Southwest Folklife Alliance

Reclaiming the Border Narrative: A Manifesto

Reclaiming the Border Narrative: A Manifesto served as our “final report” as ethnographers of Reclaiming the Border Narrative, a three-year effort initiated by the Ford Foundation in partnership with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Borealis Philanthropy, and the Center for Cultural Power, to support storytelling efforts along the US-Mexico border. 

In our observations of and interviews with project grantees (artists, journalists, and movement workers), we heard again and again that the entrenched border narratives of chaos and danger obscure the other, more common and beautiful realities of this region. Only by shifting attention to singular specific stories shared in markets and dinner tables and dance halls, to ecosystems and plant knowledge, to artmaking and bread-breaking, to subtlety and marginalia, will we encounter the truths of this place. Inspired by our conversations with artists, journalists, and movement workers, we wrote this manifesto to summarize our findings. Naturally, we turned to the artists to help our words sing and shine.

The Southwest Folklife Alliance is an affiliate non-profit organization of the University of Arizona, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. We are the designated Folk Arts Partner of the Arizona Commission on the Arts with the support of the National Endowment of the Arts.

We build more equitable and vibrant communities by celebrating the everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity rooted in the Greater Southwest and U.S. Mexico Border Corridor. Nationally, we amplify models and methods of meaningful cultural work that center traditional knowledge, social equity, and collaboration.

We do this by:

• Producing festivals and public programs that increase understanding and respect for folklife practices.
• Providing direct support to heritage-based artists in the region.
• Documenting folklife and amplifying the voices of artists and cultural workers engaged in folklife practices.