a well-paying job. She will stare at the “balance owing” on the screen and say a silent prayer for Judy.
She will talk to John in Brooklyn. With the sound of religious processions carried through the office window, she will yawn silently. It is her night and his day. She will smile into the headset. “Good morning, sir! How are you today?” John will have just told his mother that everything is fine, before carrying empties of beer to the trash bin, kicking aside used syringes, and glancing at the homeless and the hipsters. She will see his prison and hospital records flash on the screen. He will smile into his cell phone. “Yeah, fine thanks.”
“Jen” smiling into a headset is not a trusted friend or confidant. When baptized by a Bank with her new outsourced cheerleader pseudonym, she giggled, as it reminded her of a word in another language meaning ghost. She sees your credit rating, prison and hospital records. She says a silent prayer for America.
We are a world of imposters. The postures of authenticity are continually undercut by the elaborate productions of civility and capital that construct a world of fakes. Abraham in Ethiopia cannot cross the border, but his beans carry the fragrant aromas of coffee down the sparkling Western city streets. The produce is picked by Mexicans, the children fed by a Filipina, and the waiter is from Baghdad. To obtain a UK visa one no longer talks to the British, but to “World Bridge,” a private business that now processes all applications. Heitsi greets you with a thick North American accent and dark hands that clink with wooden bangles. A British flag emblazoned on her chest, she flew through London once on her way to Nigeria. “That’s a crazy airport.” The authenticity of production, the production of authenticity is undercut by stages of capital—assembly line, office banter, Internet wires upon which people stammer and strut.
Ron shortened his Sanskrit name to make it translatable over emails sent to and from Silicon Valley. He crosses the Indian border with a newly purchased Person of Indian Origin card that conceals his grudging disdain for the nation’s poor, and his Lonely Planet accent. Ron skips across electronic sidewalks from New Jersey to New Delhi, the clip of his Italian leather shoes impatiently tapping in border security lines.
Faraz sees India from the rooftops of Pakistan. Delicate Ghazal heard across fault lines of nations resonate with him, like the songs of mothers singing mother tongues. At the border his name is translated into an electronic ledger of suspects and detainees. Curves of prophetic name turns to hard English letters and prison numbers, as unforgiving as passport photos and the harsh lights of shopping malls and interrogators.
The irony of our time perhaps lies in efforts to tighten borders and fix authenticity, while bodies and voices change, exchange, and multiply, leaving little trace or truth of origin. The world is made up of imposters.
—Tara Atluri
What Is Border Imperialism?
The world was born yearning to be a home for everyone.
—Eduardo Galeano, “Through the Looking Glass: Q & A with Eduardo Galeano”
For the past several years, Indigenous organizations in Australia have been issuing “Original Passports” to asylum seekers who have been detained or denied legal status by the Australian government. Most recently, in May 2012, passports were issued to two detained Tamil asylum seekers. During the ceremony, Ray Jackson of the Indigenous Social Justice Association said, “The Australian Government must stop imprisoning Indigenous people, and they must stop imprisoning asylum seekers. I am proud to welcome people in need into our community.” Indigenous elder Robbie Thorpe commented, “The Australian Government has no legitimate right to grant or refuse entry to anyone in this country, let alone lock up people fleeing war and persecution.”(1)
Such moments of solidarity between Indigenous people and migrants represent not only growing networks of understanding and alliance between marginalized communities, but also a fundamental challenge to the authority of settler-colonial governments and the sovereignty of Western statehood. Western governance and statehood is constituted through multiple modes, including the primacy of the border that delineates and reproduces territorial, political, economic, cultural, and social control. As activists Alessandra Moctezuma and Mike Davis write, “All borders are acts of state violence inscribed in landscape.”(2) Constantly being redefined, borders represent a regime
