ABSTRACT
As an anthropology graduate student specializing in Central America and the Caribbean, I soon learned that walls and gates are ubiquitous throughout Latin America. They separate the domestic domain of women from the public domain of men, providing both a physical and symbolic defense against unwanted intruders. Early North American towns and forts, such as Roanoke, Virginia, also were initially surrounded by walls and barricades for protection. But walls and gates never became an established part of North American town planning. Instead, the wide open spaces of the western frontier, the democratic New England village green, and the fenceless landscapes of suburbia were adopted as spatial models. Cities in North America are not defined by walls and barbed wire, but by public streets and sidewalks lined with apartment buildings, townhouses, or detached bungalows and houses, while suburbs display grass lawns stretching like large welcome mats in front of one-and two-story single-family houses.
