The course studies the life and society in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The “borderland” denotes an area distant from the core of the nation; it is a zone of transition of ideas, goods, and peoples (Martínez, Border People). It is a place where people and institutions are shaped by economic, political, and social forces that are reflected in the lives of communities in the “greater” borderlands (e.g., Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California) and, most recently, in many rural and urban.