Bibliograph

¡Viva George!, celebrating Washington's birthday at the US-Mexico border, Elaine A. Peña

Type

Label

¡Viva George!, celebrating Washington's birthday at the US-Mexico border, Elaine A. Peña

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Illustrations

illustrationsmaps

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

¡Viva George!

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1145087807

Responsibility statement

Elaine A. Peña

Sub title

celebrating Washington's birthday at the US-Mexico border

Summary

"For more than a century, the border cities of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, have celebrated George Washington's birthday with parades, pageants, and other festivities. This project uses that long-standing tradition as a lens to examine binational relations and cross-border cooperation, especially during times of crisis (e.g., the 1954 flood, currency devaluations, present-day drug violence). It is a work of both ethnography and archival research (as well as a few uncatalogued documents the author received from private collections), and it argues that the tradition of meeting in the middle of the international bridge is more than a goodwill gesture or an exercise in identity-consolidation. Peña maintains the GWB celebration is a repository of bicultural memory, a negotiation platform, a reconciliatory course of action, and even an efficacious mode of border security"--, Provided by publisher

Table Of Contents

Introduction: from border capricho to border scaffolding -- Playing for power -- Playing Indian, playing colonial -- Playing Mexican -- Playing under duress -- Hurricane Alice and the International Bridge closure -- Crisis -- Paso libre -- Us, them, and festive security -- Conclusion: why study border enactments?

Classification