Border, The U.S.-Mexico Line
Author: Leon C. Metz
Publisher: TCU Press - Fort Worth, TX
Date: 1989
Pgs: 467
Dewey: 972.1 MET
Disposition: Irving Public Library - South Campus - Irving, TX
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REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
A line in the sand, across desert, mountains, and rivers, some running, some dry. Covers the historical aspects of the border from explorers, to revolutionaries, to bandits, to water rights. Water, sand, and blood.
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Genre:
Textbooks
Humanities
History
Latin America
Americas
Mexico
United States
Military

Why this book:
It is topical right now. Usually is for people living in the Southwest.
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Favorite Character:
Pancho Villa...every time.

Least Favorite Character:
General Santa Ana...every time.

Favorite Scene / Quote:
Amazing to me that those men managed to agree that something was finally good enough and stopped resurveying and resurveying again and again.

Ricardo Flores Magon’s Regeneracion trying to inflame the revolution - “...the bullets which we fire from our guns will be our electoral ballots.”

Pacing:
The book is well paced. Water rights drags. After Villa, the border shifts into low gear and stays there.

Hmm Moments:
The sparsely populated, city and town dwelling Mexican settlers vs the farm/ranch based American colonistas invited in by Spain, then Mexico, together they colored the land. And the manifest destiny tinged American ideal that saw anyone else on the land they wanted as inferior and as trespassers exists to this day.

When you consider that during the last war, and the people involved on both sides, and that American armies were in Mexico City and all across most of Northern Mexico, and that when the line was drawn following that war that there were fewer than 15,000 Mexican citizens north of that line, and that a huge outstanding debt was forgiven along with a $15 million dollar sweetener, things could have gone much worse for Mexico coming out of the Mexican-American War. I mean, hell, that border could have gone through Mexico City. And there were elements on both sides that wanted the whole country to become part of the United States.

The U. S. Army support of Benito Juarez, the way in which guns, ammo, and supplies fell off the books, trains, trucks, and wagons and into the hands of the Mexican Army. And the French fear that attacking El Paso del Norte would bring reprisals from the American Army, I wonder what today’s Mexico would look like without that.

Talk about a juxtaposition of history…”Mexicans called for tighter border security because the history of Texas is filled with outrages, invasions, and ambitions against Mexico, is a lesson which should demand all the energy of the Mexican government. The United States and Mexico should put an end to the restless spirit of the floating population of Texas which is ever dreaming of revolutionary enterprises inconsistent with the peace and harmony between two nations.”

Texans still imagine that’s who we are. And I wonder at the. idea of floating population for a different reason is called up in the immigration crisis.

The Salton Sink/Colorado River floods in the Imperial Valley coinciding with the San Francisco earthquake is an interesting juxtaposition. Wonder if one exacerbated the other

WTF Moments:
Wow! At the time of the American land grab in the Southwest in the 1840s, there were fewer than 15,000 Mexican citizens living north of where the current border is. That is a huge tract of land to be so sparsely populated.

Sending men to survey the border, initially, after the treaty was signed, the Mexican government seems to have sent a party experienced in governing, engineering, and surveying, while the U.S., once you get passed the West Point trained surveyors and engineers, is all failed politicians and sycophants. What could possibly go wrong?

Effinger comes across as a racist, snob, and a classicist, not the guy who should have been sent for the hard work of surveying the border.

Why in hell is the first cooperative effort that the American and Mexican survey parties do a frigging parade? What the hell? In that era and in El Paso, who the hell was there to watch a parade anyway....22...30...not more than a hundred people and a couple of mangy dogs. Probably more people in the damned parade than there were in the whole town.

The middle age of the border can be characterized like this; the Americans were mad at the Mexicans, the Mexicans were mad at the Americans, so, they both blamed and attacked the Indians.

Meh / PFFT Moments:
The American portion of the boundary commission was sent out with no clear guidance on who was in charge. Immediate pissing matches ensued. Also, money was promised and not appropriated. Money was borrowed. And a quartermaster was involved in gambling and living higher than his rank seemed to indicate he was capable of. Arrests ensued.

The citizens of Nogales who owned businesses that hugged the border got screwed. Tearing down their bars, yards, fences, and houses because Washington decided that the border needed a 60 foot leeway, after the fact, was overreach. Those structures should have been grandfathered in. In light of places that do the exact same thing on the Canadian border, interesting that Mexico was treated differently.

The border survey was awesome. The revolution equally so. After two dozen pages of water disputes on the Colorado and then bringing Rio Grande and Gila into the conversation, it got a bit monotonous. This could’ve/should’ve been edited down some, at least halved. I realize that water is important. But that’s another book. Water rights while important historically don’t seem to have moved the border. Only in instances of dam, reservoir, and canal building.

Wisdom:
Had never really considered the annexation without settlement strategy of Mexico that was doomed in the face of the westward flow of the American population. Makes a helluva juxtaposition with the current historical and ongoing northern flow of the Hispanic populations into the current United States.

So many of these political appointees to the boundary commission seem to be civility stretched thinly over a whiny, little bitch wit an outsized ego.

The whole of the initial boundary commission and politics surrounding it was a massive cluster.

Santa Ana had sparsely populated land and needed money. The U.S. had money and wanted land. It was just a matter of time and effort for Gadsden to achieve his aim vis-a-vis The Messila Strip aka The Gadsden Purchase.
The one-two-three strum song of General Cortinas makes me wish we had sang songs in Spanish in school. I guarantee I would have learned Spanish better than the Spanglish I’m stuck with today.

The Unexpected:
The origin of the term G-word. I thought it part and parcel of the racism, and that is what it is most associated with today. But back then, it had to do with the hides of animals and the work done to get those hides, the massively disgusting work done to get those hides. Pre-San Diego San Diego sounds disgusting.

Why isn’t there a screenplay?
Many of the vignettes of border history seem to have inspired episodes of The Wild Wild West.

The story of Adrian Vidal should be a movie. Born in Monterrey, Mexico, joined the Confederate Army, deserted, joined the Union Army, raided along Rio Grande for Uncle Sam, crossing back and forth across the border. With very little English at his command and no stomach for bureaucracy, he requested discharge from the Union Army, but before the paperwork granting his request reached him, he deserted. He joined the Juaristas to fight against the French in Mexico, before being captured by them and executed. Helluva damned story.

A stylized retelling of the exploits of pilots flying for Pancho Villa and the revolutionaries could make for excellent movie fodder too.

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Last Page Sound:
Well...

Author Assessment:
Definitely look at other stuff by this author.

Editorial Assessment:
Could have used more editorial input after Villa.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
it’s alright
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A monumental effort and great read. I found it fascinating to learn of how the border was fought over, developed, divided, etc. and the history surrounding it. ( )