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This paper represents early work on a new project—a physical, spatial, and cultural history of the U.S.-Mexico border since World War II. Rather than a Berlin Wall-like construction, the border is a hodgepodge of rivers, barbed wire, steel walls, observation towers, customs houses, and international gateways. These varied constructions are perfect reflections of the multiple and contradictory goals they’re supposed to serve—projections of modernity, state formation, military power, commerce, and calls for a discourse on migrant and human rights. This comparison of the walls separating Ambos Nogales and the Tohono O’Odham Nation also explores how the U.S. and Mexican nation states formulated legal regimes and cultural ideas that affected the lives of Mexicans and Indians. It demonstrates how Mexicans and Indians on both sides of the international line understood the borders between them, demonstrating not only how these groups incorporated and reshaped state visions, but also how they conceived of their relation to one another. As a whole, this project addresses unequal power relations within and between the United States and Mexico; the relationship between state governments and local communities; and multiple academic disciplines, including art, architecture, and various modes of historical analysis.