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Chapter 1. Along the United States–Mexico Border
- University of Texas Press
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■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ chapter 1 along the united states–mexico border For most of its nearly 2,000 miles, the United States–Mexico border is a permeable barrier of desert rock and sand. In a few places urban landscapes appear, with multiple fences and controlled gates of entry, while along the eastern half of the border the open space is divided by the Rio Grande. Through most of its western half, the boundary between national sovereignties is little more than a simple fence running across the two great deserts connecting northern Mexico and southwestern United States. The residents of this region share far more than natural landscapes. Their regional histories and life stories, cuisines and music, cultural habits and language are shared experiences for a large segment of the border population, and, like the natural environment, these common traits compose an older stratum of social and economic history that runs deep beneath the surface of contemporary population growth and economic change. This older layer was laid down before the border was created, but it has survived the overlay of separate national identities and large flows of immigrants through its constant renewal by the natural tendency of people to cross over to the other side. Marriages, families, schools, churches, and jobs link people across the border and are responsible for much of the shared experiences, histories, and cultures. People track back and forth, commuting to work, shopping and eating out, visiting friends and family, and engaging in the normal activities of everyday life. This ebb and flow makes the border a kind of tidal zone of nationalities, neither completely Mexican nor completely of the United States, but a blend of the two. 14 chapter 1 european settlement in the border region The border separating the United States and Mexico was created in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the Mexican-American War, or, as Mexicans prefer to call it, the War of North American Invasion. The treaty left the western half of the border without a clear definition until the Gadsden Purchase resolved the issue in 1853. For $10 million, the United States purchased approximately 30,000 square miles south of the Gila River and west from El Paso to California. The long stretch of the border between Texas and Mexico is defined by the Rio Grande (called the Río Bravo in Mexico), from the river’s mouth on the Gulf of Mexico between Matamoros (Mexico) and Brownsville (Texas) all the way upstream to West Texas, where the river separates El Paso from its Mexican twin, Ciudad Juárez. West of El Paso the border is a line drawn in the sand and rocks of the vast Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts that stretch across northern Mexico and southwestern United States. The border cuts through the Laguna–San Pedro Mártir mountains on the eastern edge of San Diego– Tijuana and ends in the Pacific Ocean at Border Field State Park. Archaeological evidence suggests that the border region has been occupied for at least 10,000 years. River crossings on the Rio Grande, some still in use until the aftermath of September 11, 2001, date back several millennia , while a native population of Amerindians continues to live throughout most of the border region. Spanish explorers trekking from Florida to California were the first Europeans to arrive in the borderlands. The earliest to arrive—Alonzo Pineda in 1519 and Diego Camargo in 1520—laid claim to the territory surrounding the lower Rio Grande. A few years later, in 1527, Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico and spent eight years wandering westward across Texas and New Mexico, perhaps as far as eastern Arizona. Explorers and gold seekers were followed by Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries looking for converts among the indigenous peoples. The Jesuits made the first contact with the border region in 1591, and in 1598 Franciscans established missions in New Mexico . The most notable was the Jesuit priest Eusebio Kino, who began his explorations and founding of missions in 1687, continuing until his death in 1711. A string of missions were built in the region, some still operating today as churches, others destroyed by time or by the indigenous peoples of the border. In 1749, more than 200 years after the first expeditions, Camargo and Reynosa were established in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, followed by Mier in 1753 and Laredo in 1755. The Rio Grande was a suitable transpor- [54.175.70...