From the Archive – The Border/ Daniel D. Arreola
Charting the cultural geography of Mexican border cities is an ongoing project. Early writings laid a foundation for understanding spatial patterns and place characteristics of these cities (Herzog 1990; Arreola and Curtis 1993; Mendez Sainz 1993). Further topical explorations have expanded this vision (Curtis 1993, 1995; Arreola 1996, 1999; Herzog 1999). Missing from the literature, however, is any effort to assess landscape change through time at a single border locale. This essay explores that possibility through the use of postcard imagery, a special source of visual evidence.
Unlike conventional photographic imagery about place that one might excavate from an archive, postcards, as mass commercial products, combine accessibility with visual repetition. Whereas archival photography can reveal an image of a city that is like a window to a particular time and place, repeat inspection of the same view at another time is not typically possible (Hales 1984). A diachronic, or time -series, record is therefore difficult to reconstruct from archival imagery. This problem is remedied somewhat by the strategy and application of repeat photography and by the transcription and comparison of archival pho-tographs for selected cities (Foote 1985). In the case of Mexican border cities, however, no single historical repository of photo images has been assembled, although a portfolio of 1964 Tijuana has recently been published (Ganster 2000). No known repeat photography project is in progress.
In contrast to archival photographs, postcard views of a townscape allow images to be evaluated serially because postcard photographers typically were attracted to similar view sites, which were documented repeatedly. Over several decades, postcard views of the same landscape can be used to create a diagnostic interpretation of place. […]
