Question

My third gift was a photograph of the El Paso/Juárez border: the Chihuahua Desert, the Rio Grande, a stern mountain, two sprawling border cities. Like our families, our geography is part of who we are.

When I was growing up on the U.S. side of that border, the society around me tried in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to convince me that my Mexican heritage was inferior to that of Anglo-Americans. I hope that today’s educators on the border and throughout this nation are now committed to multiculturalism, to motivating the next generation to draw on their heritage as a resource for learning. The U.S. has been described as the first international country: Our varied cultures are our common wealth.

Borders—and if we’re attentive, we realize we all live on borders, whether they are national or not—are sites of tension and sites for learning. Borders invite us to confront differences, inequities and stereotypes. They invite us to work for multicultural cooperation and to celebrate multilingual richness.

–“The Leader in the Mirror,”
Pat Mora

What symbol does Mora introduce in this passage?


What does this symbol represent?

Answer 1

1) The symbol Mora introduces is the border — concretely the photograph of the El Paso/Juárez border (the desert, the Rio Grande, the mountain, the two cities).

2) The border symbolizes more than a geographic divide: it stands for cultural and personal borders as well. It represents the mixture of identities and shared geography that shape people’s lives; the tensions, inequities, and stereotypes that must be confronted; and the border’s potential as a site of learning, multicultural cooperation, and celebration of linguistic and cultural richness.