Transnational Lives, Domestic Media: Violence and Journalism along the U.S.-Mexico Border

This paper examines the ways in which Spanish-language and English news media in the United States’ southern border region covered issues regarding Mexico and its citizens. Focusing on the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) and the Arizona-Sonora borderlands, the paper discusses the various countervailing historical meta-narratives that emerged during this critical time in US/Mexican relations.

Although located in the U.S., writers for Spanish-language media catered to readers who were primarily of Mexican heritage. Conversely, writers for English-language media attempted to fit the needs and interests of mostly Anglo news consumers. As a result, distinct portrayals of violence along the U.S./Mexico border and the Mexican Revolution emerged.

At the start of the twentieth-century, Mexican residents fled to the U.S., seeking refuge during the nation’s Revolution, while U.S. journalists flocked south across the border to cover the political and social turmoil that engulfed Mexico. During this period, the US-Mexico borderlands became a region defined by conflict as well as collaboration.

Scholars who have examined Mexican media’s representations of Americans have pointed to two prominent narratives – one that depicts Americans as a threat and the other as opportunity. The literature on American meta-narratives reveals that English language media tended to pejoratively depict Mexico and its inhabitants. Few have compared systematically, news media content that was produced by highly transnational peoples (Mexican heritage border residents) alongside the more influential English-language local news media. Using the conceptual framework of moral geography, the author aims to illuminate how in a contested region such as the US/Mexico borderlands, those who obtain the power to represent themselves and the world around them often have distinct visions about what is right and good, and wrong and bad for a given space and the nation.