Imma Take The Passport , But Fuck You!

The conception of this blog came from a conversation I was having with my coworkers, when talking about pre-planned trips and having to renew their passports. I realized at the time that my passport needed renewal as well and got some guidance from them as how I should go about it.

While going through the process of renewing my passport, I found myself perplexed by the contradictions involved. I was witnessing the actions of the Trump administration when it comes to ICE, the tariffs situation with China, and other countries placing new rules for Americans wanting to visit their country because of Trump admin policies, what's been happening with Palestine, etc. This process made me really recognize the privilege to not only have a passport, but a U.S. American passport specifically. I became acutely aware of the opportunities it lends me in traveling and the relative ease of getting visas that other people, if not born in the U.S., would face significant challenges with. These realizations led me to the central question of this blog.

The Border Paradox

We find ourselves in this weird spot following border rules that we actually hate. We accept our passports, those little booklets that somehow determine our worth to governments, while also seeing the deep unfairness of a system that sorts people based on where they happened to be born.

Neither you nor I created these borders. They were forced on the world through colonial violence, kept in place by military power, and made to seem normal through nationalism. Yet these random lines deeply affect who we are, what chances we get, and how much value the world places on our humanity.

I would like for you to come along with me in examining the complex, and often painful relationship between geopolitical borders and human identity. Here are some questions to keep in mind that I'm going to explore throughout this piece:

• Who benefits from borders?

• How do they shape our understanding of ourselves?

• And what might existence look like beyond the bordered imagination?

  
  

The Violent Origins of Modern Borders

For us to understand the borders now, we have to recognize their origins and how violent they were and still are. Most borders weren't created by mutual agreements between people; they were imposed through conquest, colonization, and imperial ambition.

Dr. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni calls these borders "imperial wounds on African geography." He points out how they "created artificial states and tore apart communities that had existed for centuries." These random divisions still cause conflicts across Africa today.

We saw the same thing happen across Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Research from Penn State shows that this "geographic and cultural disconnect often causes conflict, especially when these geographically distant people create borders without considering the local population."

These imperial borders weren't just lines on maps; they were tools to extract resources, control populations, and maintain colonial power. The arbitrary nature of these divisions continues to shape conflicts and inequalities in our present world.

The Unequal Weight of Borders

Borders don't work the same for everyone. They're sophisticated sorting systems that filter people based on nationality, wealth, race, religion, and other factors.

Joseph Carens, a political theorist, calls this "the birthright lottery." He says citizenship in wealthy countries is like feudal privilege; just an accident of birth that determines your chances in life. Take our American passports, for instance. We can travel to about 186 countries without an issue, putting us near the top of global mobility privilege.

Philosopher Achille Mbembe goes even further, saying borders create a kind of "necropolitics:" the power to expose some people to death while protecting others.

A Japanese passport lets you enter 193 countries without a visa. An American one gets you into 186. An Afghan passport? Only 27. This huge difference isn't natural or inevitable; it's a deliberate system that traps certain populations while others move freely.

Borders and Identity Formation

Anthropologist Shahram Khosravi, who crossed borders illegally to escape military service in Iran, argues that borders don't just limit movement; they create certain kinds of people. "The border," he writes, "is not just a geographical line but a system of control that follows migrants wherever they go." This creates what he calls "border subjectivity:" always being aware of your vulnerable status, always carrying the border inside you.

For people who live in borderlands or cross borders regularly, identity becomes complex, layered, and often contradictory. Gloria Anzaldúa, a groundbreaking Chicana theorist, described these borderland identities in her important work "Borderlands/La Frontera":

"The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta [is an open wound] where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture."

This "third country" exists not just physically but psychologically. People who move between multiple national and cultural contexts develop what scholars call "border thinking:" the ability to see from both sides of the line, to translate between worlds, and to recognize how arbitrary national belonging really is.

Imagining Beyond Borders

Against the border system, different movements and thinkers advocate for more open or borderless worlds, each approaching the question from different angles.

Economist Bryan Caplan argues restrictions on human movement are both morally wrong and economically inefficient. He estimates open borders would double world GDP by letting people work where their labor is most valuable.

No Borders activists take a more radical stance, rejecting both border controls and nation-states themselves. Harsha Walia argues in "Border and Rule" that borders are inseparable from capitalism, colonialism, and racial hierarchy, making their abolition necessary for true freedom.

Indigenous perspectives challenge borders from yet another direction. Tohono O'odham activist Ofelia Rivas states, "The border crossed us, we didn't cross the border." Many Indigenous nations maintain that colonial borders illegitimately divide their territories.

Practical Paths and Philosophical Possibilities

There are practical approaches to loosening the grip of rigid borders. Legal innovations like multiple citizenship and transnational governance offer paths toward more flexible belonging. Meanwhile, philosopher James Baldwin noted that denying others' humanity diminishes our own freedom, suggesting that border enforcement harms not only those excluded but those who do the excluding.

The most persistent borders may be in our minds. Philosopher Édouard Glissant calls for a "poetics of relation," seeing identity not as fixed but evolving through our connections with others. Groups like No More Deaths put this into practice, refusing to let borders determine who deserves compassion.

The Seed of a Different World

The radical potential of border thinking isn't just about changing policies; it's about transforming consciousness. It asks us to imagine identities not defined by citizenship or national belonging but by our shared humanity and unique positions in a complex web of relationships.

This requires acknowledging the paradox many of us live with: we navigate border regimes even as we contest them. We take the passport while saying "fuck you" to the system that makes it necessary. We comply with border rituals even as we question their legitimacy.

From this tension emerges the possibility of a new kind of identity; one that recognizes borders as powerful fictions with real consequences but refuses to grant them the final word on who we are or what we might become. This borderless consciousness doesn't ignore differences or erase specificity; instead, it recognizes that meaningful connection happens precisely through our particular locations in history, culture, and geography. As Gloria Anzaldúa writes, "The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts."

In a world increasingly defined by migration, mixing, and connection, the bordered self becomes increasingly untenable. The future belongs to those who can imagine belonging beyond borders: a form of identity that flows across lines rather than stopping at them, creating communities based on shared destiny rather than exclusive citizenship.

The passport we reluctantly take might be necessary for now. But the "fuck you" contains the seed of a world where such documents no longer determine human worth or mobility; where the accident of birthplace no longer functions as destiny. And perhaps that's why I found myself thinking so deeply about these issues while in the process of renewing my own passport, recognizing both the privilege it represents and the system I wish we could move beyond.