Desert Hawk Books

 

Lives on the Line
Dispatches from the U.S. - Mexico Border

Miriam Davidson

 

200 pages
13 halftones
6 x 9

Cloth

Quantity:  $35.00 & S/H

Paperback

Quantity:  $17.95 & S/H

 

Straddling an international border, the twin cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, are in many ways one community. For years the border was less distinct, with Mexicans crossing one way to visit family and friends and tourists crossing the other to roam the curio shops. But as times change, so do places like Nogales. The maquiladora industry has brought jobs, population growth, and environmental degradation to the Mexican side. A crackdown against undocumented immigrants has brought hundreds of Border Patrol agents and a 14-foot-tall steel wall to the U.S. side. Drug smuggling has brought violence to both sides. Neither Nogales will ever be the same.

In Lives on the Line, Miriam Davidson tells five true stories from these border cities to show the real-life effects that the maquiladora boom and the law enforcement crackdown have had on the people of "Ambos (Both) Nogales." Readers will meet Yolanda Sánchez, a single mother who came to work in the factories; Jimmy Teyechea, a cancer victim who became an outspoken environmental activist; Dario Miranda Valenzuela, an undocumented immigrant who was shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent; Cristina, a "tunnel kid" who aspired to flee the gang lifestyle; and Hope Torres and Tom Higgins, maquiladora managers who have made unique contributions to the community.

In sharing these stories of people transformed by love and faith, by pain and loss, Davidson relates their experiences to larger issues and shows that, although life on the border is tough, it is not without hope.

Lives on the Line is an impassioned look at the changes that have swept the U.S.-Mexico border: the rising tension concerning free trade and militarization, the growing disparity between the affluent and the impoverished. At the same time, the book highlights the positive aspects of change, revealing challenges and opportunities not only for the people who live on the border but for all Americans.

"The growing body of border literature would lead you to believe there are only two borders that matter--California and Texas. But right in the middle is the Arizona border, and its main border crossing, Nogales. As full of gunplay, terror, humor, humanity and hope as Tijuana, Nogales is a fresh landscape with a desert flavor all its own. Miriam Davidson's reporter's eye misses little. Her dispatches will show readers a new world."
— Luis Urrea, author of Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border

"This book explores some of the most compelling slices of life in a border town. The author successfully blends major issues such as maquiladoras, immigration, and poverty with life histories of real people. There is no other book like this out there."
—Oscar J. Martínez, author of Border People

Miriam Davidson is a freelance journalist and writer whose credits include the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Nation, and The Progressive. She is the author of Convictions of the Heart: Jim Corbett and the Sanctuary Movement, also published by the University of Arizona Press.