UVM History Department Blog

Mary E. Mendoza’s (Andrew Harris Postdoctoral Fellow) Southwest Borderlands class (cross-listed with CRES and ENVS) spent a morning this semester learning about food in the Southwest by cooking Tex-Mex food in the ALANA student center kitchen. They made homemade salsa, guacamole, and three kinds of breakfast tacos. “It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s totally different to actually experience it,” said one student. Students have been learning about the history of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and how, despite increased efforts to close the U.S.-Mexico border over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, animals, people, cultures, and traditions continue to cross the divide. For this class, students read James M. Pilcher’s “Tex-Mex, New-Mex, or Whose Mex? Notes on the Historical Geography of Southwestern Cuisine,” which analyzes how regional difference between what most Americans might call “Mexican food.”