Product Description

Much has been written about the hardships faced by Mexicans who have illegally crossed over into the United States, but until now almost no attention has been paid to the terrible living conditions these people suffer "across the wire" (behind the Mexican border), which forces so many of them to make the dangerous journey to the U.S. 15 photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165160 in Books
• Published on: 1993-01-12
• Released on: 1993-01-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Urrea, a Mexican-born American, worked from 1978 to 1982 for a Protestant aid group in Tijuana, and he wrote these fragmentary, evocative tales of heartbreak and hope for the San Diego Reader after he returned to the region in 1990. "Poverty is personal: it smells and it shocks and it invades your space," Urrea declares, and he admits to being thrilled by both the goodness and the squalor he knew intimately. He visits the dumps where people live, their possessions a bed and a car-battery-powered television. He travels with a Tijuana cop, working "a city of famed vice," and learns how the cop extracts sexual favors from American women. In one arresting chapter he records his father's death in a car accident, the tragedy compounded by police and funeral costs and a battle with the father's insurance company. Urrea ends with a manic, magic "Christmas story," about a gift giveaway organized by a San Diego rock radio station and attended by a band called the Trash Can Sinatras. There Urrea reunites with Negra--who as a little girl made a shrine out of the doll he gave her, and who says, "I never forgot you, Luis." Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Urrea, a San Diego native, recounts his experiences in Tijuana and other areas on the U.S.-Mexico border from 1979 to 1991. He meets residents of the Tijuana city dump, visits rural orphanages with American missionaries, and goes on calls with a Tijuana police officer. Urrea's candid style does not sensationalize these situations; each of his Mexican acquaintances is an individual whose story is told with respect and understanding. As a personal and insightful view of Mexican border residents and their lives, Across the Wire is a more detailed and cohesive treatment of the topic than Debbie Nathan's Women and Other Aliens ( LJ 5/1/91). Highly recommended. --Gwen Gregory, U.S. Courts Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher
A compelling and unprecedented look at life on the other side of the border. Despite the numbers of people crossing over to the U.S., hundreds more remain behind in abject poverty. Urrea worked closely with them and provides a compassionate and candid account of their lives.

Customer Reviews

Former Border Patrol Agent writes...
I am a former United States Border Patrol Agent and I read this book while working the fixed positions we often manned along the Arizona-Mexico border. I was so moved by this story, I cried. I cried as I read this book, right there in my Border Patrol vehicle on the very line separating two very different worlds! This book is an easy read and can be taken a little at a time. Its impact is incredible and your heart will be broken. It is a must read! I am not compromising my stance on immigration laws here, I am just expressing my heart-felt pain for some of what the beautiful people of Mexico must face in their lives. God bless!

comments can be deceptive...
I'm basically writing this review because I feel that the comments posted here do not reflect how beautiful this book actually is. It was assigned reading during a Chicano Studies course I took last quarter, and quite literally changed the way I look at the Mexican-US border. Too often we on this side of the border are shown a VERY diluted picture of life on the border, and NEVER a complete picture. I felt that this book helped to fill in the gaps in my own bias. There is nothing cruel, nothing romantic, nothing emotional about this book. It presents a sring of events told objectivly by the author, for our own emotional responses to perceive however we choose. A fairly short book made of extraordinarily powerful yet short anecdotes, you'll find it VERY hard to not finish this in one sitting. HIGHLY recommended; one of my favourite books of all time, that has not been given the mainstream acclaim it deserves.

who cares about objectivity.
people who read this book need to understand that this book is going to be biased. in the beginning the author explicitly states that this book is going to be his personal account about his experience of the border life in Tijuana. people who want truth about the hardships these people face need to pick up this book and read it. i read it for a class that i am interning for and i work in a homeless youth shelter in the city of Tijuana and i see so many similarities of this life. i see the children and have to ask myself where and how did these children end up on the streets. why have they chosen this life, a life of hardship and chaos? Never knowing when your time is up or who that person down the street is beating up or for my case, how can there be a drug house next door to these children? this book is a very emotional account of those that have gone as far as they could only to end up a step closer to that freedom. this book definitely opened my eyes to those who have come this far only to continue to struggle. searching in the dumps for food, living on a piece of land where you could be kicked off in a instant, only to be more homeless than you already are. this is a story, a true srory, that will hopefully open the eyes of all who read this book. it is an account of hope and survival, quite often things that you or me need not to worry about. the people who are talking about immigration reform and who are hoping to make it alot more strict because they feel "their country" is being overrun by illegals, need to pick up this book. you need to step out of your bubble and volunteer with a group that goes across the wire to the other side, the true other side. not revolution avenue, but go into the city, go to houses on the hills. go and see the way these people live and then ask yourself if you have the right to complain about those people who are trying to make a better life for their families and themselves.