​Situated just 25 miles (40km) from the mouth of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte) on the Gulf of Mexico, the binational cities of Matamoros and Brownsville anchor the extreme east of the Mexico-U.S. international border. Brownsville – on the southernmost tip of Texas – and Matamoros – itself near the extreme northeast point of Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas – form a classic example of a cross-border sister city community, although in recent years the rise of narco violence on the Mexican side and the U.S. government’s desires to build more border walls in this area have gotten more attention than the rich bicultural histories of these cities. Today we will better appreciate some of this historical heritage by exploring a common, but extremely significant symbol in the Mexico-Texas border region: the symbol of the international bridge. In crossing the Gateway International Bridge (or Puente Nuevo/New Bridge) between Matamoros and Brownsville we will dust off the cob webs of another chapter in the cross-border history of Mexico and the United States.

Previously when commemorating the 170th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo we journeyed to the far western corner of the new border that the peace agreement between the U.S. and Mexico created. Surrounded by hills and beach-going crowds on the Mexican side, Boundary Monument 258 marks the U.S.-Mexico border between the corners of Tijuana and San Diego. At 258, it is the highest numbered boundary marker along the land portion of the U.S.-Mexico border which begins with Boundary Monument 1, located 700 miles to the east just outside of Ciudad Juárez-El Paso. Unlike the busy, tightly-controlled scene at Playas de Tijuana/Friendship Park, Boundary Monument 1 is in a hidden canyon along the Rio Grande and without major fence barriers.  If, as some border artists have asserted, boundaries are scars on the Earth [1], this is where the wound across the desert begins. 
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​At the close of the 2010s, Univision KMEX Channel 34 and Telemundo KVEA Channel 52 regularly compete for the highest ratings among all television viewers in Los Angeles according to the Nielsen ratings service. KMEX and KVEA’s high ratings – beating the long-established big three English-language networks – speaks to the demographic growth and vitality of the Spanish-speaking Latino American communities of the greater L.A. region. The ratings bonanza currently enjoyed by the local Univision and Telemundo stations is a dramatic counterpoint to the relatively humble, but significant technical origins of Spanish-language television in the U.S. and in Southern California more than half-a-century ago.

​While the world has changed much in the 170 years since U.S. negotiator Nicholas Trist and Mexican representatives Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto and Miguel Atristain signed the treaty – and indeed the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo now another neighborhood of Mexico City known simply as the Villa de Guadalupe – the consequences of the treaty between the two countries remain with us amid debates over Mexican/Latin American immigration and border security enforcement.

In this short photo essay, we will briefly explore the far western terminus of the U.S.-Mexican border at the “division line between Upper and Lower California" at the Pacific Ocean” - known as the "Initial Point of Boundary" between Mexico and the U.S. - to consider a small piece of the modern impact of the boundaries created by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848.

Our tour of the Altar Valley picks up at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing at Sásabe, Sonora and Sasabe, Arizona. As already mentioned, in the 2000s and early 2010s the Altar Valley corridor was the principal entry way for undocumented immigrants headed into the United States. The Altar Valley is named after the town and river of the same name in Sonora. On the northern side of the international boundary the Altar Valley – which runs from the border to the extreme western suburbs of Tucson – has few population centers. In Arizona, the Altar Valley is primarily oriented north-to-south and surrounded by the Baboquivari Mountains to the west and the Sierrita, Cerro Colorado, Las Guijas and San Luis Mountains to the east. The smuggling of people and contraband in this narrow valley greatly concerns many local and national U.S. residents.

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