1848

The US-Mexico border, as we know it today, came into existence after the Mexican-American War and the signed treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848. The US invasion of Mexico, the Independent Nation of the Comanche people, the end of official slavery, and the Gadsden purchase—to name few of the key factors— shaped the geographical form of the space where the border stands today. Nonetheless, this division did not end in 1848 nor did it stopped at the border. The notions of otherness, colonialism and disease continued to grow in both countries. The creation of the Greaser Act of 1855 in the border State of California attests for the discrimination against particular individuals whose bodies were not welcome in the nation-state. Similarly, Mexico’s public health campaigns deliberately portrayed Chinese immigrants as carriers of disease and as a burden to the State. Therefore, what the creation of 1848 border means is not merely the separation of countries, of peoples, as it is the physical manifestation of a long rooted racism and xenophobia.

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