Through the many changes in American cultural history, from the notion of the melting pot to the current preference for celebrating cultural difference, the border has continued to fascinate. The bulk of discussion on the border focuses on the various issues surrounding the constant movement of people from Mexico to the United States of America. One sign of just how wide the differences between these countries are can be seen, ironically, in the fact that for many North Americans, the crossing of boundaries suggests a movement from east to west. Richard Rodriguez examines his own confusion while growing up in California the son of an immigrant father who still referred to their new home as 'el norte' [the North]. He reflects that 'American myth has traditionally been written from east to west, describing an elect people's manifest destiny' (Rodriguez 1996: 37). The notion that Americans are a chosen people whose mission is to conquer wilderness and if necessary subjugate native peoples to advance the course of what they consider civilisation was enthusiastically taken up by Frederick Jackson Turner. In his 1893 essay 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History', Turner (quoted in Taylor 1949: l-2)describes this expansion in glowing terms and considers it a defining force in America's formation of a national identity: American social development has been continually beginning over again on the fron tier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish t11e forces dominating American character.