Since the mid-nineteenth century, the US-Mexico border and the borderland on both
sides of the line have been a space of intense cultural conflict. The rallying cry of Trump
and his supporters to “build the wall” has foregrounded the materialized division
between the two nations, yet the borderland as a space and a metaphor also symbolizes
a liminal space and the connection between two countries and the continuity of
landscapes, ancestry, language and traditions. In this class, students will become familiar
with the history of the US-Mexico border, starting with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
in 1848, continuing through NAFTA up until current political processes and events like
the DREAM Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform that paved the way for the detention
of thousands of children in the last couple of months.
This class will approach the discourse about the border and the impact on people living
on both sides of it through historical and contemporary literary and non-fictional texts
including Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don (1885), Cormac
McCarthy’s Border Trilogy and recent publications as for example by Luis Alberto Urrea.
Additional, we will understand the border as a theoretical framework, seminally
influenced by Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera.
Please obtain and start reading Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don
(1885) before the semester starts.