When we consider the world around us we tend to think of lines and

segmentations. We think of the borders that dictate global relations and political

struggles. We see people desperately trying to make it across borders, from one state

to another. This all seems incredibly natural at first. It is the world we have all been

presented with, and our understanding of how the humans on the globe function is

informed by where they exist within these borders. People's lives are dictated by these

lines that define the modern world. Through the use of White by Law, Why Does

Immigration Occur, and The Many Global South’s, I will depict how we live in a global

society in which a select few have access to wealth and opportunity at the cost of the

wellbeing of the majority. White people in liberal democracies exist freely and with rights

and protections. However this freedom to live in this way is conditional on the

exploitation of people of color, both within and outside of the democracy. Within the

liberal democracy they will never experience the same levels of citizenship as their

white counterparts, and for many this will lead to violence and exploitation. The

capitalistic practices of these democracies is conditional on the exploitation and

extraction of wealth from globally southern countries. We live the way we do because

they often live in instability and poverty. And even when they try to escape these

conditions, they are continually trapped within them.

The borders of our world are not natural. They are not set in stone, and they

represent so much more than lines on maps. Our modern world was carefully crafted by

decades of colonialism and neocolonialsim. Borders don’t just happen, they are crafted,

and the borders of the modern world were carefully constructed to create and maintain

power hierarchies. The global north and global south have emerged as two sides of a
coin. Their connection and interaction is informed and defined by conoliaslist practices

and modern power structures like the UN. Broadly speaking, the global north assumed

power positions of exploiter and the global south was and is theirs for exploiting. It is the

powerful liberal democracies of the west who control the politics of the globe, and they

have continually used this power to steal capital from the global south. Not only are

these countries left to deal with the scars of colonialism on their own, they are

continually losing capital to the global north. These two factors lead to systematic

instability within these places that poses a threat to the lives of the people who reside

there. Many of them try to migrate to the safety of the liberal democracy, but very few

will ever receive the protections they strive for.

So what is the “liberal democracy” and why is it such a coveted place? The

liberal democracy is the place of individual rights and freedoms, and it is coveted for the

opportunity it offers. In this space you can become anyone you want, you just have to

pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make the reality you want for yourself. However,

the system is rigged, making it a lot easier for certain individuals to “win”. As the writers

of the liberal democracy knew from their positions of power inherited from colonialism,

excelling in an individual based society is a lot easier with an advantage and a cheat

code. So a society is set up in which individuals have the right to live how they like, as

long as they can provide that reality for themselves. Racial hierarchies dictated that

white people were the only ones allowed to fully participate in society while being a

person of color meant that you were victim of exploitation. These are the foundations of

our modern society, and while we have progressed to a point where everyone has the

right to fully engage with society, the rules are still set up to empower white people and
leave people of color vulnerable to exploitation. It doesn’t matter if human, collective, or

global rights are violated. The health of the community, society, and world is outweighed

by the right of privileged white individuals to have all the freedoms and rights in the

world.

The way in which you are allowed to exist within society is defined by certain

identity traits such as race, so the way in which this concept is defined and employed

will dictate societal hierarchies. Haney-Lopez explains to us that, “Race can be

understood as the historically contingent social systems of meaning that attach to

elements of morphology” (Haney Lopez 10). Race is a socially constructed concept that

gives meaning to different features and lineage. While these meanings are just

societally cultivated beliefs, they become concepts with force when they are reproduced

by who has wealth and who does not. Social and legal actors accept these ideas

meaning that the material wealth has become conditioned by race. When you consider

the individualistic ideals of a world controlled by the liberal democracy, you see that the

ability of people of color to excel and access safety and opportunity within this system is

considerably blocked. Individuals in the liberal democracy are expected to provide the

life they want for themselves, but there is no acknowledgment of the meaning of race

and the racial disparities present in society.

The process through which these various levels of interactions with society have

been managed through citizenship. Citizenship is both a legal and social institution.

Legal citizenship entails the rights and duties that an individual and the state owe one

another. However, legal citizenship has never had the effect of equal rights or inclusion

for many americans. Racist ideals institutionalized within law still deny many Americans
of color the equal rights and protections they are legally entitled to. Secondly, legal

citizenship cannot promise socio-cultural citizenship. Socio-cultural can be described as

feeling a sense of belonging and being viewed by others as a valuable member of

society (Joseph, Golash 2). Citizenship is incredibly important as it defines the way in

which you will interact with the state and society. It determines if you will be given rights

and protections or if you will be left open to legitimate violence and exploitation form the

state. Citizenship has been used as a tool to empower certain populations and

disenfranchise others. The state has the sole ability to dictate who is a citizen and

therefore allowed to access the priveleges of society and who is doing so “illegally”.

