Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2019

Publication Title

Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies

Volume

10

Issue

1

First Page

118

Last Page

127

Abstract

In 2008 I traveled to to the now defunct Minutemen outpost on the King’s Anvil Ranch, just south of Tucson, to get a close-up view of extinction. As I drove through the gate, banners flapped in the breeze and proclaimed WELCOME MINUTEMEN in scarlet letters, but the self-appointed border guards had gone home. A lone caretaker loped across the yard to greet me and to share the biology of hundreds of rusting bicycles heaped against a nearby stucco building. He unfurled a tale about foiling alien bike riders while raising funds for Minutemen barbeques and beers. It went like this: Coyotes led groups of Mexican immigrants to caches of bicycles in Arizona’s Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge and pointed their pollos toward Tucson for the final leg of their journey. Riding over cactus thorns on patched tires, few if any Mexicans peddled all the way to the Old Pueblo. Minutemen gathered the wreckage of failed attempts and set to work painting and polishing frames, oiling chains and re-patching tires. The overhauled bikes were auctioned and the beer and beef budget restored. But, after a time, the Minutemen began to notice certain flaws in their fundraising scheme. A few Mexicans came to the auctions to successfully bid on the bikes and the bikes reappeared in the semi-desert grasslands of the wildlife refuge. They were repeatedly gathered, restored, auctioned, cached, briefly ridden, and discarded. Finally, the machinery of this enterprise died in a massive tangle against the walls of an out building.

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