Book Review
Across the Wire
Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border
Luis Alberto Urrea author of Across the Wire narratives his personal experience as a missionary living at the U.S/Mexico border. The book, first published in 1993 gives us a unique and objective perspective of what life is really like in the poorest corners of the border town Tijuana Baja California, just 20 minutes south of San Diego California as Urrea recalls. Reading this book gives the perspective of the U.S/Mexico border being the filter between a first world country, and a third world country. The author’s raw description of Tijuana paints it as a city that is “not easy for newcomers. It is a city that has always thrived on taking advantage of a sucker. And the innocent
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Poverty, and happiness are not mutually exclusive. The people of the dumps and orphanages may not have much, but at least they have trash. And this is a recurring theme throughout the book, transmitted trough the anecdotal presentation of the various characters he meets and builds relationships with. Acknowledging that yes, the borderlands are a rough place, but people survive amongst corruption, enforcement, disease, rape, and constant fear. Urrea makes us see the humanity that exists among evil, corruption, immoral or dirty things people do to survive. One of his goals was to present the humanity and resilience both to the Mexican people who have never met the people in cardboard cities, as well as U.S Americans who live in luxury just minutes away from a mountain top of …show more content…
This book was published in 1993; it’s been 24 years since Urrea described the borderland experience. Now, a quarter of a century things haven’t changed much. South and Central Americans are still the biggest group of migrants fleeing from their country of origin in search of “the American dream.” An article published on the Washington Post just ten days ago describes the lives of Haitians settling in Tijuana after the 2010 earthquake describing it as the “Mexican Dream.” There are parallels, in the early 1990’s it was the people from southern Mexican states and Central America Settling at the borderlands, today it is the Haitians. Groups of people have been pushed to migrate trough the U.S Mexico border and pulled by the U.S advertising itself as the land of opportunity, freedom and justice for all. Ultimately to face the racial and poverty filter that is the border. The enforcement issues that beat and kill people near the border are still much in place
Islas, Arturo. From Migrant Souls. American Mosaic: Multicultural Readings in Context. Eds. Gabriele Rico, Barbara Roche and Sandra Mano. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1995. 483-491.
In Borderlands, the realities of what happens by the border instill the true terror that people face every day. They are unable to escape and trapped in a tragic situation. After reading my three classmates’ papers, I was able to learn a lot more about this piece than I originally encountered just on my own. I was able to read this piece in a completely new light and expand on ideas that I did not even think of.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
In a story of identity and empowerment, Juan Felipe Herrera’s poem “Borderbus” revolves around two Honduran women grappling with their fate regarding a detention center in the United States after crawling up the spine of Mexico from Honduras. While one grapples with their survival, fixated on the notion that their identities are the ultimate determinant for their future, the other remains fixated on maintaining their humanity by insisting instead of coming from nothingness they are everything. Herrera’s poem consists entirely of the dialogue between the two women, utilizing diction and imagery to emphasize one’s sense of isolation and empowerment in the face of adversity and what it takes to survive in America.
Many people at one time or another will face some-sort of economic hardship; however it is safe to say that many people do not really know what extreme poverty is like. The Treviño family knows first hand what it is like to work in tedious, mind-numbing jobs for a very little paycheck. The life of a migrant worker is not anything to be desired. Simple things that most would take for granted like food variety, baths, clean clothes, and beds are things that Elva learned to live with. “We couldn’t have a bath every day, since it was such a big production. But [mom] made us wash our feet every night” (125). A simple task to any normal person is a large production for a migrant family that doesn’t have any indoor plumbing. People living in poverty do not often have a large wardrobe to speak of which means that the few clothes they own often remain dirty because washing clothes is a production too. “Ama scrubbed clothes on the washboard while the rest of us bathed. She took a bath last while the rest of us rinsed and hung up the clothes she had washed. This was the only oppor...
A leading American historian on race, policing, immigration, and incarceration in the United States, Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol tells the story of how Mexican immigrant workers emerged as the primary target of the United States Border Patrol and how, in the process, the United States Border Patrol shaped the history of race in the United States. Migra! also explores social history, including the dynamics of Anglo-American nativism, the power of national security, and labor-control interests of capitalistic development in the American southwest. In short, Migra! explains
The author is using personal experience to convey a problem to his or her audience. The audience of this piece is quite broad. First and foremost, Mexican-Americans just like the author. People who can relate to what the author has to say, maybe someone who has experienced something similar. The author also seems to be seeking out an audience of white Americans who find themselves unaware of the problem at our borders. The author even offers up a warning to white America when she notes, “White people traveling with brown people, however, can expect to be stopped on suspicion they work with the sanctuary movement”(125). The purpose of this writing is to pull out a problem that is hidden within or society, and let people see it for what it is and isn’t.
Using both English and Spanish or Spanglish the author Gloria Anzaldua explores the physical, cultural, spiritual, sexual and psychological meaning of borderlands in her book Borderlands/La Frontera: A New Mestiza. As a Chicana lesbian feminist, Anzaldua grew up in an atmosphere of oppression and confusion. Anzaldua illustrates the meaning of being a “mestiza”. In order to define this, she examines herself, her homeland and language. Anzaldúa discusses the complexity of several themes having to do with borderlands, mestizaje, cultural identity, women in the traditional Mexican family, sexual orientation, la facultad and the Coatlicue state. Through these themes, she is able to give her readers a new way of discovering themselves. Anzaldua alerts us to a new understanding of the self and the world around us by using her personal experiences.
Martinez, Demetria. 2002. “Solidarity”. Border Women: Writing from la Frontera.. Castillo, Debra A & María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 168- 188.
Ngai, Mae M. 2004 “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America” Publisher: Princeton University Press.
side of a border town made Smeltertown residents American, Perales looks at how they also never left their Mexican culture and customs behind. The San Jose’ de Cristo Rey Catholic parish served as a place for Esmeltianos to reimagine what it meant to be racially and culturally Mexican in an American border town. The Catholic chapel on the hill became the locus of what it meant to Mexican in a border town. Through their sense of community and the Catholic parish, Esmeltianos retained many aspects of their Mexican culture: Spanish language, Mexican patriotism, Catholicism. “Blending elements of national and ethnic pride, shared language, and a common experience with Catholicism provided a foundation on which Esmeltianos reconfigured what it meant to be Mexican in a U.S.
Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, N.J. [u.a.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2004. Print.
Ruben Martinez was fascinated with the tragedy of three brothers who were killed when the truck carrying them and 23 other undocumented migrants across the Mexico – United States border turned over in a high-speed chase with the U.S. Border Patrol. “Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail” is a story about crossing and life in the United States.
... U.S. counties bordering Mexico live at or below the poverty line. Along with unemployment rates, this is a significant problem for border security and the threat that it poses on our borders. Each day there are efforts to enforce and strengthen our borders from illegal immigrants, drugs and terrorism. Over the years, there have been major changes in the way we secure our borders. Some strategies were more effective but as the fight continues, the strategies will advance and will tighten the rope on holding back those things that pollute and destroy our nation’s border.
According to Carlos Yescas, “indigenous people have been migrating to the U.S. from Oaxaca for nearly a century.” In fact, in a recent “ethnographic study of twelve communities in Oaxaca’s central valleys, 60% of all migrants from the area were destined for the U.S.” (Cohen). So, why are the inhabitants of such a rich and diverse community leaving their life and loved ones behind? The correct answer for that is globalization and Mexico’s rich history. The term, “ ‘Globalization’ is commonly used ...