Links which give some background to the language debate in the US:

http://coloquio.com/english.html   This site is dedicated to the struggle against English-only legislation.

http://www.us-english.org/index.html This is the homepage of the U.S.ENGLISH, Inc., a legislative organization, working at the state and federal levels to pass legislation to make English the official language of government and to reform bilingual education, and the U.S.ENGLISH Foundation, an educational and research organization, working to promote opportunities for everyone in the United States to learn English and to research issues related to language policy.

http://www.neta.com/~1stbooks/help0.htm This site argues that Spanish is the only language other than English with a collective base in the United States and that this gives social precedence for why US is and should be a dual language country.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jwcrawford/updates.htm This site gives updates on court decisions on English only legislation around the country.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/engonly.htm This site gives a very brief outline of the English-only movement, lists the kinds of people in it and provides links to other sites.

http://www.aclu.org/news/w042998b.html This website gives a brief news story on a ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court that the state's English-only law is unconstitutional

http://www.lsadc.org/resolution.html This page is a part of the Linguistic Society of America website, listing their resolution stating their opposition to English-only laws.

 United States-Mexico Border Area, As Delineated by a Shared Water Resources Perspective http://www.doi.gov/fcc/english/water_fs-1.html

I discovered many different aspects about the United States Mexico border by searching the World Wide Web. While spending several hours searching for this specific topic I discovered there is a lot of information about the United States Mexico border, yet I still feel I did not quite find what I was looking for. My heart desired a web page that was filled with culture and life on the border. I searched for a better understanding of the struggles Mexicans that lived on the border went through daily. I mainly received facts about the United States and Mexico border. The web page that I finally decided would be suitable for this class was http://www.doi.gov/fcc/english/water_fs-1.html. The name of this site is United States-Mexico Border Area, As Delineated by a Shared Water Resources Perspective. As you can see from the title this web page specifically gives facts about the United States-Mexico border. On the first page the site gives an index of subjects therefore giving you an idea of the information on this web page. The site starts with the introduction, which is a brief summary of the history of the United States Mexico border, from a shared water perspective. The site then explores the extent of the border area, map of the United States Mexico border, shared water resources issues team, map compilation, electronic access to report, areal extent of US-Mexico border area, and references. I liked this web site because it gave me in detail exactly where the border was. It allowed me to imagine what was considered to be "legal boundaries" and "illegal boundaries". This web site made frustrated because it did not tell of the natives which lived in Mexico or their culture. I wanted to learn more about their society. It also made me a bit annoyed because this is only from one perspective of the border (water resource perspective). If students wanted to know about the boundaries and the surrounding water between the United States and Mexico this would be an excellent page for them.

 The South Texas Border 1900-1920

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/txuhtml/runyhome.html

This site begins with a brief history of the photography and some facts about the photographer. It then lists all of the sections within the site. There is a section about the collection, a site about the photographer, Robert Runyon, and a few other divisions.

It is only within the section titled "The Mexican Revolution: Conflict in Metamoros" that one can view any photographs. And as compelling as these photos are, I wish that there were more of them. One would assume that within a site that has its title, there would be more photographs, but instead there are nine. Indeed, they are very striking photographs; having both intriguing and heart wrenching qualities, but there seem to be preliminary, extra information than one would hope to find.

The photos themselves document the Mexican Revolution; containing photos of a march, soldiers, an execution, and a mass grave. If ever one wanted to do research on the Mexican Revolution, I would vouch that this would be an important site to visit, but not a principle one.

www.learning.berkly.edu/course/AS1025um97/html

The Texas Military Forces Museum- Mexican Border Services http://www.kwanah.com/txmilmus/tnghist18.htm

Format and Content of Site: The site educates the reader of the Texan National Guard and its purpose; the history of the land according to Texans; and various events that occurred and the participants. The Texas Military Forces Museum- Mexican Border Services was organized in a logical format, chronological order, as well as utilization of subtitles so as to enhance the readers complete comprehension. By placing the reader in the time era and living era it aids in interlocking different perspectives about the world surroundings, in addition to interconnecting each aspect of Texan and Mexican life in relation to the history outside world.

Why and how site was helpful: The Texas Military Forces Museum- Mexican Border Services facilitates the understanding of the history concerning various Acts that were enforced and purpose, all of which I had no previous knowledge. Also of much help was the ease at which the reader is to come to the realization that there was a struggle for land between indigenous peoples and the people in power. This makes the reader appreciate all that ancestors (if are indigenous people) have done to try and preserve culture and tradition.

