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Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Pantheon
June 2004
On Sale: June 1, 2004
272 pages ISBN: 0375422439 EAN: 9780375422430 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In May 2001, two dozen Mexican workers struck out across
the U.S. border, plunging into the forbidding desert of
southern
Arizona with little water. Three days later, following a
frenzied search by U.S. Border Patrol agents, fourteen were
found dead. The Yuma tragedy seized national headlines, but
it was just one more example of the high-stakes game that
crossing and guarding America's southern border has become. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S.-Mexico border
has been rife with intrigue, lore, and tragedy. In Hard
Line, Ken Ellingwood brings this region to life with an
intimacy that eludes the daily news. A former border
correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Ellingwood tells
the stories of undocumented immigrants, American ranchers,
and townspeople overwhelmed by an influx of border
crossers; of the Native Americans whose land is cut in two
by this modern boundary; and of border agents and human-
rights workers struggling to prevent more tragedies. He
captures the symbiotic relationships between towns on
opposite sides of the border, where residents have long
crossed between countries as easily as crossing a street. As immigration reshapes the face of America, what happens
at our borders is increasingly relevant to the rest of our
nation. Hard Line offers a vivid and informative portrait
of the people and the difficult issues that lie at the
heart of the region. Please note: On page 229 of Hard Line by Ken Ellingwood,
there is an inaccurate description of the role played by
Humane Borders in a federal lawsuit against the government.
Humane Borders did not file a legal claim as the book
states; it was filed by Yuma attorneys. This has been
corrected for future printings. We regret the error.
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