Overview
""We were trying to change the vision and the conversation about border fears."" Border Odyssey takes us on a drive toward understanding the U.S./Mexico divide: all 1,969 miles-from Boca Chica to Tijuana-pressing on with the useful fiction of a map. ""We needed to go to the place where countless innocent people had been kicked, cussed, spit on, arrested, detained, trafficked, and killed. It would become clear that the border, la frontera, was more multifaceted and profound than anything we could have invented about it from afar."" Along the journey, five centuries of cultural history (indigenous, French, Spanish, Mexican, African American, colonist, and U.S.), wars, and legislation unfold. And through observation, conversation, and meditation, Border Odyssey scopes the stories of the people and towns on both sides. ""Stories are the opposite of walls: they demand release, retelling, showing, connecting, each image chipping away at boundaries. Walls are full stops. But stories are like commas, always making possible the next clause."" Among the terrain traversed: walls and more walls, unexpected roadblocks and patrol officers; a golf course (you could drive a ball across the border); a Civil War battlefield (you could camp there); the southernmost plantation in the United States; a hand-drawn ferry, a road-runner tracked desert, and a breathtaking national park; barbed wire, bridges, and a trucking-trade thoroughfare; ghosts with guns; obscured, unmarked, and unpaved roads; a Catholic priest and his dogs, artwork, icons, and political cartoons; a sheriff and a chain-smoking mayor; a Tex-Mex eatery empty of customers and a B&B shuttering its doors; murder-laden newspaper headlines at breakfast; the kindness of the border-crossing underground; and too many elderly, impoverished, ex-U.S. farmworkers, braceros, lined up to have Thompson take their photograph.
Full Product Details
Author: Charles D. Thompson
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Imprint: University of Texas Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.50cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9781477314005
ISBN 10: 1477314008
Pages: 328
Publication Date: 05 September 2017
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
A potent cri de coeur for a more compassionate, sane and humane border policy. (Kirkus Reviews) Thompson uses his travels to share his passion for the welfare of hard-working, good people, and to persuade his readers that such people have been trapped and exploited by a flawed immigration system. - D.G. Martin (Winston-Salem Journal) [Thompson] sought a firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson’s ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region. - Corbie Hill (The News & Observer) Does Border Odyssey bring us any closer to dissolving entrenched divisions and ingrained attitudes about the border? In presenting the struggles and strife of this place and its people with honesty and hope, Thompson shows the possibility and potential of such a beautiful dream. - Yvette Benavides (The Texas Observer)
A potent cri de coeur for a more compassionate, sane and humane border policy. Kirkus Reviews Thompson uses his travels to share his passion for the welfare of hard-working, good people, and to persuade his readers that such people have been trapped and exploited by a flawed immigration system. Winston-Salem Journal [Thompson] sought a firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson's ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region. The News Observer Does Border Odyssey bring us any closer to dissolving entrenched divisions and ingrained attitudes about the border? In presenting the struggles and strife of this place and its people with honesty and hope, Thompson shows the possibility and potential of such a beautiful dream. The Texas Observer
Does Border Odyssey bring us any closer to dissolving entrenched divisions and ingrained attitudes about the border? In presenting the struggles and strife of this place and its people with honesty and hope, Thompson shows the possibility and potential of such a beautiful dream. * The Texas Observer * [Thompson] sought a firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson's ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region. * The News Observer * Thompson uses his travels to share his passion for the welfare of hard-working, good people, and to persuade his readers that such people have been trapped and exploited by a flawed immigration system. * Winston-Salem Journal * A potent cri de coeur for a more compassionate, sane and humane border policy. * Kirkus Reviews *
Author Information
Farmer-turned-activist and Duke University professor Charles D. Thompson’s compelling books and films intertwine agriculture and immigration, culture and philosophy.
