Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the U.S.-Mexico Border

A fascinating and thorough look at the immigration situation seen through several facets of live in Nogales, Mexico. Davidson brings her journalistic skills to bare in making meaning of a complex topic and breathing humanity into the situation.

Miriam Davidson's book is appropriately researched, well written, and full of personal anecdotes from her experiences in the twin borders cities of Nogales Arizona|Sonora. She explores key issues of social justice and environmental degradation in 'maquiladora' communities in Mexico. I visited Nogales USA & Mexico in 1999, and saw little evidence of the poverty or ecological troubles that Davidson skillfully brings to light in her book. Her description of the Mexican children who live in the cities' sewer tunnel systems is heart-rending; the issues of poverty, drug running, environmental degradation, poor health of residents, economic disparity between USA and Central America, corruption, gender inequality, crime, and the mixed role played by maquila businesses are all interwoven, and Davidson does a great job of illustrating this. One of the most remarkable stories in the book relates to an accomplished American woman of Mexican ancestry who has her new vehicle stolen from the streets of Tucson, AZ by members of the Nogales, Mexico police force. Her response to this injustice is both amazing and inspiring. I highly recommend not only "Lives on the Line", but the related books "Coyotes", by Ted Conover, and "Crossing Over", by Ruben Martinez.

I read 40+ pgs of this book in the bookstore alone. I just moved to Nogales, AZ in January and I have found this book to be very helpful in providing me a background of the Ambos Nogales areas. The book is very well written and keeps you interested from cover to cover. Living in the area and being able to directly relate to the book is a plus, however anyone interested in the US-Mexico Border would find this book to be a spectacular read. Enjoy!!

must also read Miriam Davidson's "Lives on the Line." Maybe I'm a bit biased since I live here in Southern Arizona twelve miles north of our border with Mexico. But Davidson writes such sweet, firsthand-experience prose about other realities I see here -- like the Mexican migrants who have, for decades, crossed the border to keep Americans fat and sassy. The risks they now are taking have become obscenely dangerous, with the US spending billions upon billions to protect-- futiley -- our southern border.Davidson's book is the first one I've read from cover-to-cover in one sitting since I read Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." She's actually the better writer who shares the same themes. But one does not have to live near the border with Mexico to understand that our friendly, much older, south-of-the-border nation's problems are really ours. Besides, the Mexican border is now up in Minnesota -- isn't it, really?This is a must read.