Frustrations: Education about the border helped me realize that there was a great deal of battles and conquests for the accumulation of this land. Loss of life, turmoil, pains and suffering, upset a gruesome history of these inhabitants and descendants of this land. The presence of ethnocentric values and beliefs which lead to the loss of many a life and destruction of a culture was the cause of most frustration. The primary focus was on Texan life and history, which made this "history", biased. There was little mention of Mexico, her people, culture, and tradition. A one page summary of the contribution of African Americans in the Texas War of Independence was presented, but the information was not was as lengthy as various other parts of the webpage, which to me implies that this part of history is not as important as others. This webpage twisted knowledge and history; it discussed the fight with Mexico to reclaim the "rites of passage" to the land, when in actuality it was confiscated from the indigenous people.

Situation that makes usage of site necessary: If students planned to make an education inspired trip to Mexico. Students should have a sense of the historical background of the land, people, culture, traditions and ideology of all residents of Mexico and Texan influence on Mexican history so that they understand the present day Mexico in context and relation to the past.

 The Journal of Borderlands Studies

http://www.acusd.edu/~joana/Journal/journalindex.html

The Journal of Borderlands Studies is a journal focusing on research and issues in border regions. Although it deals with borders throughout the world, this journal has a strong history of publications dealing with the United States-Mexico border. San Diego University Press publishes it twice a year.

The site provides the general information that I listed above, along with article summaries for each of its newer issues. It is possible to access these summaries back until 1996. The site also includes the names and authors of every one of its articles. It provides all the information necessary to access the article in a library. The site also provides information on obtaining subscriptions and sending in manuscripts for publication.

I found this site to be very well organized and easy to follow. The summaries and article information are easily accessible. This site would be extremely helpful for someone who is looking for articles dealing with border issues. It readily provides the information necessary to obtain the articles or the magazine in its entirety.

I found nothing frustrating about this site. Unlike other sites, everything that you needed to know was right there. I did not have to keep jumping from one link to another in pursuit of answers.

A student seeking information about borders, especially the one between the United States and Mexico would benefit greatly from this site. Given an assignment to obtain information from magazines, a student would surely want to visit this site. Articles published in the magazine include ones on trade, cultural differences and population studies. Instead of leafing through stacks of magazines, a student could access this site to see if recent issues contained in worthwhile articles.

Introduction to Mexican Labor History: General Strike in Mexico-turn of the century http://www.utexas.edu/ftp/student/subtex/.web/Groups/crossborder/Mexhist.html

The article consists of insightful paragraphs describing, somewhat briefly, about the Mexican Labor History. It has two paragraphs then a picture of an enormous man hailing a large flag with the word "Huelga" on it. Right next to this Mexican word is the word "strike," which is the English translation. There are smaller men charging the giant, with swords and angry faces.

The article is about the how the early labor forces were run and how the people began as servants instead of true employees. It begins talking about the Mexican Revolution and how the success depended on the strength of Mexico working class. How the Mexicans dealt with the strike is another issue brought about in the article.

There are many important aspects of the article that tie into the book that the class has been reading. This explains to some extent the reason why Mexican workers are treated so dreadfully awful.

The negative aspect of this article that is very frustrating is that it is short. It leaves the reader wanting to know more. This is a very good starting point to build on. It is a border, once again between the past and the present because now that the class knows more about the history of the labor force, they could understand Mexican Lives better.

One situation that students would want to visit this site would be if they didn’t understand why the Mexicans were treated as they were, and how they got through some of the difficult times.

Frontera Magazine www.fronteramag.com

While searching the web for border sites, I kept running into the same problem, boring information. All the information I found was very informative, there are a lot of good, and relative border sites but nothing that I felt a student would want to read. Than I ran into a website called Frontera Magazine located at www.fronteramag.com. The site is fun, interesting, colorful and informative. It gives students information on the culture that surrounds the border in terms of music, and other creative arts, interviews with people of importance and issues that students should know about. It appeals to the Mexican student, Mexican-American student, and the American student. Thus it is easier and a lot more fun to learn about the different cultures that surround the border. I can see a student heading to this site when they want to learn what are the hottest and newest issues surrounding the border culture.

The Militarization of the U.S.- Mexico Border http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/mj1.html#anchor639918

This site is an interview with Maria Jiménez, director of the Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project (LEMP), an organization working to reduce the abuse of authority in the enforcement of immigration laws. Ms Jiménez describes the types of and effects of militarization on the border, gives details from the murder of Ezequiel Hernandez in Redford, TX as evidence of both the work LEMP does and issues on the border today, and discusses human rights violations on the border with supporting evidence for why these issues are issues of human rights. The interview also includes helpful statistics which demonstrate the disparity between fact and perception in border issues such as drug trafficking and undocumented immigration.

