This is a collection of questions, links, and readings around the idea of borders. As discussed in the Introduction to Beyond Borders, a border is defined as "any place where differences come together," and where those differences matter. The sites below are links to Web resources exploring some of the possible meanings for borders: geographical, ethnic, intercultural, and political.

Questions and Activities

1. Explore some of the sites below and find at least one resource or page that you can connect to one of the points in the Introduction to Beyond Borders.
   
   
2. Identify one of the meanings of borders (or kinds of borders) raised in the Introduction that you want to track throughout the semester. Do any of the sites below relate to the type of borders you're interested in?
   
   
3. Find a passage on any of the sites that you can link to any passage from an essay or story (such as those listed below) in Beyond Borders that raises the same themes. (For example, look at the site "Who Lives on the Border?" below and link it to any of the readings about the U.S.-Mexico border in the book).
   
   
4. As a class, you might start creating an annotated Web bibliography of sites on borders and the border themes raised throughout the book, beginning with the sites below, or the many not listed that you can find.
   
   

Web-Text Connections

On the Web		In Beyond Borders
1.	The Problem of Identity in a Changing Culture: Essay dealing with identity in a changing culture along the Rio Grande. See also popular expressions of culture conflict.	1.	These Websites, and others like them, are designed to connect especially with the Introduction to Beyond Borders.
2.	Who Lives on the Border? This page looks at individuals who live on the border. La Mujer Obrera ("The Woman Worker") is a site about a bi-national, bi-cultural, and bi-lingual woman's organization that was created along the U.S. Mexico border.	2.	You might also consider these sites in connection with some of the stories and essays dealing with bi-culturalism and bi-nationalism, such as Thomas King's "Borders" and Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue." Or you might consider these sites in light of the writings on the U.S. Southwest borderlands, such as Gloria Anzaldúa's "La conciencia de la mestiza/Toward a New Consciousness" or Guillermo Gómez-Peña's "The 90s Culture of Xenophobia: Behind the Tortilla Curtain."
3.	Human Rights Have No Borders: An Amnesty Organization refugee report which gives different essays concerning various refugees and international cooperation. One People: A Website for One People Magazine, which strives to become united with the world. They have a collection of 45-50 interviews with those individuals who are vehemently against racism and inequality.	3.	Many of these sites are about international themes, and in particular, organizations using the Web's global capacities to bridge across national boundaries. In this way, these sites raise many questions and problems relating to globalization and post-nationalism, as do many of the essays in Chapter 5, "The World's New Borders: Beyond Nation, Beyond Place."
4.	Virtual Geography Department: A Web page for the virtual geography home page at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Internet users are able to take virtual field trips to different countries from this page.	4.	Many of these sites also connect with the theme of geography and the cultural meaning of geographic representation, such as in Thomas and Crow's "Maps, Projections, and Ethnocentricity" selection or Anderson's essay about nations as "Imagined Communities."

<< Back to Web Research Activities