Land, Sky, and People: The Southwest Defined
James W. Byrkit - Autumn 1992
Byrkit’s essay remains one of the most thoughtful attempts to answer a deceptively simple question: what is the Southwest? By bringing together geography, history, and culture, he shows how the region emerges from the dynamic relationship between land and people. More than thirty years after its publication, the essay still offers one of the clearest and most compelling starting points for understanding the Southwest.
It has continually prompted lively discussion. Agree or disagree, it’s a monument.
Constructing a Virtual Wall: Race and Citizenship in U.S.-Mexico Border Policing
Josiah McC. Heyman - Autumn 2008
Border enforcement is often debated as a technical or legal problem. Heyman reframes it as a political and cultural one. Writing in 2008 when drones, biometric cards, and Boeing's billion-dollar "Smart Border Initiative" were making headlines, he dissects the gap between what the virtual wall promises and what it delivers, and asks the harder question: why do we keep building it if it doesn't work? His answer, rooted in the politics of race, citizenship, and symbolic order, has only grown more relevant.