Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

In her acclaimed book Borderlands / La Frontera: the New Mestiza (1987), Gloria Anzaldúa calls the US-Mexican border ‘an open wound’ which has continually been festering since the grinding poverty of the Third World began to clash with the growing domination of the First. The recently deepening wound is clearly connected with the gradual acceleration of brutality in the borderlands, being the repercussion of President Felipe Calderón’s 2006 decision to declare war on cartels. Yet, with its adjoining territories, the border is tantamount to the source of inexhaustible income falling not only to drug trafficking organisations but also to various lawful businesses and innumerable individuals. With a focus on Ed Vulliamy’s Amexica: War Along the Borderline (2010), and references to other sources, the article aims to examine who gains from the grave situation in the US-Mexican borderlands by showing that the beneficiaries are remarkably diverse.