There is no inherent difference between a citizen and non citizen, the disparities we see

are completely state created. Both kinds of people are simply existing within a space,

but an invisible label is what will decide how they are allowed to exist within that space.

By labeling the legal actions of undocumented people as “illegal” the state has created

an entire population that is open to exploitation and legitimate state violence. Without

documents undocumented workers are often exploited by working for low wages in

unsafe conditions. Additionally, because they are “illegal” the state has the right to

abuse these people without public complaint, and it regularly does so. In the series

Living Undocumented, we saw countless examples of the brutality of ICE. They

manhandled multiple characters, lied and essentially kidnapped one, deported, and

were a pervasive negative force in their lives. All these instances depicted how the state

sees undocumented individuals as unworthy of human rights, and it is their

undocumented states that allows these violations to occur.

 So if citizenship is nearly impossible to reach and doesn’t even offer full rights,

and being undocumented leads to violence and exploitation, why are people trying to

get into the position of being a migrant? Migration is an individual choice made by

millions of unique decisions. However, there are theories that we can use to understand

global migration as a whole. The world systems theory states, “political power is

unequally distributed across nations, the expansion of global capitalism act to

perpetuate inequalities and reinforce a stratified economic order.” (Massey 40). This

theory explains how the dominant capitalistic countries are “core” nations while those

on the “periphery” are dependent on them. Due to years of colonialism and extraction

these countires experience higher levels of poverty and instability. Therefore in order to

exist in the capitalistic global society, they must engage in partnerships with core

nations that may be against their best interests. Wealth from the global south is

continually funneled into the global north, continually creating more poverty and

instability. People residing in these countires wish to escape this and find more

opportunity in the liberal democracy “core” nations. However, it is actually the poorest

countires that are recieve in the most refugees (Arar, Fitzgerald 135). In order to

preserve the stability and status quo within the core nations, they want to let few

numbers of migrants in. So they engage in what scholars call, “the grand compromise”

in which these wealthy countires essentially pay periphery states to host and manage

the worlds refugee (Arar and Fitzgerald 135). The high number of refugees in our world

right now is a direct result of the practices of wealthy capitalist democracies, and when

these people try to escape the conditions that were created for them, they are turned
away from rights and opportunity and forced to remain within the instability of the world

that provides for core nations.

Borders and migration are the perfect depiction of global inequality. Borders

decide who gets to live in a stable and safe country and who will be subjected to lack of

opportunity and violence. Borders depict the historical inequalities created by

colonialism. Borders determine who within a boundary will have rights and who will not.

They inform who gets to be a citizen and how that citizenship will be experienced.

Migration tells the story of people trying to escape the consequences of power hierarchy

and that power still winning. People try to leave the instability but remain trapped inside

of it, all while the citizens of the liberal democracy live their daily lives within the society

that caused need for migration.

Double consciousness is a phenomenon first defined by W.E.B Du Bois. It explains a

sense of twoness that minorities within the United Stated develop in response to the

racial oppression they experience. It explains the juxtapositions of remaining true to

ones culture while also existing within dominant white society. Joseph and Golash

applied this concept to immigrants, both documented and undocumented, within the

U.S. Anti immigrant sentiment is very apparent in American culture. We are told that

immigrants are a threat to our national security and economy, despite the fact that this

has been disproven. Immigrants simultaneously feel a sense of belonging and feeling

American while being told they are threats and unwanted. This leaves them with a
sense of twoness about their place in society. These discourses affect both how the rest

of society sees immigrants and the way in which they society and themselves. It can be

described as a veil one is looking through that taints the view they see. Double

consciousness is much more than just an ideology however, it has real life

consequences in the actions of those viewing immigrants through the veil. Immigrants

often experience racial profiling, interpersonal discrimination, and high tend surveillance

from law enforcement. In my drawing I have depicted your typical american family living

“the american dream” on one side of the road and another family on the other side

coming towards them. This is to represent the fact that they have just arrived and are

emigrants into this society. The two American flags are being used as curtain rods, and

they are holding up the veil. The veil depicts how the racialized legal status of

immigrants effects the way they experience society and the way society perceives them.

The flags are holding it up because it American culture, laws, and institutions that have

created this veil.