Border Odyssey

Travels Along the U.S./Mexico Divide

Border Odyssey takes us on a drive toward understanding the US/Mexico divide: all 1,969 miles, from Boca Chica to Tijuana.

"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 US), wars, and legislation unfold. And through observation, conversation, and meditation, Border Odyssey scopes the stories of the people and towns on both sides.

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; a Tex-Mex eatery empty of customers; the kindness of the border-crossing underground; and too many elderly, impoverished, ex-US farmworkers.

©2015 University of Texas Press (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks