Policing the World on Screen by Marilyn Yaquinto

Author:Marilyn Yaquinto
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030248055
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

America’s Troubles at La Frontera

American interference in Latin America nearly dates back to the nation’s start, but began in earnest with the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 , later extended by Roosevelt with his 1904 “corollary” that stipulated that some acts “may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power.”4 Roosevelt set the stage for subsequent interventions, including the transformation of sovereign states into political and economic protectorates, along with defending any US interest deemed relevant to national security.5 That often meant supporting repressive governments and military dictatorships whose iron-clad control ensured stable environments in America’s “backyard” that were also necessary to protect economic (and predominantly American) investments.

A more complicated relationship has long existed with Mexico , with the nation’s immediate southern border often viewed as an extension of the US frontier as much as an international boundary. President Franklin Roosevelt introduced a “good neighbor” policy6 to encourage friendlier relations with Latin America , including ending the 1933 occupation of Nicaragua by US Marines. However, subsequent presidents rescinded the policy as the Cold War triggered US actions meant to counter perceived Soviet aggression in Latin America or to be used against any socialist or left-leaning politics around the globe.7 The Nixon administration intervened in Chile’s election, opposing the socialist, Salvador Allende —although democratically elected—as a perceived threat to US national security, and engaged in several cloaked operations.8

The Reagan administration continued the trend, with the so-called Reagan Doctrine sanctioning clandestine agencies to shore up anti-communist regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala, along with funding right-wing Contra rebels battling Nicaragua’s socialist junta.9 Once Reagan publicly declared a War on Drugs in the mid 1980s, Central America, and increasingly Mexico , became the war’s frontlines that justified the bypass of national borders and other nations’ sovereignty.10 More importantly, most of the above policies were not carried out as predominantly military operations but as Roosevelt-inspired “police” actions, using the CIA and other such agencies to accomplish the nation’s goals.

Scholars working in the broad-based field of “border studies ” have long-noted the concept of “crossings” and hybridization for communities along borders (physical and political), which are the most impacted by such disputes or interventions. Yet, few Hollywood products ever capture such fluidity, preferring to depict the border as a site of conflict characterized by an us-versus-them mentality and war zones, as defined above.11 As films and television programs customarily explore the micro experiences of characters’ lives (impacted by the larger society or macro-level politics), the American ethnocentrism of Hollywood stories is all the more obvious when the border is involved. Rather than depict fluid identities, the approach seems to reiterate Turner’s line “between savagery and civilization ,” in which Mexicans , in particular, are cast as the savages occupying a vast, amorphous southern frontier.

Unlike the nineteenth century western version characterized by a singular vision of big skies, open range, and boundless opportunities, the southern borderlands are envisaged as a sullied landscape of “foreign” inhabitants. Pablo

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