From Fluid Movement to Fences: Shifting Relations Between Mexico and the United States in the Early Twentieth Century
The story of the Mexico-United States border is not a static one — shifting relations between the nations contributed to stark differences in communities that had once been places of cooperation. In just thirty years, groups of people that had once celebrated with one another would view each other as different or ‘other.’
In Rachel St. John’s Line in the Sand, the progression of decaying Mexico-U.S. relations is shown through an economic and political lens. It is through these themes that the modern border between the two nations emerged. St. John writes:
“Questions about the control of space, the negotiation of state sovereignty, and the significance of national identities have been entangled with the boundary line since its creation and continue to define the border today” (2011, 5).
In the late-nineteenth century, binational cooperation often followed capitalist expansion on the borderland; the introduction of the railroad provides a clear example of this.
“In the railroads’ wake, grasslands became ranches, mountains became mines, and the border itself became a site of commerce and communities… This transformation made the border a place that people and corporations owned and called home” (St. John 2011, 63).
Communities on both sides of the border were linked together and border towns began to experience growth. Sites that were once sparsely populated boomed as a result of the demarcated boundary. This unity would not last, however. The start of the Mexican Revolution would prove to be a turning point in border relations. In a chaotic skirmish at Nogales, tensions reached a boiling point and violence erupted. The result was a fence between Mexico and the United States (120). The fence in Nogales was not the only one. Other fences began to emerge in border cities including Calexico and Mexicali (145).
As the violence of the revolution raged on, nationalism grew in both Mexico and the United States. Encroachment by the U.S. government in Mexico sparked protests and invigorated anti-U.S. campaigns by leaders including Pancho Villa (134). His raid on Columbus, New Mexico provoked outcry and retaliation by the United States. This further fanned the flames of border tension. With World War I also raging, the threat of German subversives entering the U.S. through its southern border also drew attention from the government.
“President Wilson sent thousands of troops to the border, mobilizing army regulars and calling out the National Guard” (134).
Now, in addition to fences, the border was being delineated with humans. St. John states, “[t]hese soldiers became a human wall along the boundary line” (141). In Porous Borders, Julian Lim also remarks on these military efforts:
“As the U.S. military joined immigration officials in policing the border more tightly (again), they made visible a more powerful state presence in the borderlands, one that now demanded legal clarity in addition to racial legibility” (Lim 2017, 126).
Lim further analyzes the tightening border delineation through racial relations. Racial and ethnic groups began to take sides in the hope of using their allegiance to the United States or Mexico to leverage their societal standing (126).
St. John’s Line in the Sand shows that border delineation and tightening emerged side-by-side with the Mexican Revolution and World War I. While economic prospects had once led to cooperation in the latter part of the nineteenth century, conflict and war led to exclusion and difference in the early-twentieth century. Neighbors were divided and the stage was set for the modern Mexico-U.S. border.
References
Lim, Julian. Porous Borders: Multiracial Migrations and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017.
St. John, Rachel. Line in the Sand: A History of the Western U.S.-Mexico Border. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011.
