What if the real story of the border isn’t about walls at all? In this episode, we explore how rivers, irrigation projects, and trade routes have bound together and divided the U.S., Mexico, and Canada over nearly two centuries.

In this episode, Paul and C. J. discuss: 

• Personal roots in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands and origins of the project
• Transformation of the border through massive construction and engineering
• Paradox of closed-border policing vs. open-border trade and transportation
• Water infrastructure, irrigation, and the creation of migrant labor demand
• Systemic flaws, compensatory infrastructure, and the disfiguring of the Rio Grande

Key Takeaways: 

• The U.S.–Mexico border is not a single, uniform place but a 2,000-mile span of diverse ecosystems, cultures, and landscapes that defies simple political narratives.
• Over the last 175+ years, the border has been physically made visible and “legible” through mega-projects, dams, canals, roads, and fences, layered one atop another.
• Water engineering and irrigation projects have not only transformed rivers but also generated powerful economic magnets for migrant labor, tightly linking hydrology to human movement.
• Many contemporary crises at the border stem from earlier grand projects and policies; new “solutions” often serve as compensatory layers that attempt to fix problems those very systems created.
• The most profound environmental damage along the border has been done to the river itself, especially the Rio Grande, whose flow, shape, and ecology have been radically altered, challenging us to rethink our relationship with the more-than-human world.

“The border has always been open, and the border has always been closed. The only question is, to whom and to what and when?” - C. J. Alvarez

Episode Resources:

• Book: Border Land, Border Water: A History of Construction on the U.S.–Mexico Divide - https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477319017/

About C. J. Alvarez: Dr. C. J. Alvarez is an environmental historian whose work explores deserts, the built environment, and the U.S.–Mexico border. He is the author of Border Land, Border Water: A History of Construction on the U.S.-Mexico Divide (2019), a deeply researched study that connects border infrastructure, such as survey markers, fencing, and surveillance systems, to the history of river engineering and large-scale hydraulic projects. His current book project, The Arid Heart, traces the history of the Chihuahuan Desert from the end of the last Ice Age, drawing on Indigenous oral histories, archaeological evidence, and environmental data to craft a multi-millennial narrative and experiment with ecocentric approaches to history. His work has been supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research, and he has served as a visiting fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah. Alvarez earned his doctorate in history from the University of Chicago after studying art history at Harvard and Stanford, and he continues to draw inspiration from his upbringing in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Connect with C. J. Alvarez: 

Website: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/mals/faculty/ca29356 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/c-j-alvarez-5935ba37/ 

Connect with Paul Ryer & School for Advanced Research:

Website: https://sarweb.org/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sarsantafemultimedia 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-ryer-4a4889156   

Show notes by Podcastologist: Francine Poblete

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