Podcast Summary: “Valeria Luiselli on Reënacting the Border”
The New Yorker Radio Hour | July 2, 2019 | Hosted by David Remnick

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the intersection of historical myth and modern reality along the US-Mexico border, as experienced and reported by Mexican author Valeria Luiselli. Accompanied by producer Pike Malinowski and former Border Patrol agent Francisco Cantú, Luiselli travels through Tombstone, Arizona, and Shakespeare, New Mexico, exploring how Wild West reenactments and frontier legends shape contemporary attitudes toward the border, immigration, and national identity. Through interviews with local reenactors, historians, vigilantes, and borderland residents, the episode exposes a complex tapestry of nostalgia, myth-making, vigilantism, and prejudice—contrasted by moments of hope and resilience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Border as Myth and Battleground

[00:10]

• The border crisis is centrally located in US politics, inflamed by divisive narratives.
• Luiselli seeks to investigate how the stories told in Wild West reenactments inform our ongoing border perceptions.
• "The debate over the border with Mexico and the whole vexed question of immigration is at the very center of American politics...The president continues to stoke the fear of immigration and as an existential threat to the country." — David Remnick [00:10]

2. Arrival in Tombstone: Meeting Locals and Reenactors

[03:39-08:18]

• Francisco Cantú, former Border Patrol agent, critiques the prevailing law enforcement narrative:

  "The most harmful part of the narrative is this narrative that the people that you're encountering are criminals...the vast majority are humanitarian encounters, right? Like these are encounters with refugees, not criminals most of the time." — Francisco Cantú [02:43]

• Luiselli and Pike observe Tombstone’s transformation into a living western stage, its streets bustling with saloons, stagecoaches, and actors.
• Reenactors, such as Zach Eder (Frank McLaury), embrace the spectacle and its moral simplicity:

  "There's nothing quite like getting to shoot guns at your friends all day and then getting up and going to have a beer after you're done." — Zach Eder [05:32]

• The shows traffic in simple binaries—good lawmen (Earps) vs. bad outlaws (Clantons), with audiences instructed to boo and cheer accordingly.

3. Conversations on Historical Narratives and Exclusion

[09:40-13:51]

• Visit to Ben Tredwick, 93-year-old former town historian and Tombstone’s original reenactment scriptwriter.
• Tredwick’s views highlight selective memory and overt racism:
  • He admires Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, acknowledges writing a book defending the KKK, and supports a border wall:

    "Those who understand the KKK view it as a beloved symbol of all that is holy and beautiful." — Ben Tredwick (paraphrased by Luiselli) [11:51]
    "We have gotten so many criminals and so many people with diseases that we need to protect ourselves." — Ben Tredwick [13:40]

• Luiselli questions the erasure of Mexican and Native characters from the town’s pageantry.

4. Vigilantism: Past and Present

[14:17-15:59 | 18:33-22:36]

• Tombstone is both the original mythic frontier and the birthplace of real-life vigilante groups, such as the Minutemen.
• Cantú reflects on the blurred lines between law enforcement and reenactment, the “performance” of patrolling the border:

  "As I'm in this place... what separates that kind of a performance, you know, in the context of law enforcement from like these people dressing up as cowboys. Like, I see less and less that separates them..." — Francisco Cantú [18:33]

• In Shakespeare, Rod Linkus recounts the persistent narrative of danger:

  "Everything in the southwest either sticks, bites, scratches, stings or poisons you." — Rod Linkus [19:47]

  • Modern fears of drug mules echo older tales of Apache attacks; communities have always organized vigilante groups to "defend" civilization.

