History of the U.S./Mexico Border—18th-20th Century1
History 465S.01 & LSGS 405.01 Spring 2014
Tuesdays: Carr Building Room 242 1:40-3:50
S. Deutsch, Office: Carr 326—Office Hours Thursdays 11-1 and by appointment
This course explores the creation and perpetual remaking of the border between
the United States and Mexico from the 1780s to the current day. Topics explored include
nation formation, citizenship, migrant lives, public policy, border incursions, and national
identity. The ability to secure borders is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of
nationhood. Yet the U.S./Mexico border has long been porous, subject to flows of capital
and labor, with varying degrees of concern and coercion on the part of the U.S. and
Mexican governments. Moreover, the border created is not simply geographical or
physical, but also economic, social, and psychological. The U.S. government defined
“Mexican,” for example, at some times as a nationality and at others as a “race.” Nor was
the border simply a U.S./Mexican binary, from the use of African American troops on the
border in the early twentieth century to Native American reservations that bridge the
border today.
Starting before the U.S./Mexican War dramatically shifted the border, and
carrying up to the present, this course examines changes and continuities in the history of
the border, focusing on public policy and debates, transnational corporate practices,
popular representations, and individual lives, and so provides a historical foundation for
current immigration controversies. Students will read works of history and autobiography
as well as government hearings and other primary sources. Each student will learn how to
conduct original research, culminating in an essay on an approved topic of his or her
choice.
Requirements:
-Attendance and participation in discussion that demonstrates knowledge of the assigned
reading—20%
-Workshop assignments—20%
-Presentation, analysis, and discussion of document—20%
-Final paper (including topic proposal, bibliography, outline and introduction, and draft,
when due)—40%
Required readings are in the following books available at the University bookstore and on
reserve at the library, and in articles and book chapters available on the course’s
Blackboard site or through article databases such as JSTOR through the library website.
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza: Third Edition. Aunt Lute
Books, 2007.
Horne, Gerald. Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 19101920. NY: New York University Press, 2005
Jacoby, Karl. Shadows at Dawn: a Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History.
Penguin Press. 2008.
1
Elements of the syllabus are subject to change.
Martinez. Ruben. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. NY: Picador
Press. 2001.
Paredes, Américo. With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1958.
Week 1 (Jan. 14): Overview and Introduction
We will discuss a chronology of the border, themes, and possible paper topics.
Read: Joseph Nevins, Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond: The War on “Illegals”
and the Remaking of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary, 2d ed. (NY: Routledge, 2010), 1-75
(on Sakai)
Week 2 (Jan. 21): Who’s Invading Whom? And workshop on how to find
Government Hearings
Read: Andrés Reséndez, Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and
New Mexico, 1800-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 15-55, 93123 (on Sakai);
And Brian DeLay, “Independent Indians and the U.S.-Mexican War,” American
Historical Review 112:1 (February 2007), 35-68 (through JSTOR).
First workshop assignment (government hearings) due 1/28!
Week 3 (Jan. 28): Internalizing the Border & Discussion of Hearings & how to
choose a topic
Read: Karl Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn
Week 4 (Feb. 4): individual meetings with Prof. Deutsch re: topics
Topic proposal due 2/11!
Week 5 (Feb. 11): Transnational Capital and Transnational Labor
Read: Samuel Truett, Fugitive Landscapes: The Forgotten History of the U.S.Mexico Borderlands (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 55-103, 144-151
(on Sakai)
And Katherine Benton-Cohen, Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor
War in the Arizona Borderlands (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009),
introduction (1-17), Chapters 2 & 3 (48-119) (on Sakai)
Week 6 (Feb. 18): Border Heroes
Américo Paredes, With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero
And Elliott Young, Catarino Garza’s Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border
(Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 205-217, 227-240, 305-315 (on Sakai)
Week 7 (Feb. 25): Border Warriors & how to use HeritageQuest, Ancestry.com &
the Census
Gerald Horne, Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution,
1910-1920
And Oscar J. Martínez, Fragments of the Mexican Revolution: Personal Accounts
From The Border (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983), pp. 1-36, 108113 (on Sakai)
And Benjamin Johnson, “The Mexican Revolution and the Birth of the MexicanAmerican Civil Rights Movement” (on Sakai)
Second workshop assignment—Census—due Mar. 4!
Week 8 (Mar. 4): Making a Border—World War I & the “White Man’s West” &
how to find scholarly articles, newspapers, and oral histories
Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an AngloHispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1987), pp. 107-126 (on Sakai)
And Claire F. Fox, The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the U.S.Mexico Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), pp. 69-95 (on Sakai)
And Documents on Vice on the Border (on Sakai)
And Gabriela Recio, “U.S. Prohibition and the Drug Trade in Mexico” (on Sakai)
Spring Break!!
Week 9 (Mar. 18): Annotated bibliography due at individual meeting with
Professor Deutsch!
Third workshop assignment—Newspapers or Oral Histories—due Mar. 25!
Week 10 (Mar. 25): Inscribing the Border Within
Read: Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera
Secondary source assignment due Apr. 1!
Week 11 (Apr. 1): Outline and introductory paragraph & secondary source
assignment due at individual meeting with Professor Deutsch
Week 12 (Apr. 8): Contemporary Border Crossings I
Read: Ruben Martinez, Crossing Over, pp. 1-137
Week 13 no class Apr. 15—research and writing time!
Draft of final paper due 4/22!
Week 14 (Apr. 22): Contemporary Border Crossings II
Read: Ruben Martinez, Crossing Over, pp. 139-328 AND
Workshop Your Introductions online—post your introduction by 5 p.m. Apr.
21!
Students will meet individually with Prof. Deutsch Wed.-Fri. to go over drafts. Final
Draft Due: Apr. 29!