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Chapter 1: What historical context led to the building of the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border?
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This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from ThruLine and NPR. I'm Randa Abdel-Fattah. Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. that began 250 years ago. Last week, we talked about the expansion of the United States into a newfound global power.
Chapter 2: How did Ambos Nogales become a significant border town?
But even as the country was expanding its borders around the world to include places as far away as the Philippines in the late 19th century, it was also limiting what was and wasn't part of the United States by creating boundaries and borders, especially along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
We need to be really clear about marking this space. And that leads a lot of government officials along the border to say, we need a fence.
Today on the show, ThruLine producers Anya Steinberg and Christina Kim take us to the border city of Ambos Nogales to tell us the story of one of the first walls on the U.S. southern border. That story, after a quick break.
We're at a saloon in southern Arizona, known as The Exchange. There's men sitting around, drinking and gabbing, just like any old-timey western saloon. The saloon is in a town called Ambos Nogales.
Chapter 3: What events led to the need for a clearer border demarcation?
Well, actually, it's two towns. Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. That's why it's called Ambos Nogales. It means both Nogales. And the owner of the saloon, John Brickwood, has purposefully built it right on the border.
So that he could sell American liquor. without any duty on it from inside the bar. This is Rachel St. John.
She's a professor of history at UC Davis.
Chapter 4: How did the Mexican Revolution impact the U.S.-Mexico border dynamics?
And then he had a little box on the outside that was actually in Mexican territory. And so he could sell Mexican cigars from the box without having to pay the duties on them there as well.
For most of the 1800s, there wasn't much going on here. The town was mostly railroad workers and the gambling saloons and brothels that served them. The railroad was finished in 1882, and it ran right through Amos Nogales. It brought merchants and traders to the town. The ability to move between the U.S. and Mexico was actually a huge economic draw.
And I think it's important to recognize that these government agencies and the border towns around them are initially made to support trans-border movement.
And things were pretty friendly between Mexico and the U.S.
Chapter 5: What triggered the violence at Ambos Nogales in 1918?
along the border in these early years. A Nogales, Arizona newspaper wrote, We speak of the two towns as one, for they are really such, being divided by imaginary line only.
As those towns get more heavily developed, it becomes hard at times, particularly for government agents, but also for regular people to distinguish between when they're in Mexico and when they're in the United States.
Customs officers start saying, you know, it's impossible for us to police this space if people can just walk through John Brickwood's saloon and we can't see if they're entering the U.S. or Mexico.
So the U.S. sent a survey team to mark the border more clearly. They put a new boundary monument and they build it on the porch. A giant white obelisk, the new boundary marker. Smack dab on the porch of the saloon.
Chapter 6: How did the Battle of Ambos Nogales unfold?
But that marker was just the first step towards something much larger. In 1897, then-US President William McKinley issued a proclamation to create a clear strip of land, 60 feet wide and two miles wide, right through Ambos Nogales. The goal? To demarcate the border more clearly. John Brickwood's saloon and several homes and businesses were knocked down.
And for a few years, the border stayed that way. Until 1910, when the Mexican Revolution changed life on the border once again.
Border towns became particularly important because they had ports of entry where people pay their customs duties. So if someone can take over a border town, they can take that money.
Different Mexican revolutionary factions would raid American towns along the border.
Chapter 7: What were the immediate consequences of the battle for both sides?
And as Mexico became increasingly unstable, more Mexicans started emigrating to the U.S. Violence along the border increased. And then, in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, World War I began. That brought a whole new set of anxieties. The U.S. feared that German spies could infiltrate through the border. All of a sudden, people who had long been neighbors were suspicious of each other.
The U.S. started to send all kinds of people to the border to address these different threats.
The U.S.
Chapter 8: How has the perception of the border wall changed over time?
government deploys the military to the border to protect people on the U.S. side. You also have, you know, intelligence officers operating on the border looking out for spies. More customs agents coming out trying to watch for smuggling of guns and money. And then you have immigration officials who are trying to manage the flow of refugees.
Those big changes on the border were coming to ambos Nogales too. The mayor of Nogales, Mexico, ordered construction of a wire fence on the Mexican side to make it easier to manage the flow of crossings. But ambos Nogales had already become a powder keg. And on August 27th, 1918, the fuse was lit. It was just after four o'clock in the afternoon.
A Mexican carpenter named Teferino Gil La Madrid was leaving the U.S. after finishing work. He was carrying a bulky package under his arm as he approached Mexico.
He was ordered to halt by American officials.
They wanted to inspect the package. Mexican officials told him he should keep coming. The U.S. customs official raised his rifle to force Gila Madrid to come back for an inspection. What happened next is still disputed today. Someone from either side of the border, it's unclear who, fired the first shot.
And violence broke out actually between the two sides of the border. It was chaos.
Mexican civilians grabbed guns and joined the fight. It's immortalized in this Mexican song. It was chaos. El Corrido de Nogales tells the Mexican version of the battle. The song goes, when a Mexican crossed the borderline, a gringo fired a shot at him. That was the beginning of the story. The Corrido is all about the bravery of the Nogalenses. It says, There were 1,500 gringos.
All were federal troops, and the people of Nogales did not let them advance. But things were escalating. At some point, a Mexican consul tried to negotiate with an American soldier. If they both raised a white flag, it could all be over. The American replied, Go to hell. American troops don't carry white flags and don't use them. If the Mexicans don't hoist a white flag within 10 minutes, U.S.
soldiers will march in and burn Nogales Sonora. The Mexican side raised a white flag. The battle lasted more than two hours. As many as four Americans and 129 Mexicans were dead, including the mayor of Mexico's Nogales. And hundreds of people were wounded. After the Battle of Ambos Nogales, people on both sides expressed regret.
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