5. Life on the Border: Residents’ Perspectives

[24:24-27:46]

• Interview at Twin Buttes RV park: Residents recall mass journeys of migrants and support for civilian militia activities.
• Roger Kircher, RV park owner, boasts his “sheriff” role and embraces the frontier’s law-and-order ethos:

  "I'm like the local sheriff for Twin Buttes RV Park...I make the rules." — Roger Kircher [28:17]

• Views on migration are unapologetically hardline, laced with humor and hostility toward outsiders:

  "Solid wall all the way and would be a good start...Change the laws and...get the right documentation and we'll welcome you into our United States of America. But don't break in. You don't break into anybody's house." — Roger Kircher [27:46]

6. Contrasts and Closing Reflections

[28:50-30:49]

• Luiselli feels uneasy and wonders about the limits of dialogue when views are so polarized:

  "...I feel uneasy and maybe a little hopeless. What possibility of dialogue is there when people's opinions are so divided?" — Valeria Luiselli [28:50]

• The episode ends on a brighter note with Uber driver Pablo Martinez, who embodies hope for coexistence:

  "We cannot be fighting like animals, you know, or hating. Hating is from evil, you know, we cannot have that. We can, you know, put the love in front." — Pablo Martinez [30:05-30:17]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Francisco Cantú on Law Enforcement Narratives [02:43]:

  "...the huge gulf in that narrative is that most of these encounters, like, they're not criminal encounters...the vast majority are humanitarian encounters, right? Like these are encounters with refugees, not criminals most of the time."

• Zach Eder on Reenactor Life [05:32]:

  "There's nothing quite like getting to shoot guns at your friends all day and then getting up and going to have a beer after you're done."

• Doug Holliday’s Gunfight Instructions (Reenactment Humor) [07:36]:

  "Do not attempt to pull them from our holsters at any time. Do not ask us to hold them to your spouse's head for pictures. It's not gonna happen."

• Discussion on the Exclusion of Mexicans from Reenactments [12:00]:

  In the reenactments, "there are no Mexican or Native American characters..."

• Ben Tredwick’s (Disturbing) Posterity [11:51]:

  "Those who understand the KKK view it as a beloved symbol of all that is holy and beautiful." (Paraphrased by Luiselli)

• Francisco Cantú on the Performativity of Border Policing [18:33]:

  "The performance element of it, right?...as representatives of this civilization that has to be asserted against the other...What separates that kind of a performance from people dressing up as cowboys?"

• Roger Kircher, ‘Sheriff’ of Twin Buttes, on Law & Order [28:17]:

  "They make me the sheriff around here because I' law and order. I make the rules."

• Pablo Martinez on Resilience and Hope [30:05-30:17]:

  "We cannot be fighting like animals, you know, or hating. Hating is from evil...We can, you know, put the love in front."

Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:10] Setting the context — US politics and the border
• [02:43] Francisco Cantú discusses harmful border narratives
• [05:32] Zach Eder on the attraction of reenactment life
• [09:40-13:51] Interview with Ben Tredwick — racial memory, revising history, and bias
• [14:17] Discussion of Tombstone, Minutemen, and vigilante culture
• [18:33] Francisco Cantú on pervasiveness of frontier mythology in law enforcement
• [19:47-22:36] Rod Linkus on Shakespeare’s history and dangers
• [24:24-28:28] Twin Buttes RV park residents on living at the border and modern militias
• [30:05-30:17] Pablo Martinez on love versus hate and the possibility of reconciliation

Tone and Language

The episode’s language alternates between journalistic curiosity, empathy, and critical scrutiny. Through Luiselli’s narrative and Remnick’s framing, listeners are invited to grapple with uncomfortable truths—prejudice, nostalgia, denial, and the seductive simplicity of myth—while also encountering warmth, openness, and persistent hope from those on both sides of the border divide.

Takeaway:
This episode richly illustrates how the American border is less a line than a stage—one where history, mythmaking, fear, and aspiration are performed daily. The stories we tell, the characters we cast, and the myths we perpetuate still powerfully shape who’s seen as hero, villain, or excluded altogether. Confronting these stories is an uneasy but necessary step toward understanding and perhaps changing the realities of border life.