ABSTRACT
In 1891, the Mexican state chartered a British company to build the transpeninsular railroad, connecting Baja California’s San Quintín Valley with the southwestern United States. The Mexican state’s dream was to open this land up for cultivation and to attract investment and settlers (Heath, 2011). The project only produced a 27-kilometer stretch of rail that went nowhere. Due to its proximity to the United States, the Mexican state has long dreamed of rolling out its vision of agrarian modernism, a vision of an agriculture resembling that of its neighbor to the Global North, here in Baja California. Time after time, Mexico has attempted to make this region an extension of the Californian landscape, which, thanks to its agriculture and shipping infrastructure, has become the breadbasket of the United States. However, lack of sufficient water and inhabitants has destabilized this aspiration. The dream of a modernized agriculture in the Mexican state of Baja California, like the dream of the transpeninsular railroad, has struggled to materialize.
