Transborder politics: The embodied call of conscience in traffic

In 1969, President Richard Nixon sought to curb the manufacturing, distribution, and use of controlled substances by initiating a "War on Drugs." Following the launch of this initiative, "the US-Mexico border became⋯ the frontline in a never-ending war between the US government and the drug-smuggling cartels" (Payan 23). In the ensuing years, the War on Drugs has been central not only to US foreign policy with Mexico, but also to public perceptions of the US-Mexico border itself. For many US Americans, the border is experienced, and thus understood, chiefly through film and other popular media. Consequently, citizens’ attitudes toward the border, their border politics, are powerfully shaped by popular images of the border. Given that the US-Mexico border is one of the most "frequently screened landscapes of North America" (dell’Agnese 204), there is no shortage of cinematic representations that contribute to how the border is rhetorically constructed in the public imagination. Copyrig