Continental Crossroads *  
Remapping U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History

 

Whether we begin with Columbus, Jamestown, or the Aztec Empire, we usually see U.S. and Mexican history as distinct national stories.  As a result, we often overlook multiple worlds that cross national borders.  This conference sought to give new voice to these forgotten histories by making the U.S.-Mexico borderlands central to the American past.  Showcasing the work of a new generation of young scholars, this conference offered a transnational vision of a neglected era.  Papers focused on the formative years of modern borderlands history, from 1821, when U.S.-Mexican frontier relations began, to the mid-twentieth century, when economic development and state-formation gave the borderlands their current legal, political, and social shape. The papers have been compiled into a book, edited by Samuel Truett and Elliott Young, published by Duke University Press, 2004.

 

Public Symposium held on September 21, 2002

Introduction   

§        Samuel Truett and Elliott Young (University of New Mexico and Lewis & Clark College)

Frontiers and Borders

§        Bárbara O. Reyes (University of New Mexico) "Race, Agency and Memory in a Baja California Mission"

§        Raúl Ramos (University of Houston) "Finding the Balance:  Béxar in Mexican/Indian Relations"

§        Louise Pubols (Autry Museum of Western Heritage) "Fathers of the Pueblo:  Patriarchy in Mexican California"

Border Narratives

§        Andrés Reséndez (University of California, Davis) “An Expedition and its Many Tales:  Literary Fragmentation at the Border"

§        Elliott Young (Lewis and Clark College) "Think Globally, Resist Locally:  Ignancio Martínez’s Journey Around the Globe"

§     Alexandra Minna Stern (University of Michigan) "Tracking the Border Patrol:  Gender, Race and Boundary Maintenance"

Beyond Brown and White

§        Grace Delgado (California State University, Long Beach) “At Exclusion’s Gate:  Chinese Identity, Citizenship, and Diplomacy along the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1890-1900"

§        Karl Jacoby (Brown University) "Between North and South:  The Alternative Borderlands of William H. Ellis and the African American Colony of 1895"

Order and Disorder

§        Samuel Truett (University of New Mexico) “Transnational Warrior:  Emilio Kosterlitzky and the Transformation of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1873-1928"

§        Benjamin Johnson (Southern Methodist University) "The Plan de San Diego Uprising and the Making of the Modern Texas-Mexico Borderlands"

Conference organizers were Samuel Truett & Elliott Young.