The United States-Mexico Border Region: an Overview

The United States-Mexico Border Region: An Overview Paul Ganster Abstract chase in 1854, established the international boundary be- An overview of the US.-Mexican border region is presented. tween Mexico and the United States that endures today First, the historical development of the region is discussed, (Griswold del Castillo, 1990). including establishment of the boundary through war be- As a result of the war with Mexico, a vast area was tween Mexico and the United States, emergence of border ur- opened to the dynamic U.S. economy. Economic cycles of ban settlements, and border city development related to the mining, ranching, and agriculture - in combination with the expanding economy of the Southwest of the United States. building of extensive railroad networks - led to rapid eco- Then, economic, population, and political features of the nomic development of the Southwest of the United States in region are detailed, emphasizing the extremely dynamic the late nineteenth century. Linking of transportation net- growth of the region as well as significant economic and po- works of the United States and Mexico encouraged the de- litical asymmetries between U.S. and Mexican parts of the velopment of border cities. At every major transportation border region. Next, the major issues of the region are de- route crossing the international boundary, customhouses and scribed. Finally, the recent trend in interdependence and service industries for trade developed on both sides of the transborder cooperation is noted. boundary, giving rise to many of the population centers that eventually emerged as the twin-city settlement pattern that characterizes the region today. Introduction The interdependence of the U.S. border region with Mex- The territorial interface between the United States and Mex- ico was evident relatively early. Increasingly, trade was a fac- ico constitutes one of the most dynamic and complex border tor, but also important was the fact that much of the labor for regions of the world. It is an area characterized by rapid pop- the development of railroads, mines, ranches, agriculture, and ulation growth, accelerated urbanization, political change, urban areas in the Southwest border region came from Mex- and economic change. Two very different systems meet at ico. The flow of labor was conditioned, of course, by the dual the boundary between Mexico and the United States. It is push-pull factors of lack of jobs in Mexico and labor needs in where the developed, industrialized world meets the devel- the United States. Mexico's north was isolated from the na- oping world; it is where the North meets the South. It has tional economy; therefore, Mexican border urban centers de- the strongest contrasts in the entire world in terms of eco- veloped in response to economic stimuli from across the nomic differences from one side of the boundary to the border, and Mexican border city growth became dependent other. The border was established by a war in the middle of upon the U.S. settlements and regions to the north. These ele- the nineteenth century and was characterized by conflict for ments have been present in the border region for more than a many decades. Nonetheless, it is now a binational region dis- century and continue in significant ways today. tinguished by growing integration and increasing levels of For much of the second half of the nineteenth century, transborder cooperation. The issues, problems, and opportu- the border region was a frontier characterized by lawless- nities present at the border are a microcosm of the interac- ness, violence, and lack of strong governmental controls tion between Mexico and the United States, and, in recent (Martinez, 1988). Relative peace and order finally came to years, the border has been key to the bilateral relations of the the region by the 1880s with extension of railroads through- two nations. out the U.S. border region,- economic development, and de- feat and confinement to reservations of most of the maraud- Historical Development ing Indian groups (Spicer, 1981). In Mexico, a half century of The U.S.-Mexican border region initially was the northern internal disorder was brought to a close with the rise to fringe of the Spanish colony of New Spain and then, after power in the 1870s of Porfirio Diaz who was to dominate 1821, of the newly independent republic of Mexico (Ganster Mexican politics until 1910. et al., 1998). Characterized by sparse settlements based on The violent upheavals in Mexico during the revolution mining and ranching, the northern region was never effec- that erupted in 1910 had a significant impact on U.S. border tively settled nor occupied by Mexico, a new nation that ex- towns. Mexican revolutionaries often operated from safe ba- perienced nearly a half century of internal disorder after ses in U.S. border settlements. Mexicans of all classes fled independence. Mexico lost much of its northern territories, the violence and many settled on the U.S. side of the bound- first through a revolt of Anglo settlers in Texas in 1835, and ary and remained even after restoration of relative peace in then through a war between Mexico and the United States in Mexico by the 1920s. 1846. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that was signed in 1848 to end the war, ceded much of the north to the United States. This, along with the sale of parts of New Mexico and Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, Arizona to the United States as a part of the Gadsden Pur- Vol. 64, No. 11, November 1998, pp. 1077-1083. - - Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias, San Diego 0099-1112/98/6411-1077$3.00/0 State University, San Diego, CA 92182-4403 (pganstera 0 1998 American Society for Photogrammetry mail.sdsu.edu). and Remote Sensing PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING November 1998 1077 Prohibition in the United States from 1919 to 1933 pro- United States and also internationally in the bilateral relation- vided stimnlns for economic growth in Mexico's northern ship. The NA~Aprocess helped transform the border from a border cities as they became the sites of tourism develop- region that merely received policy from Washington, D.C., and ment centered on gambling, entertainment, and alcohol (Ma- Mexico City to a region that began to initiate actions that be- chado, 1982). Although during the 1920s Mexican border came national and bilateral policy. The border was a key to towns grew and their economic bases broadened with the the passage of NAFTA and today is viewed by the foreign rela- creation of agricultural industries and other activities, devel- tions departments of both countries as a region where most of opment was still very much dependent upon the twin city the issues on the bilateral agenda appear first and thus merit across the border in the United States. With the end of Pro- increased federal attention. hibition in 1933 and the deepening Great Depression, the Mexican border towns were hard hit, revealing extreme de- Major Features of the Border Region pendence on their U.S. counterparts. Mexican border cities Historical forces have produced a border region of some di- did not recover until the World War I1 era brought prosperity versity from east to west. On the U.S. side, the eastern half that continued with the Sunbelt expansion of the U.S. South- of the border is poorer, more Hispanic, and with a more nar- west in the postwar period. Mexican border cities expanded row economic base than on the western end that is wealth- rapidly, so that by 1960 their populations had grown enor- ier, has a broader economic base, and is more Anglo in mously: Mexicali (281,333), Ciudad Juhez (276,995), Tijuana population and culture. On the Mexican side, there is also (165,690), Matamoros (143,043), and Reynosa (134,869) (Mar- some east-west differentiation, principally with respect to ec- tinez, 1975). onomic development. The western end of the Mexican bor- Beginning slowly in the mid-1960s, the maquiladora (as- der is more dynamic economically than elsewhere along the sembly) industry became the great engine of growth for Mex- border. There are also strong contrasts from north to south ico's northern border cities. Maquiladoras, or largely foreign across the border. owned assembly plants that transformed imported compo- While the natural systems extend seamlessly across the nents into final products with inexpensive Mexican labor for border, the international boundary is a very clear dividing sale in the U.S. market, were part of the globalization of the line between two very different human systems. Some fea- world economy. Under this new economic regime, sophisti- tures of these systems do not extend across the border; cated components requiring high technology and capital inten- others demonstrate a surprising degree of transboundary in- sive operations were manufactured in developed countries teraction. A review of the different components of the Mexi- and shipped to developing countries for labor intensive as- can and U.S. systems that meet at the border will serve to sembly. The maquiladora industry, through job creation and provide a basic understanding of this complex region. investment, helped the northern border became one of the most economically dynamic regions of Mexico. By 1998, there Political and Administrative Systems were some 600,000 workers employed in maquilas in Mex- The juxtaposition at the border of the highly centralized Mexi- ico's northern border cities ("Maquila Scoreboard," 1998). can political system with the decentralized federal U.S. political For decades, the most visible element of border eco- system has broad implications for the binational region. The nomic integration from the perspective of the U.S. border differences in the two political and administrative systems his- communities was through retail purchases made by Mexican torically have made bilateral cooperation problematic.

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