Mexican Voices of the Border Region

Mexicans and Mexican Americans Speak about Living along the Wall

Laura Velasco Ortiz, Oscar F. Contreras, Sandra del Castillo

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781592139095, 9781592139088
• eBook ISBN: 9781592139101
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Emigration & Immigration
• Index: Social Sciences

Every day, 40,000 commuters cross the U.S. Mexico border at Tijuana San Diego to go to work. Untold numbers cross illegally. Since NAFTA was signed into law, the border has become a greater obstacle for people moving between countries. Transnational powers have exerted greater control over the flow of goods, services, information, and people.

Mexican Voices of the Border Region examines the flow of people, commercial traffic, and the development of relationships across this border. Through first-person narratives, Laura Velasco Ortiz and Oscar F. Contreras show that since NAFTA, Tijuana has become a dynamic and significant place for both nations in terms of jobs and residents. The authors emphasize that the border itself has different meanings whether one crosses it frequently or not at all. The interviews probe into matters of race, class, gender, ethnicity, place, violence, and political economy as well as the individual's sense of agency.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword, by Arthur Schmidt
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Lived Borders
• 1. Living on the Agricultural Frontier
• 2. Home, Sweet Industrial Home
• 3. Sex without Kisses, Love with Abuse
• 4. A Straight-Dealing Drug Trafficker
• 5. An Indigenous Woman Street Vendor
• 6. A Caregiver Commuter
• 7. A Border Acrobat
• 8. The Mexicali Panther
• 9. A Young Mexican American
• 10. Guarding the American Dream
• Conclusion: Opportunity and Uncertainty
• Notes
• References
• Index