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Essential Border Reading 3 Book Sampler

Crossing with the Virgin
Dead in their Tracks  
"I Know It's Dangerous": Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border

Our friends at the University of Arizona Press put together this 3 Book sampler especially for KXCI.

Celebrating 50 years of publishing excellence

The University of Arizona Press, founded in 1959 as a department of the University of Arizona, is a nonprofit publisher of scholarly and regional books. As a delegate of the University of Arizona to the larger world, the Press publishes the work of scholars wherever they may be, concentrating upon scholarship that reflects the special strengths of the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University.

Crossing with the Virgin
Stories from the Migrant Trail
Kathryn Ferguson; Norma A. Price; Ted Parks
240 pp. / 6.0 x 9.0 / 2010
Paper (978-0-8165-2854-7)  

Over the past ten years, more than 4,000 people have died while crossing the Arizona desert to find jobs, join families, or start new lives. Other migrants tell of the corpses they pass—bodies that
are never recovered or counted.

Crossing With the Virgin collects stories heard from migrants about these treacherous treks—firsthand accounts told to volunteers for the Samaritans, a humanitarian group that seeks to prevent such unnecessary deaths by providing these travelers with medical aid, water, and food. Other books have dealt with border crossing; this is the first to share stories of immigrant suffering at its worst told by migrants encountered on desert trails.

Dead in their Tracks  
Crossing America’s Desert Borderlands in the New Era
John Annerino
320 pp. / 6.0 x 9.0 / 2009

It is America’s killing field, and the deaths keep mounting. As the political debate has intensified and demonstrators have taken to the streets, more and more illegal border-crossers die trying to cross the desert on their way to what they hope will be a better life.

The Arizona border is the deadliest immigrant trail in America today. For the strong and the lucky, the trail ends at a pick-up on an Interstate highway. For far too many others, it ends terribly—too often violently—not far from where they began.

Dead in Their Tracks is a first hand account of the perils associated with crossing the desert on foot. John Annerino recounts his experience making that trek with four illegal immigrants—and his return trips to document the struggles of those who persist in this treacherous journey. In this spellbinding narrative, he takes readers into the “empty quarter” of the Southwest to meet the migrant workers and drug runners, the ranchers and Border Patrol agents, who populate today’s headlines.

"I Know It’s Dangerous"
Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border
Lynnaire M. Sheridan
232 pp. / 6.0 x 9.0 / 2009

Migration from Mexico to the United States has become an increasingly volatile topic. The news is filled with stories of deaths, protests, and amnesty debates. With the constant buzz about migration in the political, economic, and legal spheres, the migrants themselves easily become a de-humanized multitude. “I Know It’s Dangerous”: Why Mexicans Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border strives to put a human face on the issue of migration and effectively turns the statistics we hear so often into individuals with real lives, needs, and desires.

As an Australian national, Lynnaire Sheridan brings a refreshingly neutral voice to this hot-button topic. With data gathered over two years of living in Baja California, Mexico, Sheridan draws out individual stories, motivations, and conceptions of risk that ultimately allow us a deeper understanding of migration. Sheridan enriches the migrants’ stories with examinations of popular songs, graffiti art on the border, analyses of newspaper articles, and in-depth interviews with migrants. Together these narratives show us that risk has become a strong motivating factor for migrants and that stricter border policies have not necessarily stemmed the rates of migration; they have merely changed how people migrate.     

With immigration a hot topic in the news, The University of Arizona Press offers a variety of books about many aspects of the border and immigration. All these and many more titles are available now!

Celebrating 50 years of publishing excellence

The University of Arizona Press, founded in 1959 as a department of the University of Arizona, is a nonprofit publisher of scholarly and regional books. As a delegate of the University of Arizona to the larger world, the Press publishes the work of scholars wherever they may be, concentrating upon scholarship that reflects the special strengths of the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University.