He Had a Uniform and Authority

Chapter 2 explores the process in which some Chicano Movement activists in San Diego began to identify immigration as central to their struggles for self-determination and Mexican immigrants as part of their broadening notions of Chicano/a community. Furthermore, it highlights how this process beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s was greatly influenced by different forms of violence emanating from the U.S. Border Patrol, Customs’ agents and local law enforcement in the San Diego Border region. By focusing on the perspective of undocumented and Mexican-American women who spoke out against Border Patrol and Custom Agent’s perpetration of sexual violence, unauthorized strip searches and other cases of harassment and brutality the chapter outlines how race, legal status and gender organized both border policing activities and Chicano Movement activist’s formulations of a transnational, “Raza Sí, Migra No” identity and politics.