Borders By Thomas King Essay

Borders Between Us Selfhood begins with an individual's asserted beliefs that are deeply rooted in their perceived environment under self-proclaimed borders. These beliefs can also stem from historical claims that natives stood up for throughout time. When their collective identity is questioned by outsiders, they will affirm themselves and their ideologies, even at the expense of their dignity. The short-story writer, Thomas King, wrote a piece titled "Borders" that reads into the itinerary of a mother and her boy to Salt Lake City and visit the kid's sister, Laetitia, who had recently moved out of their Indigenous reserve. It proceeds through the mother's comical commotions with the Canadian-American border guards about their Blackfoot citizenship. Despite the further humorous developments in the story, Thomas King is conveying that an Indigenous or any minority may go to extreme lengths to announce their identities as distinct but equal to any other social group.…

A border can be revealed not only in a geographic sense but can be seen as an obscurity between two individuals in a relationship. In the short story “Borders,” Thomas King narrates in relation to his childhood experiences, and explores the nexus between borders, the mother-daughter relationship, and their identities. As a Blackfoot Native American woman, the mother sees a border as arbitrary, as her ancestors once had no geographic borders. On the other hand, her daughter Laetitia, has a much…

In the short story “Borders” by: Thomas King the main character, who is the mother of a Blackfoot family living in Standoff, Alberta, will not directly identify her citizenship as Canadian or American at the borders One day, the mother decided that she and her son would go to visit the boy's sister, Laetitia, who had moved to Salt Lake City when she was seventeen years old. When the boy and his mother were asked their citizenship at the American border the mother answered “Blackfoot”. The guard…

The political dispute of identity versus citizenship is one that is persistently debated. In “Borders” by Thomas King, the narrator’s mother is traveling to Salt Lake City and must go through the borders between America and Canada. The protagonist experiences the conflict of man versus society as she feels the need to defend her identity from the guards. Thomas King makes the implicit political claim that identity and citizenship are not one in the same. The story is written from the point of…

Thomas King’s short story “Borders” explores the idea of pride and its power to strengthen the Indigenous identity through the erasure of physical borders. The protagonist’s mother teaches him that he should not have to abide by the physical borders of countries to be living on the land because something as deeply personal as one’s cultural identity is worth more than “a legal technicality” (King 292). Her disregard of the American-Canadian border grants the protagonist the knowledge that when…

them and to relieve them from some pain. Thomas king showed many humorous situations in the story “Borders”, and he said, “Comedy is used to present often tragic themes” (King 225). He wanted to face the subjects of land, citizenship and cultural rights, since these subjects have been recorded in history as sad subjects Thomas King did not want to turn the reader’s eye away. That is why he introduced it in the story “Borders”…

In the United States, borders have went from being patrolled by a few hundred agents in certain areas, to over thousands of agents at designated regions around the United States. Immigrants have always held a vast percentage in the United States, “More than 43.7 million immigrants resided in the United States in 2016, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total U.S. population of 323.1 million”(“Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States”). The percent of…

confrontational way. Humor acts as a coping mechanism, helping people feel less defensive and easing the tension around difficult topics. This perspective allows difficult topics to be discussed without creating conflict or fear. In the stories “Borders” by Thomas King, and “Take Us to Your Chief” by Drew Hayden Taylor, humor is used to explore serious issues like identity and disadvantages, in a way to make the reader feel less uncomfortable. Through humor, these authors help readers connect…

complicated parts of who she is and where she comes from after going through the hard times of residential school. Moreover, the spirit of survivance resonates deeply with the themes explored in “Borders” by Thomas King, where the protagonists journey to assert their Indigenous identity…

There are over 7 billion people on this earth and not one of them the same. They are all different in many ways like religion, appearance, values and beliefs. They are judged by society simply because of a lack of understanding. The audience in “My body is my own business” written by Sultana Yusufali, the son from “A rupee earned” by I.F. Bulatkin and the border police in “Borders” by Thomas King from Sightlines 10 all learn a lesson that is essential to today’s population, they learn that…