The goal of the project, Border Odyssey, is to increase the awareness and knowledge of the US/Mexico border and those who live around it and worked on it.
The book of which the project is based was written in 2015 and while it is unclear when the project was created, it can only be assumed that it was made in the same or following years since they are so related. The book and project were made around this time because of the overall importance of the topic, Immigration, and its relevance to the current state of the United States’ government and its policies.
The project features the usual About page as well as a Resources page, but what sets its methods apart from other projects, is its use of what’s called the Braceros page. In the Braceros page, there is a photo gallery of many workers of the wall who did not receive compensation for their work. In this page is also a film that gives further information on the photographs themselves. This page is a very good addition to the project because it gives a face to the people behind the wall’s construction instead of just pictures of the landmarks, giving the viewer of the project more insight on the trials the workers went through and other parts of their story.
The interactive map itself scales the entire US/Mexico border with links to each of the landmarks and towns that stretch across it. When clicked, these links provide a set of pictures and a small overview of the landmark or town that the viewer has selected.
Upon investigation, the interactive map is instead found to be an image that was possibly made to look like a map. While it is interactive, with links to multiple landmarks and locations, it can’t be classified as a map due to the fact that it cannot be moved around and the small size of the image.
The project targets the readers of the book of the same name and does so successfully by being found both through Thompson’s personal website and multiple Digital Humanities databases.The information the project presents is scholarly, and the tools available to the viewer greatly illustrate the border itself and the information surrounding both its past and present.