Through the 19th Century, the US-Mexico border moved repeatedly, and the shifting borderlands were a space of cultural and economic transition that often gave rise to racialized gendered violence.  
In this episode I speak with Dr. Bernadine Hernández, Associate Professor of American Literary Studies at the University of New Mexico, an activist with fronteristxs, and author of Border Bodies: Racialized Sexuality, Sexual Capital, and Violence in the Nineteenth-Century Borderlands.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is: “Mexican church at the smelter, El Paso, Texas, United States, ca. 1907,” Detroit Publishing Co. No known restrictions on publication, Accessed via the Library of Congress.

Additional Sources:

“A moving border, and the history of a difficult boundary,” by Ron Dungan, USA Today, The Wall, 2018. 

“The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border,” by Becky Little, History.com, March 14, 2019.

“Mexico's Independence Day marks the beginning of a decade-long revolution,” by Heather Brady, National Geographic, September 14, 2018.

“The Republic of Texas - The Texas Revolution” The Treaties of Velasco,” Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission.

“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848),” National Archives.

“Refusing to Forget: The History of Racial Violence on the Mexico-Texas Border.”

“Rodriguez, Josefa [Chipita] (unknown–1863),” by Marylyn Underwood, Texas State Historical Association.

“Woman by the River: Chipita’s ghost lingers on in San Patricio on 156th anniversary of hanging,” by Paul Gonzales, News of San Patricio, November 15, 2019.


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