CJ Alvarez

I write about the social history of the United States-Mexico border, and am currently revising my book manuscript, "The Shape of the Border: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide, 1848-2010." In it I explain how and why the United States and Mexico have policed their common border and what law enforcement activity along the line can tell us about broader processes of bilateral relations, state power, and inequality. While not disputing the importance of high-profile organizations such as the Border Patrol and the DEA, my work seeks to contextualize them within an extraordinarily complex system of federal agencies on both sides of the international divide. In this way I argue for an understanding of the United States and Mexico that emphasizes willful interdependence, engineered interconnectedness, and mutually constituted history.