Category: Map Project

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Map Colloquium ASU

If you read this blog even occasionally you know that I have been exhibiting my collection of border maps around the West.  We held a colloquium to celebrate the exhibit at ASU on January 19, 2012.

Changing Boundaries Map Event

During the talk Dr Carlos Velez-Ibanez and I announced that after the exhibit in Tijuana at CECUT the collection is being donated to the School of Transborder Studies at ASU.

Changing Boundaries Map Event

I am delighted to have found such a good home for the collection and Carlos and his group will be getting a tool that will enhance their programs in many ways.

More photos from the STS/ASU Exhibit and Colloquium

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San Diego to Ensenada circa 1930

In the 1930’s the Auto Club of California issued a strip map of the route from San Diego to Ensenada.

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I bought a copy of the little map on eBay and am going to use it in the Fronteras Cambientas exhibit at the CECUT Museum in Tijuana that opens on February 24, 2012.  The opening reception is on March 2, 2012. 

Fronteras Cambientas is Changing Boundaries in Spanish

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There are lots of very interesting thing to see on the map.  One of them is that, based on the size of the city names and confirmed by my research, in 1930 Ensenada was larger than Tijuana.

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Colloquium

The Changing Boundaries Map Exhibit at Arizona State University is closing on February 10, 2012.  The next show is in at the CECUT museum in Tijuana Fronteras Cambientes opens on February 24, 2012.

In the meantime the last planned event at ASU is a Colloquium on January 19, 2012 at 5:30 pm.

I love the idea of being involved in a colloquium it sounds so much more important than being on a panel or speaking to a meeting. And this one has some super panelist with lots of knowledge about the border.

Anyway come if you can and forward the announcement to your friends in the Phoenix area who might be interested.

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Politics the Ugly Truth

Oscar Arias

On Monday October 31 Dr Oscar Arias visited the School of Trans Border Studies at ASU and I had the honor of giving him a tour of the Changing Boundaries Map Exhibit.  Arias won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end the fighting in Central America in the 1980’s while he was President of Costa Rica the first time.  Before the tour he gave a short talk about his attempt to get the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed by the US Senate.  During the talk he told a story about US politics that I am paraphrasing here:

” In the 1980’s Senators Ted Kennedy and George Mitchell and other Democrats supported my Central American Peace Plan but then in 2006 the same Democrats opposed CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement).

I was puzzled by this until I figured out that they weren’t trying to do the right thing.  They supported my peace plan because President Reagan a Republican opposed it and years later they opposed the trade agreement because President Bush another Republican supported it.  It was all about politics not about what was best for the US or for the world.”

A depressing story from someone who has seen politics from the inside.

You can read what he said about immigration here.

Dr Arias used his Nobel award money to start a peace foundation.

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CECUT Maps 2012

The CECUT Museum in Tijuana, BC is going to host the Changing Boundaries Map Exhibit beginning in February 2012.

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The Imax theater at CECUT

The opening reception and panel discussion are on Friday,February 24.  Look at this beautiful picture of the museum and mark your calendar. Tijuana is not what it used to be or what the media says it is now.

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You can stay at the Marriott nearby and have dinner at Le Conteiner.  A beautiful nightclub made from shipping containers.

Continue reading “CECUT Maps 2012”

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Changing Boundaries Tucson

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This is the feature map in the Changing Boundaries map exhibit that opens next week at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tucson.  Interestingly the map is dated 1859, before the civil war but is not mentioned in the description of the secessionist Arizona in the wonderful book:  How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein.

The opening reception and panel discussion for the exhibition will be on Wednesday Evening June 8 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the Museum 949 E 2nd St Tuscon

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Border Maps 2011

The Changing Boundaries Exhibit will be in Arizona this Summer and Fall.  We will be installing the exhibit in Tucson at the Arizona Historical Society Museum from May 18 to September 29, 2011.

It then opens in Tempe at the ASU School of Transborder Studies on October 4 through December 2, 2011.

For these important Arizona Exhibits I have obtained a copy of this very interesting map of the USA from 1859 with a unique proposal for dividing the then New Mexico Territory.

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There will be a reception and panel discussion in Tuscon on June 8, 2011 and at ASU in Tempe on September 13, 2011.  Go to ChangingBoundaries.com for more details.

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Map Exhibit Closes at CSULA

The Changing Boundaries exhibit was up at CSULA for all of February, several hundred people came to see it and many of them signed the guest book.  They also ran a story about  the exhibit in the school newspaper with a photo of Professor Ochoa and me.

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That is the good news.  The bad news is that the Arizona exhibition dates seem to be falling apart.  ASU can’t find a venue for their dates in the spring and the Arizona Historical  Society in Tucson has gone silent about having the exhibit this summer.

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A Map Story

One of the serendipitous finds of my research for the map exhibit was this map.

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I bought it to show that there were Indian nations in North America before the arrival of the Europeans.  When I showed it to Mike Mathes he told me why the Athabascan language is spoken in Alaska and in New Mexico.

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Sometime around the year 1000 a volcano many times more violent than Mt St Helens erupted and the ash that spewed forth drove the Athabascan speakers south.  They migrated all the way to New Mexico and Arizona where the Anasazi were pushed out and the people from the north became the Navajo.

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These maps tell the story of an early North American migration and are one of the featured maps in the current exhibit at Cal State LA.