Crossing over
Subtitle: a Mexican family on the migrant trail
By: Ruben Martinez.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 330
Subjects: Chavez family; Mexican American families -- Social conditions; Mexican Americans -- Biography; Immigrants -- United States -- Social conditions; Immigrants -- United States -- Biography; Illegal aliens -- United States -- Social conditions; Illegal aliens -- United States -- Biography; Migrant labor -- United States; Cherán (Mexico) -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Description: "The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the most permeable boundaries in the world. Even as the United States deploys billions of dollars and a vast arsenal to "hold the line," the border is breached daily by Mexicans in search of work. Yet the migrant gambit is perilous. Thousands die crossing the border, and those who reach "the other side" are branded illegals, undocumented and unprotected.".

"In Crossing Over, the Ruben Martinez puts a human face on the phenomenon, following the exodus of the Chavez clan, an extended Mexican family with the grim distinction of having lost three sons in a tragic border incident. He charts the migrants' progress from their small south-Mexican town of Cheran through the harrowing underground railroad to the tomato farms of Missouri, the strawberry fields of California, and the slaughterhouses of Wisconsin.

He reveals the effects of emigration on the family members left behind and offers a powerful portrait of migrant culture, an exchange that deposits hip-hop in Indian villages while bringing Mexican pop to the northern plains. Far from joining the melting pot, Martinez argues, the migrants - as many as seven million in the United States - are spawning a new culture that will alter both countries, as Latin America and the United States come increasingly to resemble each other."--BOOK JACKET.