Landscape is the space of negotiation between human beings and the
physical world, and rarely are the negotiations more complex and subtle
than those conducted through the desert landscape along the Mexico-U.S.
border.
Patricia L. Price views the shaping of the landscape on and around the
border through various narratives that have sought to establish claims
to these dry lands. Most prominent are the accounts of Anglo-American
expansionism and Manifest Destiny juxtaposed with the Chicano
nationalist tale of Aztlan in the twentieth century, all constituting
collective, contending claims to the U.S. Southwest. Demonstrating how
stories can become vehicles for reshaping places and identities, Price
considers characters old and new who inhabit the contemporary
borderlands between Mexico and the United States-ranging from
longstanding manifestations of good and evil in the figures of the
Virgin of Guadalupe and the Devil to a collection of lay saints
embodying current concerns.
Dry Place weaves together theoretical insights with field-based inquiry,
autobiography, and creative writing to arrive at a textured
understanding of the bordered landscape of late modern subjectivity.
Patricia L. Price is associate professor of geography in the Department
of International Relations at Florida International University in Miami.
