Paso del Norte Luis López Levi
From Colorado, the river flows south. Then, at the westernmost tip of Texas, it begins to define north from south. Two thirds of the way from San Diego to Brownsville, from Tijuana to Matamoros, the fence gives way to the river, which takes the baton and continues for more than 800 miles, until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The river is best known by one of two names depending on what side you’re on. Both names are in Spanish. The naming difference comes as a result of translations from different indigenous languages, but it’s irresistible to think that these names have defined the attitudes towards the river. From the north looking south, it is the Rio Grande: the big buffer, the moat next to the fence. From the south looking north, the río Bravo: the indomitable beast, the uncooperative adversary. At the westernmost tip of Texas and the northernmost point of Chihuahua, right where the river becomes the border, lie two cities. They started as one city, Paso del Norte, back when all that divided them was a body of water. The border was nowhere near the settlement when it was founded in 1659 as a Spanish mission. In fact, there was really no border at all. Not the way we think of it now, just land remote enough to be anyone’s land. Someone was already on that land, of course, but that’s not how the settlers saw it. In 1848, 189 years after the founding of Paso del Norte and two years after the beginning of the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo