Women on the Border began in the early 2000s as a project committed to advancing public awareness of the difficult realities for Mexican women working for American companies at the U.S.-Mexico border in the factories known as “maquiladoras.”  The presence of U.S. investors at the border with employment opportunities for Mexican laborers is part of a very old history of changing and often tense economic and political relationships between the two countries.  That history has defined a borderlands culture and legal architecture with contrasting views.  On the one hand Mexico’s interest in business and tourism produces easy trade agreements, while on the U.S. side a longer history of ever changing immigration policies and racialized distrust of migrants has led to an increasingly militarized and hostile border.

COVID-19 made access into the U.S. even more difficult in recent years, especially to the asylum seeker.  Yet the rhetoric of “build the wall” was well in place before the pandemic under the policies of the administration that ended in January 2021.  And under the new administration ongoing public health concerns have kept the border largely closed, although unable to stop the flow of all sorts of border-crossers, including migrant workers, asylum seekers, unaccompanied children, etc.

The attitudes that sustain a “build the wall” rhetoric are rooted in their own long history of tense relations between the U.S. and Mexico, as Mexican labor provides a benefit to employers, whether in the maquiladoras or in a range of domestic industries. But the “keep them out” feelings remain strong. Consider how Texas’ Governor Greg Abbott so much wants that wall that he’s willing to use the State’s public monies to build it.

We invite readers to ponder some of the history and lessons about life in the borderlands at this website’s new page – The U.S.-Mexico Border. Learn about the various ways researchers, activists and artists think about the enduring idea that the only way to a good life in the U.S. necessitates “building a wall” so as to preserve an idealized image of what it means to be an American.