Customer Reviews

Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

Brilliant read, by a heroically courageous soul. If you are aspiring to learn more about Mexican reality, read this book. Highly recommended.

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.

This book, plain and simple, is about truth: the truth about the distribution of wealth in the world and the truth about the abject poverty our own hoarding of wealth produces. Those reviewers who find it simply an indictment of Americans "who work hard for what they get" insult the five or so billion people in the world who work just as hard as we allegedly do--and probably more--yet end up living from hand to mouth, day to day. It is an incredible pathology of the rich, lazy and fat that they attribute their incredible wealth (relative to say, Tijuana) and the poverty of others to such things as "work" and "initiative". This book clearly shows how fraudulent these claims are. You want initiative and hard work? Try picking through the trash dump every day to feed your family--as opposed to simply saving up for a new home theater system.

The specific examples used are to illustrate what the author wants us to believe. I would have prefered a much rounder picture of the border. ... offers no alternatives to the reader but to take Mexico's problems off their hands and solve them with our generosity.

To be honest, i was very dissapointed with the book. Being chicano, i am ashamed that this book was written by one of my own people. To me it was basically a slang dictionary for non spanish speaking people. Even though i'm not fond of the book, i have to admit some parts were rather intertaining. That's my 2 cents. :) ~Andy

As an ESOL counselor who works with these children on a daily basis, I found the book to be a wonderful resource. I especially liked the beginning of the book where he describes the actual conditions at the border. I have read this to several educators in presentations and it really lets them know what our kids have been through.

I totally disagree with the reader from San Diego. This book was not just to manipulate emotions. I believe that he was trying to tell the story of people who would have otherwise never been known to exist. It is important to know that they do exist. Time and chance is all that stands between them and us.

I had to read a novel for my Latin Literature unit in my world lit class. At random I chose to read Across the Wire. My intrest was sparked beacuse the setting of the novel was just down the road from me. I was aware of the tragedies and the poverty that the people faced in Mexico and in TJ. However, I do believe that this book was not written to inform others of the bad fortunes of its charachters. I believe it was written only to gain sympathy for those that are suffering. The book's agenda was simply to make us feel guilty for all the blessing that we have in America and take for granted. However if enjoy books that play with your emotions and make you feel bad for working hard for what you have than this book is for you.

The book is mostly written to ask reader to give mercy to the people who mostly wanted to live a better life without struggling for it. The question we now ask ourselves as reader of this book is that, should "quarter be given" to those lives in that city Tijuana just because the author felt simpathy for them ?. If you just a moment take a look at the crime rate in America and look at the condition of that city Tijuana, do you want to have that type of crime in this country.

I am sorry that I wasted my money on this book. If you really want to read about poverty, I suggest that you read some real author like Henry Mayhew, or Jack London may be instead of this book.