The Rio Grande

Abstract

The Rio Grande is a 1,900-mile-long river that has been a lifeline for communities that depend on its waters for sustenance and transportation in a predominantly arid or semi-arid environment. The source of the river is in the San Juan Mountains of south-central Colorado. It flows east and then south through New Mexico and eventually opens into the Gulf of Mexico at the southernmost tip of Texas. Below the sister cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, the Rio Grande has formed the international boundary between the United States and Mexico since the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo relocated the border in 1848. The river’s importance as a life-sustaining resource is reflected in its many names: Río del Norte, Río Bravo del Norte, or Río Bravo in Mexico; P’osoge (“Big River”) by the Pueblo Tewa; and Tó Ba’áadi (“Female River,” because its course is southerly) by the Navajo. In 1582 the Spanish explorer Antonio de Espejo followed the course of the Río Conchos to its confluence with a great river, which Espejo named Río del Norte (River of the North). The name Río Grande was first given by the explorer Juan de Oñate, who arrived on its banks near present-day El Paso in 1598. This work focuses on the Rio Grande as border and borderland. Like the river itself, the border moves physically, historically, politically, and socially, and the meanings of the border, and of the river that denotes it, have also shifted. This life-giving border river has a long history of conflict and is today, in many locations, a militarized zone with multiple layers of surveillance by local, state, and federal authorities. Portrayals of crime, violence, and state control are popular in the media, but they often do not include the lived experience of many border residents. The English novelist Emma Smith wrote, “The river is used to divide but it is not an impenetrable division. Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.”