Borders and Othering: (De)Constructing Maps of North America presents under-told histories of U.S. westward expansion, nativist imperialism, and the impact on Mexico and indigenous communities. It does so by creating an interactive environment to explore the way maps are produced, display information, and leave certain narratives untold. In the increasingly xenophobic climate surrounding U.S./Mexico migration and national sovereignty, this project offers a simultaneous academic and public intervention that challenges users to reconsider their understandings of the U.S.-Mexico border. In recognizing indigenous communities and their erased presence on the continent, this project also challenges the representation of nation states by highlighting indigenous land.
It takes so little, so infinitely little, for someone to find himself on the other side of the border, where everything - love, convictions, faith, history - no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of human life resides on the fact that it is spent in the immediate proximity of, and even in direct contact with, that border, that it is separated from it not by kilometers but by barely a millimeter. --Milan Kundera