The Southwest Borderlands: Cultural Encounters in a Changing Environment

In the wake of the US-Mexican War in 1848, Anglo-settlers, Native Americans, and Mexicans struggled over competing visions of an American future that would take root in the Southwest Borderlands. In this course we will examine how cross-cultural encounters shaped policy, changed the landscape, and heightened racial tensions. Using a variety of texts—documentary and feature films, magazines and newspapers, travelers' accounts and popular literature—we will explore a wide range of topics: territorial expansion, Native dispossession, racial formation and anxiety, the creation of the sunbelt, Mexican migration and labor, and the rise of the information economy. Drawing on these items, we will ultimately reflect on how past and present collide on the American borderlands, shaping the United States in countless ways. 3 hrs. lect