Postcards from the Chihuahua Border: Revisiting a Pictorial Past, 1900s–1950s by Daniel D. Arreola

The US-Mexico border as we know it today is an increasingly militarized and impermeable geographic boundary. As the current border wall becomes a more extremist reality, one fears for the environment and the cultures being erased in its path. Thankfully, scholars like Daniel D. Arreola are working to facilitate visual experiences that can bring light in a time of darkness. Postcards from the Chihuahua Border recreates a historical border landscape as it formed through economic cooperation, mutual respect, and inclusivity. Using his own postcard collection, which took twenty-five years to amass, Arreola recounts the past of three places (Ciudad Juárez, Ojinaga, and Palomas) located on the Chihuahua border, a region shared between Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas.

The "Arreola Collection" includes 1,374 individual postcards about the Chihuahua border, with the majority featuring Ciudad Juárez. These postcards are more than simple illustrative accompaniments. They are primary sources that enable us to see the past as a visual evolution of the Chihuahua border from 1900 to the 1950s. The postcards also provide perspectives on the effects of three key events that helped shape the urban landscape after the international border was established in 1848, namely, the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), US Prohibition, and the post–World War II economic boom.

The book is organized into four parts. Part I establishes the author's purpose "to cast a new eye on an old subject and bring light to a way of seeing the border that has been overlooked" (3). The reader is introduced to the photographers involved in postcard production and their role in representing the border to America during significant events like the Mexican Revolution. Part II reveals more about Ciudad Juárez as a principal hub for cross-border relations. Over the course of six chapters, the author discusses how travel from and through El Paso helped shape Ciudad Juárez, as there were economic benefits from its promotion on both sides of the border. Border crossing and modes of transportation impacted the evolution of the streetscapes in the Mexican hub. Mobility was improved, rather than restricted, as two border cities embraced a future by building each other up through marketing, amenities, and transit. "During this era, the two border cities may have been closer to complete interdependence than at any time in their nearly century-long relationship" (81). The author effectively portrays how powerful tourism was in building cross-border relationships in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the postcards featured popular venues in Ciudad Juárez, as the city was the first taste of Mexico for many US visitors. The city's identity developed as visitors consumed its curios, bars, cafés, and cabarets, made even more popular during the time of US Prohibition. A briefer Part III explores Chihuahua's other border towns (Ojinaga and Palomas) and provides a similar survey of themes, affirming this border experience was truly a regional phenomenon and not exclusive to Ciudad Juárez. Part IV is a short conclusion where the author reiterates the most visible concepts in previous sections, as well as the role of postcards, and the density of images from the past, in shaping our understandings of place.

For readers interested in the critical visualities of border dynamics, there are some key areas worthy of mention. The serial views of streetscape development curated by the author, like the "16 de Septiembre Time-Series Views" (90–111), take the reader through an evolving economy and culture while also expressing the persistence of landscape. Architecture may have been strategic subject matter for postcard producers and consumers as colonization was followed by capitalism. Buildings, like customs houses, "defined and continued to be emblematic of an architectural authoritative past. They were also captured as images in postcards, thereby perpetuating their importance to visitors as well as residents of the Mexican border town" (143). The author also touches on the need of postcard producers to promote the exotic in the form of Mexican arts and crafts, at the suggestion of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, in order to produce income for their Mexican neighbors (154). In creating this mystique around the Mexican artisans, postcard photographers and producers played to the fears shared by American art patrons that the Mexican handicraft traditions were being erased (171). In providing the perfect window for American tourists to experience vicariously the Chihuahua border, postcard photographers had an amount of power not always realized by lay audiences.

While Arreola has achieved his purpose in presenting a visual history of a significant border landscape, at times the reader is left wishing he had pushed further into the sociocultural discourses that were present in the postcard images but were only touched upon in the writing. The author only glides over the role of gender in shaping the landscape. The postcards reveal a great deal about "masculine" tourist attractions, but was this because there were inequalities in the selection of attractions, or inequality in the eyes of photographers or consumers? It also makes the reader question, did women not engage in cross-border travel? Or were they intentionally misrepresented or "erased" from the visual record? Likewise, the author does not seem to interpret repetitions of a subject—like the Mission of Guadalupe church—or its persistent promotion, as an expression of power. Finally, while Ciudad Juárez appeared to have successfully carried the torch for distillers of alcohol during Prohibition, a deeper investigation into the effects of such actions on the Mexican society and culture is warranted.

Postcards from the Chihuahua Border is a good example of how photographic postcards can represent the story of a changing landscape. To see how this border community takes shape historically is to realize the importance of mobility for a sustainable future, as well as the possibility of respectful coexistence, even symbiosis. Rather than mourning for a past landscape, perhaps we should look to the visual evidence that exists for the knowledge and the hope required to bring down walls and encourage a more inclusive border culture.