Border land, border water : a history of construction on the U.S.-Mexico divide

Winner, Abbott Lowell Cummings Award, Vernacular Architecture Forum, 2020 Winner, Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award, Society of Architectural Historians, 2021 From the boundary surveys of the 1850s to the ever-expanding fences and highway networks of the twenty-first century, Border Land, Border Water examines the history of the construction projects that have shaped the region where the United States and Mexico meet. Tracing the accretion of ports of entry, boundary markers, transportation networks, fences and barriers, surveillance infrastructure, and dams and other river engineering projects, C. J. Alvarez advances a broad chronological narrative that captures the full life cycle of border building. He explains how initial groundbreaking in the nineteenth century transitioned to unbridled faith in the capacity to control the movement of people, goods, and water through the use of physical structures. By the 1960s, however, the built environment of the border began to display increasingly obvious systemic flaws. More often than not, Alvarez shows, federal agencies in both countries responded with more construction—"compensatory building" designed to mitigate unsustainable policies relating to immigration, black markets, and the natural world. Border Land, Border Water reframes our understanding of how the border has come to look and function as it does and is essential to current debates about the future of the US-Mexico divide. From the boundary survey of the 1850s to the ever-expanding fences and highway networks of the twenty-first century, Border Land, Border Water examines the history of the construction projects that have shaped the region where the United States and Mexico meet. Tracing the accretion of ports of entry, boundary markers, transportation networks, fences and barriers, surveillance infrastructure, and dams and other river engineering projects, C. J. Alvarez advances a broad chronological narrative that captures the full life cycle of border building. He explains how initial ground-breaking in the nineteenth century transitioned to unbridled faith in the capacity to control the movement of people, goods, and water through the use of physical structures. By the 1960s, however, the built environment of the border began to display increasingly obvious systemic flaws. More often than not, Alvarez shows, federal agencies in both countries responded with more construction--"compensatory building" designed to mitigate unsustainable policies relating to immigration, black markets, and the natural world. Border Land, Border Water reframes our understanding of how the border has come to look and function as it does and is essential to current debates about the future of the US-Mexico divide. -- Dust jacket flap Introduction1. The Border Environment in the Nineteenth Century2. The Border and the Mexican Revolution3. Police and Waterworks on the Border: Aspirations to Control through Building4. Police and Waterworks on the Border: Systemic Flaws5. Building the Border of TodayEpilogueAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex The border environment in the nineteenth century -- The border and the Mexican revolution -- Police and waterworks on the border : aspirations to control through building -- Police and waterworks on the border : systemic flaws -- Building the border of today -- Epilogue. A 150-year history of the border region between the United States and Mexico, told through the fences and barriers, the river engineering projects, and the surveillance infrastructure that have reshaped the natural landscape.