Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
by Ruben Martinez
List Price:
Our Price: $2.00
You Save: $13.00 (87%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.64 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Ruben MartinezEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-09-07
ISBN: 0312421230
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
Book Review: Crossing Over
Summary: 5 Stars
A very sad story of just one of so many Mexican families struggling to survive between Mexico and America. This book will keep you reading until you finish. An incredible story of incredible people. Much of the book I read to my two teenage sons, for a better appreciation of their life as American born young men.
Summary of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail
The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the most permeable boundaries in the world, breached daily by Mexicans in search of work. Thousands die crossing the line and those who reach "the other side" are branded illegals, undocumented and unprotected. Crossing Over puts a human face on the phenomenon, following the exodus of the Ch?vez clan, an extended Mexican family who lost three sons in a tragic border accident. Mart?nez follows the migrants' progress from their small southern Mexican town of Cher?n to California, Wisconsin, and Missouri where far from joining the melting pot, Mart?nez argues, the seven million migrants in the U.S. are creating a new culture that will alter both Mexico and the United States as the two countries come increasingly to resemble each other.
Not since Ted Conover's Coyotes has a book revealed the underground culture of illegal immigration from Mexico as well as Crossing Over by Rub?n Mart?nez. This up-and-coming author writes of what he calls "a Mexican Manifest Destiny" that continually pierces the southern borderline of the United States--a "line [that] is still more an idea than a reality." Mart?nez begins with the awful story of the three Ch?vez brothers, all killed when a truck carrying them and some two dozen other illegal aliens tried to outrace border patrol agents and flipped. Mart?nez learns of their fate and travels to their peasant hometown in southern Mexico to distil the motives of migrants. Then he follows the rest of the family north as they fan into the United States. Crossing Over is written in the first person and is highly anecdotal, but Mart?nez constantly makes observations that break free from these narrow confines. "Mexicans have always had an uncanny instinct for finding the soft spots of the American labor economy," he notes at one point, explaining how it is that millions of poor people who barely speak English can thrive, in their way, north of the border. Crossing Over is an outstanding book, and required reading for anyone interested in Hispanics and the new America. --John Miller
United States Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Richard Caceres Recommends
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Everyman's Library (Cloth))by Italo Calvino
Everyman's Library; Published: 1993-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.31
Price in other shops:
C Programming Language (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall Software)by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie
Prentice Hall PTR; Published: 1988-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $39.31
Price in other shops:
Digital Art (World of Art)by Christiane Paul
Thames & Hudson; Published: 2003-07-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.67
Price in other shops:
Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profitby Vandana Shiva
South End Press; Published: 2002-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops:
The Real Book: Sixth Editionby Hal Leonard Corporation
Hal Leonard Corporation; Published: 2004-09-01; Plastic Comb; Book
Best price: $18.43
Price in other shops:
Introduction to Documentary:by Bill Nichols
Indiana University Press; Published: 2001-11-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.98
Price in other shops:
Picture This: How Pictures Workby Molly Bang
Chronicle Books; Published: 2000-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.53
Price in other shops:
Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychologyby Valentino Braitenberg
The MIT Press; Published: 1986-02-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.74
Price in other shops:
New Masters of Flash: The 2002 Annualby Hoss Gifford, Ross Mawdsley, Amit Pitaru, Jessica Speigel, Josh Levine, Mickey Stretton, Pete Barr-Watson, Brian Limmond, Chris Andrade, Marc Stricklin, Samuel Wan, Yugo Nakamura, Jonathon Gay, Gabriel Mulzer, Manny Tan, Jessica Spiegel
friends of ED; Published: 2003-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.79
Price in other shops:
Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computersby Tom Igoe, Dan O'Sullivan
Course Technology PTR; Published: 2004-05-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.31
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Trespassing: A Novelby Uzma Aslam Khan
Picador; Published: 2005-11-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Downby Anne Fadiman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 1998-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.08
Price in other shops:
New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United StatesRussell Sage Foundation Publications; Published: 2006-08-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.76
Price in other shops:
Making the Grade: Reinventing America's Schoolsby Tony Wagner
Routledge; Published: 2003-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.81
Price in other shops:
Harvest of Empire : A History of Latinos in Americaby Juan Gonzalez
Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.18
Price in other shops:
Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Borderby Luis Alberto Urrea
Anchor; Published: 1993-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.97
Price in other shops:
The Devil's Highway: A True Storyby Luis Alberto Urrea
Published: 2005-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.45
Price in other shops:
Enrique's Journeyby Sonia Nazario
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-01-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.30
Price in other shops:
Dead in Their Tracks: Crossing America's Desert Borderlandsby John Annerino
Basic Books; Published: 2003-09-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.49
Price in other shops:
Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America's Illegal Migrantsby Ted Conover
Vintage; Published: 1987-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: