Borderlands Archive Cartography (2017)

Reviewed By: Cathy Melamed

Review Date: February 17, 2025

Site Link: https://www.bacartography.org

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/gYHzL

Keywords: Activism and Advocacy, Archiving, Cultural Heritage, History and Latino/x Studies

Data Sources:

• Geographic locations across the southern US-Mexico border where newspapers were published from 1808 through 1930
  
• Online newspaper archive access is offered (Universidad Autonóma de Tamaulipas; Universidad Autonóma Nacional de México; University of Austin; NewsBank Readex) but most are subscription/request only

Processes:

• The data has been made searchable via the following variables:
  
  • Map location
    
  • Name of newspaper
    
  • Newspaper address
    
  • City and state of publication
    
  • Country of publication
    
  • Years of publication
    
  • First and last days of publication
    
  • Online archival source
    
  • Number of issues published
    
  • Language of publication

Presentation:

Borderlands Archives Cartography (BAC) features an interactive map with pop-up windows and a search tool; a page of multimedia digital projects; links to online archives; and explorable images of several archived newspapers.

Digital Tools Used:

• CARTO spatial analysis and mapping platform
  
• JavaScript
  
• Other tools not disclosed

Languages:

• Spanish and English
  
• The content was reviewed in English.

Review

Borderlands Archive Cartography (BAC) is a project that maps cities along the U.S./Mexican border where community newspapers were published between 1808 and 1934. BAC provides visitors with links to the newspapers’ archival repositories. The site was created and funded by self-described borderland natives Maira E. Álvarez and Sylvia A. Fernández. Álvarez and Fernández are affiliated with the University of Texas (the project is not).
BAC was developed in 2017 in response to the rising political hostility towards immigrants from Mexico. Its authors sought to reframe the borderland as a place where “different cultures coexist under strong political, economic, and social hegemonies.”

The BAC site is clean, attractive, and focused. In addition to the landing page, there are four other pages with content: Map, Resources, Archives, and a page (About) that describes the authors and the motivation behind their project. The main feature is the interactive map with location pins of cities along the U.S./Mexican border, spanning several states. Clicking on a pin reveals a pop-up box with details about that city’s historic community newspaper, including the newspaper’s name, address, years of publication, and a link to the newspaper’s archive site. Unfortunately, many of the linked archives are not accessible without permission or a subscription. BAC’s Archives page does feature images of several historic newspapers, and users are able to explore these. The Resources page hosts 44 digital projects, websites and videos about the U.S./Mexican borderland communities.

The strength of the BAC site lies in the ability of the newspapers to provide unique, remarkable glimpses into history through the lens of small, often bilingual communities on both sides of the southern border. Some of the newspapers featured articles and advertising in both Spanish and English, supporting the authors’ goal of showcasing the richness, complexity and interdependence of the region. As most of the newspapers are inaccessible, BAC’s potential is diminished. The papers that are available are best experienced when readers are given a preview of the paper’s big stories: for example, the first day of the first newspaper in California (1846), or when Mexican leader Venustiano Carranza threatened the U.S. with war (1916). But previews are the exception, and this does not encourage deep engagement with the papers. Thus, in its current state, BAC comes up short in its goal, mainly due to access limitations.

How are collaborative aspects reflected in the project, and are there elements that work particularly well?

BAC is an impressive endeavor considering it was created by just two authors, a collaboration resulting from their shared lived experiences in the borderland region.

Do you see an opportunity for collaboration that would be helpful to the project?

A U/X developer could streamline the project’s searchability features and improve newspaper accessibility.