{"id":320,"date":"2022-01-07T19:11:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T19:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.csusm.edu\/cultureclash\/?page_id=320"},"modified":"2023-05-12T00:18:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T00:18:20","slug":"american-border-gladiators","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.csusm.edu\/cultureclash\/video-of-performances\/american-border-gladiators\/","title":{"rendered":"American Border Gladiators"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201c<\/span>American Border Gladiator” is a skit from the<\/span> Culture Clash<\/span><\/i> television show.<\/span>\u00a0As a parody of the show <\/span>American Gladiator<\/span><\/i>, which ran from the late 1980s to the mid\u201990s, the skit featured a competition where an average person had to complete a physical obstacle course and also overcome the trained athletes called \u201cgladiators.\u201d<\/span> It aired on network television approximately in 1992. The central idea of \u201cus vs. them\u201d is crucial in this parody of the risks and potential rewards of crossing the border without authorization. In the skit\u2019s competition, a \u201cGreen card\u201d (American residency) was the ultimate prize. Competitors must cross the international border defended by former immigration officers. If they can cross, then they can stay. Richard Montoya is a parody of a game show host, to fit with the whole parody of the show, where the life and death stakes of immigrants are trivialized into a game. He is also the narrator and tells the audience what is happening. Herbert Sig\u00fcenza and Ric Salinas portray contestants with certain characteristics. Salinas\u2019s character is a Salvadoran man who<\/span> doesn\u2019t speak English, and who responds \u201cno thank you\u201d to everything said to him. This<\/span> character who has learned a key phrase in English, is polite and non-threatening, but runs a high risk in attempting to cross the international border. Do\u00f1a Flora, played by Sig\u00fcenza, is a Guatemalan homemaker.Before she can even be asked anything, she recites the Pledge of Allegiance, representing another way immigrants will try to show they belong.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The host then tells her that there will be time for that in a little bit. The camera then pans to the two border gladiators who are former immigration officers. After stating their names, the male gladiator says \u201cI will not let them take your job.\u201d <\/span>When this statement is made he looks directly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall. This is a clear reference to the contemporary rhetoric of Gov. Pete Wilson and his allies. Wilson actively villanized Latinx people with his campaign <\/span>against <\/span>\u201cillegal immigration.\u201d Wilson resuscitated the false trope that immigrants steal jobs from hard-working Americans. Wilson and his political cabinet ran a commercial of migrants running across the San Ysidro border crossing. Culture Clash references <\/span>Wilson\u2019s political agenda in\u00a0 <\/span>their skits.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The host asks him how he avoided being hit by any cars in the \u201cInterstate Freeway 5 crossing challenge.\u201d Rudolfo says, \u201cNo, thank you.\u201d The host goes back to Do\u00f1a Flora, and asked her how the Rio Grande rapids were. She responded with a heavy accent \u201c<\/span>Ay, s\u00ed<\/span><\/i>, I lost two <\/span>primos<\/span><\/i>, but I managed to get through the tunnel of rats, and now I am ready for the challenge.\u201d Then the host tells the audience that all that stands between these contestants and their green cards are the border and the border gladiators. What proceeds is an overly exaggerated confrontation by each team. The border gladiators focus on Rudolfo and pin him down. Rudolfo is saying \u201cNo, thank you\u201d while they are doing some sort of motion with his legs. Dona Flora is about to hop a fence but just as she was reaching it, she was electrocuted; the special effects resemble a Looney Toons cartoon. Still, she is able to hop the fence and then recite the Pledge of Allegiance in front of an American Flag, and so the host then presented her with an oversize green card brought out by a Vanna White type of character. Do\u00f1a Flora is asked what she is going to do next. She responds not \u201cDisneyland. I have to go get my cousins.\u201d She runs off the side of the stage, personifying (and making fun of) the fear that giving one migrant a green card will lead to mass migration. The host then begins his conclusion, reminding the audience that the \u201cPete Wilson challenge\u201d begin next week. The skit ends on that remark.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1990\u2019s California, the Republican party reproduced and amplified xenophobic rhetoric to considerable success. California Governor Pete Wilson focused on \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants, especially Lat<\/span><\/p>\n

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ino immigrants. In a 1994 re-election TV commercial, Wilson\u2019s campaign argues that \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants are draining resources from the state<\/span>. The ad begins with the ominous narrator saying, \u201cThey keep coming.\u201d Wilson faces the Camera and promises that if elected, he will try to public services to \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants.<\/span>\u00a0Culture Clash\u2019s skit also references another element of anti-immigrant culture in 1990s California. The famous or infamous California Highway safety sign features a man, woman, and girl running. In 1990, The California Department of Transportation began posting the sign along two busy roadways near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego,<\/span> supposedly out of concern for the accidental pedestrian deaths that were happening, but really serving to heighten white drivers fears of undocumented immigration.\u00a0 Whatever effect if may have had on drivers, the graphics of the soon became iconic. Wilson was a strong advocate for Proposition 187. In the last words of the sketch, the host says \u201cTune in next week for the \u201cPete Wilson challenge.\u201d The nature of the \u201ccompetition\u201d<\/span> is unclear\u00a0 but it would probably be along the same lines as \u201cAmerican Border Gladiators\u201d<\/span> crossing the freeway during rush hour. Herbert Siguenza recalled that \u201cIt was the vilification of immigrants that was a major concern. Wilson was really making it difficult for immigrants to live and survive in California\u2026 It was very obvious that we were against Wilson and Proposition 187 while we were on TV.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ric Salinas explained the origin of the \u201cAmerican Border Gladiator\u201d sketch. He once saw on the news a story about a truck full of immigrants in Riverside.\u00a0 A helicopter shot showed Border Patrol officers beating women and men.<\/span>\u00a0Disgusted, Salinas decided to write a skit about it, <\/span>painfully <\/span>aware that was one of the rare incidents that were caught on camera. The comment by Salinas illustrates how troupe members saw themselves as social commentators. They saw what was going on, and they chose to use their performance to humanize Latinx immigrants <\/span>and satirize the absurd hurdles to immigration. <\/span>These migrants no longer were faceless; this performance gave migrants a face and a name<\/span>, and pointed out the struggles they overcame to arrive here.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

California in the 1990s had an internal struggle when it came to immigration and policies associated with it. Elected officials had one view and their constituents had diverse views Culture Clash wrote \u201cAmerican Border Gladiator\u201d as a direct response to the dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy of Gov. Pete Wilson. Propostion 187, caused Latinos to rise up and stand against the fearmongering . <\/span>Culture Clash humanized Latinx immigrants while ridiculing the barriers that the U.S. has put up to needed immigration<\/span>.<\/span> using humor to engender understanding in audience members. This is not the only skit that Culture Clash has produced that satirize the process to enter the United States without authorization. Bernardo the Dinosaur parodies the process and expectations that Americans have for immigrants.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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