Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper explores the Conference theme of “Transcultural Humanities in a Global World” by examining the paradoxical nature of Latinx border patrol agents. Their interviews and memoirs reveal a complex mix of antipathy, cultural identification, and humanist empathy for the immigrants they are employed to hunt and capture along the U.S.-Mexico Border. This paper focuses on how former Border Patrol agent Francisco Cantú’s 2018 memoir, The Line Becomes a River, and related Latinx paramilitary memoirs, also simultaneously problematize key paradigms in Latinx Studies, particularly borderlands identity and gnosis. This study is guided by several questions: How do these deployments of foundational paradigms reveal ideological fissures and limits in core Latinx Studies discourses? What model of humanism is proposed by border patrol agents and what is the ideology of their model? What future and alternative interventions do these Latinx border patrol agents and paramilitary officers both portend and demand?