Border Odyssey: Travels along the U.S./Mexico Divide

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Synopsis
This blend of travelogue and reportage from the US-Mexico border is &“an exploration of 2,000 miles of fraught, rugged and deeply contested territory&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In a quest to capture a real-life, close-up view of the land where so many have been kicked, cussed, spit on, arrested, detained, trafficked, or killed—and the subject that has been debated for decades by politicians and commentators—Charles D. Thompson records his journey from Boca Chica to Tijuana, and his conversations with everyone from border officials to migrant workers to local residents. Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and US), wars, and legislation unfold. Among the terrain traversed: walls and more walls, unexpected roadblocks, and patrol officers; a golf course (you could drive a ball across the border); a Civil War battlefield (you could camp there); the southernmost plantation in the US; a hand-drawn ferry, a road-runner tracked desert and a breathtaking national park; barbed wire, bridges, and a trucking-trade thoroughfare; ghosts with guns; obscured, unmarked, and unpaved roads; a Catholic priest and his dogs, artwork, icons, and political cartoons; a sheriff and a chain-smoking mayor; a Tex-Mex eatery empty of customers and a B&B shuttering its doors; murder-laden newspaper headlines at breakfast; the kindness of the border-crossing underground; and too many elderly, impoverished, ex-U.S. farmworkers, braceros, who lined up to have Thompson take their photograph. &“A firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson&’s ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region.&” —The News & Observer
Copyright:
2015

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
332 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780292772007
Related ISBNs:
9781477314005
Publisher:
University of Texas Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
the University of Texas Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Travel, Social Studies, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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