​Nestled in the rough mountainous country west of the cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, Boundary Monument 127 is a significant geographic turning point for the U.S.-Mexican border - and is located on the WRONG spot!

The hardening U.S.-Mexico border of the 2010s has been increasingly defined by walls and division, but symbolic bridges continue to tie the two countries’ people together. One such recent link is the newest bridge on the U.S.-Mexican border, the Cross Border Xpress (CBX) linking the Tijuana International Airport (TIJ) in Mexico with a passenger check-in terminal in San Diego, California, making TIJ the only airport in the world with terminals in two different countries. Open since 2015, the CBX (aka, “La Puerta de las Californias”)  symbolizes the two countries’ ability (and inability) to cooperate. Grab onto your luggage as we rush across the CBX’s history to our flight in Tijuana! 

​For many, the U.S.-Mexico border summons images of barrier walls and binational border towns set in arid desert landscapes. However, on January 2, 2019, snow blanketed the international boundary between Nogales, Arizona, USA, and Heroica Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. For a few hours the borderlands were a winter wonderland.

​Along the U.S-Mexican border various artists, using a variety of art forms, have worked to encourage the general public to reflect on the social problems caused by the border’s existence. Among the most noteworthy issues this art explores are transnational migration as well as the use of government force (such as the U.S. Border Patrol) to build up the border. The work of Nogales, Sonora, artists Alberto Morackis and Guadalupe Serrano bears witness to how public art can contribute to a greater awareness of the border’s social problems.

A century ago on Aug. 27, 1918, Mexicans and Americans fought one another at the Battle of Ambos Nogales, leaving as many as 129 Mexicans and four Americans dead, and approximately 330 wounded.
There was another toll as well: the previously open border between Nogales, Ariz. and Nogales, Sonora.

As a result of the battle, the two Nogaleses became the first cities on the U.S.-Mexico border to be divided by permanent border fences.