What Is The Theme Of The Short Story Borders By Thomas King

In the short story Borders, Thomas King uses the mother to demonstrate that identity is fluid; changing through a person’s experiences, nationality, citizenship, and pride. King aims to demonstrate the effects of indifference towards Indigenous identity and citizenship through his short story. King demonstrates the theme in many ways. Illustrating the mother’s pride in her nationality, which is Canada, while continuously contrasting this throughout the story by having the mother not change her answer about her nationality of being Blackfoot. A key point that King drives in his short story is the denial of Indigenous identity and the turmoil that Aboriginals face due to that. However, his story has an underlying message that while many Indigenous

Throughout Borders, King illustrates the mother’s pride in her own heritage and identity thoroughly and in a multitude of ways. The first and most obvious was during her time spent on the border. When the guards asked the mother about her citizenship, she replied, "Blackfoot," and she continued to defend that answer for the entirety of the story. This shows not only pride but also dedication, defiance even. Instead of answering as being Canadian or American, the mother picked a third option and stuck to it; instead of taking the easier option of answering the question ‘correctly,’ the mother defended her identity by not conforming to authority and not allowing the guards to deny her answer of being Blackfoot as being an invalid answer to identity. In a more subtle way, the mother demonstrated her dislike of being identified as anything, but Blackfoot is when it was noted how the mother "did not want us (herself and her son) [to] [cross] the border looking like Americans." Furthermore, wearing a dress

She is proud of her Indigenous heritage; however, it is also demonstrated how proud she is to be Canadian. Throughout the story, the mother continuously draws comparisons between American and Canadian cultures, with Canada, namely Alberta, being better in her view. For example, when Laetitia notes, "[t]her’s good skiing in the mountains" of America, the mother quips back, "[p]eople come from all over the world to ski at Banff." This continues all throughout the story. In this way, it is seen how the mother finds Canada to be better than America and will defend it even if some statements might be untrue; for example, when the mother said that "[p]eople in Salt Lake City are probably sending away for brochures of Calgary and Lethbridge and Pincher Creek." While these are good cities, there is nothing noteworthy about them for people to want to come and tour them. When it was noted that the mother "did not want us (herself and her son) [to] [cross] the border looking like Americans," it demonstrates how she does not mind to be identified as Canadian if it comes to it, as she does not want to "look[] like [an] American;" however, there is no mention of not wanting to look like a Canadian. This now brings up the question of why the mother would not say that she is Canadian instead of adamantly telling the guards she is Blackfoot. If she has pride in Canada, why would she be against saying that she is Canadian for ease’s sake?