Building the Borderlands: A Transnational History of Irrigated Cotton along the Mexico-Texas Border

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book owes its existence to a great number of people and institutions. The central questions about cotton, development, and state formation were formulated in graduate seminars at the New School for Social Research. Deborah Poole got me started on the dissertation and helped me finish. Bill Roseberry died as I was writing , leaving me with unpaid intellectual debts and great sorrow. In Matamoros I was welcomed by the staff and researchers at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and by the Familia Vivanco. I would like to thank Cirila Quintero, Arturo Zarate, Jaime Mendoza , and Elizabeth Cueva for their support. In Valle Hermoso the Familia Acosta shared their home with me, and Doctor Renato Vázquez shared his vast knowledge of the region. In Mexico City the CIESAS provided me with an institutional home during the initial fieldwork, and Roberto Melville convinced me of the importance of studying water. I thank the compañeros at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California San Diego for beach barbecues, Wednesday seminars, and bowling. Support from the Universidad Iberoamericana has allowed me to follow this project through to the end. I thank my colleagues in the Graduate Anthropology Program at the Ibero for their support, and especially Roger Magazine for always pushing me to take my anthropology just a little bit farther. Luis Aboites, at the Colegio de México, read the dissertation from start to finish, and his comments guided the transformation of the dissertation into a book. Thanks, Luis, for your patience. Steve Striffler and Sterling Evans read the manuscript and provided excellent suggestions. Financial support for the research and writing of this book was provided by: the New School for Social Research; the National Security Education Program; the Social Science Research Council; the Fulbright Program; the Rockefeller Archive Center; the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UCSD; and the Universidad Iberoamericana. I thank my parents William and Catherine Walsh for their love and support while I follow my star. Finally, I thank my wife and colleague, Emiko Saldívar, and our daughters Amaya and Naomi, for accompanying me across so many political, intellectual, and emotional borders. ...