The University of Arizona Press
April 3, 2023
The American Association of Geographers gave the AAG 2022 Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography to Dan Arreola at their March 2023 annual meeting. He received the award for Postcards from the Baja California Border.
The AAG award committee wrote, “This form of place study calls attention to how we can see a past through a serial view of places, by the nature of repetition, and the photographing of the same place over and over again. Arreola draws our focus to townscapes, or built landscapes, of four border towns—Tijuana, Mexicali, Tecate, and Algodones—during the first half of the twentieth century. With an emphasis on the tourist’s view of these places, this book creates a vivid picture of what life was like for tourists and residents of these towns in the early and mid-twentieth century.”
At the meeting Arreola also presented, “The Mexican Restaurant in America, A Journey across Time and Place,” as The Historical Geography Specialty Group of the AAG 2023 Distinguished Geography Lecture. Arreola explained how the popularity of Mexican food was driven by a nationwide early twentieth century “tamale craze.” He examined the restaurant as a form of material culture, a venue of cross-cultural contact, an ethnic enterprise, and a culinary business of surprising regional variation.
Congratulations to Dan Arreola on your AAG Award!
