CACT 8420 MEXICO AND THE U.S. BORDERLANDS: TWO HISTORIES, ONE DESTINY (3 credits)
Exploration of U.S.-Mexico Borderlands history and its pathways to current developments. It reviews borderland encounters, miscegenation, and wars between Indigenous groups, Europeans, North Americans, and Mexicans. It looks at the history of the drafting of the imaginary U.S.-Mexico borderline and follows its development until the construction of a wall to separate an undividable socio-cultural space. The course integrates a comparative conceptual approach to empires, nation-building, territorial expansion, identity formation, code-mixed English-Spanish uses, and state sovereignty.