United States-Mexico Border Fence, 1950s
notes: label: Description
content: This 30-foot-long section of border fence separated the Mexican city of Mexicali from the U.S. city of Calexico, California. Located along First Street near Andrade Avenue in Calexico, this 14-foot-high chain link fence, reinforced with WWII surplus Martson mats and topped with barbed wire, was erected around 1949 in an effort to prevent petty crime and illegal migration. It replaced an earlier border fence which had been installed in 1919 . Looking closely one can see that the chain link has several holes (cut to gain entry) that have expert period mends. In 1998 the government removed the fence and replaced it with a more substantial border fence as part of Operation Gatekeeper.
label: Description
content: Physically, politically, and metaphorically the 1,969-mile-long US/Mexico border has changed dramatically since 1900. The border looms large in the public imagination and has often been the center of significant public debate. Medicalized in the early twentieth century and militarized in the latter part of the century the US/Mexican border differs significantly from the other US borders.
label: Description
content: The first US/Mexico border fence was erected in 1911 to control cattle and prevent the spread of tick fever from Mexico into the US . Political concerns also contributed to border fences. As Mexico became increasingly unstable during the Mexican Revolution (1910 – 1920) emigration to the US increased. Border clashes such as Battle of Ambos Nogales in 1918 motivated the construction of border fences. Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. government began to formalize entrance controls and enforce legal and illegal entrance. While Mexicans were allowed unrestricted entrance to the US a head tax of $4.00 was imposed and some individuals sought to cross surreptitiously and avoid the payment. In 1924, the Border Patrol was created with the primary purpose of stopping the influx of Chinese laborers who were trying to bypass the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act by entering the U.S. through Mexico. During Prohibition (1920-1933) concern along the Mexican border also extended to alcohol being smuggled across the border.
label: Description
content: Between 1942 and 1964 a series of agreements between the U.S. and Mexico, commonly referred to as the bracero program, allowed over 2 million Mexican men to legally enter the U.S. on short term labor contracts. Highly bureaucratic and plagued by bribery on the Mexican side, many workers chose to instead enter illegally. U.S. government indifference to the unauthorized crossings ceased in 1954 with the launching of Operation Wetback - border enforcement was slightly increased and the hunt for undocumented workers was greatly increased. In 1964 the lobbying of activists and U.S. labor unions lead to the demise of the bracero program. The U.S. government, however, created the H1-A program which continued to allow migrant agricultural workers to legally enter the U.S.
label: Description
content: During the Vietnam War, the American public lost interest in the issue of illegal immigration but in 1970 and 1971 the recession made immigration an important public issue once again. Chicano activists who had previously been ambivalent about Mexican immigrants, or even blatantly hostile to them, campaigned for their freedom of movement, freedom of employment, and an America “sin fronteras” (without borders). Furthermore, they decried “Americanization [as] irrelevant in a society that refused to recognize the full rights of citizenship for its ethnic and racial minorities,” a radical break with prevailing public opinion at the time.
label: Description
content: In 1986, reflecting the nation’s increasing concern over drug use, President Reagan’s announced the War on Drugs. The Border Patrol temporarily shifted its focus to drug interdiction and away from illegal immigration. In 1994 President William Clinton implemented Operation Gatekeeper and significantly militarized the U.S./Mexican border. As an effort to “restore the rule of law” to the border, the INS, shifted the strategy on the border back towards immigration. But this time, efforts to control immigration were offensive attempts at “prevention through deterrence…through the forward deployment of border agents” as opposed to the previous defensive ones.
label: Description
content: The implementation of NAFTA in 1994 helped make the border an increasingly corporate zone with maquiladoras (factories or assembly plants) in Mexico, and increased truck and rail traffic across the border. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed border life yet again and helped induce new concerns about border security. The erection of taller more secure fences, the installation high tech listening devices, and patrols by airborne drones made the U.S./Mexican border far more difficult, dangerous, and expensive to cross.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: used
content: United States: California, Calexico
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Manufacturing
label: See more items in
content: Many Voices, One Nation
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Armando Rascon
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2009.0242.01
label: accession number
content: 2009.0242
label: catalog number
content: 2009.0242.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: fence
label: Object Name
content: border fence
label: Object Name
content: chain link fence roll
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall mesh fencing)