FROM IRCA TO ORCA - APPREHENDING THE OTHER IN YOUR SAN-ANTONIO EXPERIENCE

From the Alamo to Sea World, the San Antonio tourist experience reiter ates an historical and ethnic narrative that positions the Anglo-Ameri can subject in relation to the Mexican as 'other'. Like the Immigratio n Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, this strategy of definition a nd containment is inseparable from profound ambivalences about the pos sibility of effectively 'naturalizing' difference. In 'remembering the Alamo', the tourist is faced with the possibility of dis-integration and an inversion of the colonizer/colonized relationship.