This project explores the impacts of the creation of the Mexico-U.S. border and its increased fortification over time. The focus of my research is southeastern San Diego County in California, as well as the northern part of Baja California Norte on the Mexican side, territory of the Kumeyaay Nation. Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the border first bisected Kumeyaay territory. And since the early 1990s, Kumeyaay and other borderlands residents have seen the increasing fortification and militarization of the border, including border walls, surveillance towers, exponentially more Border Patrol agents, changing border crossing requirements, and more. This research privileges the perspectives of borderlands residents in order to understand the impacts of border fortification on the rural communities and ecosystems that span both sides of the political boundary.

You can watch a video I created about representations of the borderlands and the associated impacts of border fortification here.