Borderlands Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/borderlands/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:10:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Borderlands Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/borderlands/ 32 32 Tech, Stones, and Stories: How the Violence of Border Tech is a Historical Matter https://www.publicbooks.org/tech-stones-and-stories-how-the-violence-of-border-tech-is-a-historical-matter/ Tue, 14 Oct 2025 15:00:51 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60832 Border technologies live within loops of failure → crisis → fix → failure → crisis → fix, eternally to be tested. It will work, promise! Just wait for one more iteration.

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]]> Borders Are War by Other Means https://www.publicbooks.org/borders-are-war-by-other-means-chaar-lopez/ Mon, 13 Oct 2025 15:09:18 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60901 The border today is and is made through sociotechnical arrangements centering data in the regulation of racial difference.

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]]> “A Second Enlightenment”: Greg Grandin on Latin America, the United States, and the Creation of Social-Democratic Modernity https://www.publicbooks.org/a-second-enlightenment-greg-grandin-on-latin-america-the-united-states-and-the-creation-of-social-democratic-modernity/ Tue, 09 Sep 2025 15:00:13 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60590 “My books try to explain a tension.”

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]]> Albert Camarillo on “Compton in My Soul: A Life in Pursuit of Racial Equality” https://www.publicbooks.org/albert-camarillo-on-compton-in-my-soul-a-life-in-pursuit-of-racial-equality/ Wed, 25 Jun 2025 15:00:13 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60013 Albert Camarillo is the Leon Sloss Jr. Memorial Professor, Emeritus, at Stanford University. He’s one of a small number of people who founded the academic field of Chicano/Latino history. He has also mentored so many of the historians who’ve written books that teach us much of what we know about the history of Latinos in […]

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]]> Borders May Change, But People Remain https://www.publicbooks.org/borders-may-change-but-people-remain/ Thu, 24 Apr 2025 15:00:49 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59496 The legacies of conflict—and their increasingly accessible images in a global age—frame the shared bonds of trauma in keeping the memories of these conflicts alive.

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]]> Nicolás Medina Mora on “América del Norte” https://www.publicbooks.org/nicolas-medina-mora-on-america-del-norte/ Wed, 16 Apr 2025 15:00:54 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59529 “One of the main differences between Mexico and the United States is that in Mexico history is very much alive.”

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]]> Humor and Fear, Kings and Soldiers: Jason De León on the Untold Story of Human Smugglers https://www.publicbooks.org/humor-and-fear-kings-and-soldiers-jason-de-leon-on-the-untold-story-of-human-smugglers/ Tue, 11 Mar 2025 15:00:23 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59142 What happens if we start with the assumption that smugglers are, in fact, humans?

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]]> The Weapon of Child Separation https://www.publicbooks.org/the-weapon-of-child-separation/ Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:00:10 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57909 In “Until I Find You,” historian Rachel Nolan carefully navigates the omissions and fabrications in the documentary record associated with adoptions of children in Guatemala.

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]]> National Sovereignty’s Foundational Violence https://www.publicbooks.org/national-sovereigntys-foundational-violence/ Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57387 “The line belongs to the government,” explains a Guatemalan “smuggler” of the border with Mexico, but “the path belongs to the communities.”

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]]> Borderlessness Must Be Our Future https://www.publicbooks.org/borderlessness-must-be-our-future/ Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:00:12 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57277 Since the 1970s, nations have built at least 63 border walls and 2,000 concentration camps euphemistically called “immigrant detention centers.”

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