I found the wealth of information and direct experiences Ms Jiménez was able to give in the interview to be the most helpful aspect of this site. Ms Jiménez presents readers with stories of Mexican and Mexican American people's lives in order to educate them concerning the issues of the border and the need for direct involvement to bring about change. The only aspect I found frustrating about the site is that it did not offer contact information for LEMP. The site does, however, link to another excellent article which is an interview with Roberto Martinez.

This site would be helpful to writers dealing with issues of law and order on the border, ethnic communities constructed as enemies, and the impact of government and economic structures on the lives of laborers in the border region.

Humanities-Interactive: Giving Wings To Ideas

http://www.humanities-interactive.org./borderstudies/

This site was created by the Texas Humanities Resource Center, which is a division of the Texas Council for the Humanities in Austin, Texas. Humanities-Interactive is design so that people of both English and Spanish-speaking descent can learn more about the history of Texas and the US-Mexico Border. Humanities-Interactive also provides a number of learning tools such as a reading room, media theatre, and games, which enables the viewer to have fun while learning about history. The one thing that I found to be the most helpful was the fact that the text was written in both English and Spanish, so that people who lived on either side of the border could have access to this information. Another thing that I found to be helpful is that it not only contained historical text but it also contained pictures and other interactive tools. I thought this was helpful because it is geared towards a diverse group of people, in regards to culture and age. The thing that I felt needed to be improved was the accessibility of some of the interactive tools. All and all, I think that students, ranging from fifth grade to the college level, can use this site as a source to write papers or give presentations on the historical events in America, more specifically the history of Texas and US relations to Mexico and the US-Mexico border.

Interhemispheric Resource Center www.irc-online.org

This site deals with policy issues along the U.S. Mexican border. There is a large focus on the Texas area of the border. The site also houses the Incitra Action Kit which has a vast amount of information concerning environmental issues along the border.

The site provided useful information and networking contacts for border region residents and policymakers.

My only frustration is that the War On Drugs issue is neglected and I feel that that is one of most relevant issues of the border region. Other than that, I feel that it is an insightful and informative site that can benefit the class.

Borderlands Encyclopedia http://www.utep.edu/border

This is an extremely comprehensive resource for many aspects of study in the border region. The University of Texas at El Paso put out this site, in both English and Spanish. As far as layout, the pages are easy to navigate and explore. Links are colorful and well located on the page. Information is broken down into six general topics: culture & media, economics & business, education & training, family life & population groups, government & politics, and health & environment.

I liked this particular site because of its simplicity and focus. It contains Real Player clips for audio and video samples which are fun to watch. Another aspect that I enjoyed was the lack of frames. Personally, I can’t stand attempting to follow the path of data through 4 frames on the same screen.

The only downside to this page is that it does not provide much original information. Each topic listed above sends you to a listing of other websites dealing specifically with those topics. This is good if you are researching something as specific as the education of Mexicans on the border, as it will give you an abundance of information. Each link also contains Real Audio clips dealing with those issues.

Overall, I really liked this site because it expressed the most organized system of gathering information on the border out of all of the sites explored by myself. It did so clearly and efficiently, and was not at all boring to look at.

The U.S.-Mexico Border Resources Page

http://www-learning.berkeley.edu/Courses/AS102Sum97/resources.html

The site is property of UC Berkeley. It has information on all four border states(Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico)and links for each. Since the site is used by students in American Studies and Amercian Cultures classes, a syllabus link is included. Under each state there is a host of links pertaining to issues in that area. In addition, there are links for information on NAFTA and a page of links to other related sites submitted by visitors. Maps are included for each area within its respected link. Each subcategory (i.e. country, state) has links to articles that fall under three categories: history, people & culture, and natural resources. The format can be considered an outline of sorts with each clickable link leading to more specific information.

When looking at other sites I found that they were related to newspaper or magazine articles. The information was often limited to one incident. This site has an array of options. If I want to look at border issues between specific states then I am able to do so. The information is well-organized and presented in an objective fashion; I don't have to rely on a subjective piece that is pro-American. The issues are not strictly political and I can learn more about culture within the regions.

The resources are links to other sites and, from what I've checked out, nothing seems to be written by the students, professors, etc. and that seems odd considering it is a school-based site.

Situation I can imagine students being in which would make a visit to this site necessary: First, if the student is in one of the classes at Berkeley then I am sure she would visit this site. Secondly, if a student had to find out more about Mexican or U.S. border states' cultures and the influences of the region on the culture. Even if the assignment wasn't directed towards inter-regional relations, the student could get much information about any of the regions through the links offered.