Forging the Tortilla Curtain: Cultural Drift and Change Along the United States-Mexico Border from the Spanish Conquest to the Present

Some have called it the tortilla curtain. Others have viewed it as a Third World entity where primitive conditions and poverty exist alongside the latest marvels of the computerized Information Age. But the border region between Mexico and the United States is more dynamic than ever since its transition into a sort of Mexamerica—a world fueled by corporate colonialism, the North American Free Trade Agreement (or NAFTA) and contraband of every stripe, from illegal drugs to illegal aliens.

For...