Your House Es Mi Casa: American Homebuyers in the Baja California Borderlands. Issue 1 (24th October 2017) - Fingal, Sara
Abstract : This article examines the history of U.S. citizens buying homes along the coastlines of Baja California, specifically near Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. The founding of Mexico's National Border Program (PRONAF) in 1961 focused the government's attention on coastal tourism projects. The vacation real estate market started growing in the United States during the same period. Decades of tourism promotion and travel writing encouraged thousands of Americans to envision a second home and retirement on beaches in the U.S-Mexico borderlands. An influx of foreign homeowners inflated the real estate market along parts of the Baja California shoreline in the 1970s and 1980s and caused tensions between Mexicans and North Americans over property rights and the legacy of U.S. imperialism in the region. The increase of Americans purchasing homes in Baja California during this period reflected the successful advertising and promotion of the region. Visual and textual representations of the peninsula's shoreline crafted an exotic landscape that Americans believed they had a right to occupy.