The land along the U.S.–Mexican border is often portrayed
as the place where two separate cultures meet—or indeed
collide. Yet this is not the first meeting of the two cultures,
not their first collision, and not their first confluence.
Their respective ancestral cultures in England and Spain, argue
scholars Milo Kearney and Manuel Medrano, had common roots in
medieval Europe.
Kearney and Medrano explore three interlinking themes. First,
they assert that Mexican American borderlands culture cannot
be fully understood without knowledge of its medieval underpinn-
ings in both Castile (and pre-Castile Spain) and England. Second,
they argue that certain parallels in the medieval evolution of
Hispanic and Anglo societies make the two cultures much more closely
related than is often realized. Finally, the authors show how, despite
these similarities, the origins of Anglo-Hispanic tensions trace back
to the Middle Ages.
The authors conclude that many of the foundations for the interaction
of Hispanic and Anglo societies were laid by the year 1500. From
science and learning through literature and music to art and arch-
itecture, medieval culture has defined many elements of borderlands
creativity.
While the hostilities and negative stereotypes generated by the Hispanic-
Anglo warfare of the Middle Ages passed on prejudices and problems that
are still not entirely overcome, a recognition of the interlinked past
can draw Hispanic and Anglo subcultures in the borderlands together.
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MILO KEARNEY is a professor of early European history at the University
of Texas at Brownsville, where he has taught for thirty years. His Ph.D.
is from the University of California at Berkeley. MANUEL MEDRANO, a
professor of history at the University of Texas at Brownsville, earned
his Ed.D. at the University of Houston. He specializes in Mexican
American studies.
Number Six: Rio Grande/Río Bravo: Borderlands Culture and
Traditions
