Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the U.S. Mexico Border (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 259 other epic poers under scrutiny attempt "to establish a dominant identity for the Spanish imperial monarchy in ways that consistently involve suppressing difference" (194). What separates Lope from his fellow authots is a particularly bedazzling depiction of the women—symbols of alteriry— prior to writing them out of both the text and the public sphere in which rhe epic genre resides. The association of the epic with nationalism is the guiding premise of Myth and Identity. The epic helps ro promote unity, in its most idealized form, and rhe glories of expansion and conquest ate mediated by an evei-piesent underside of subjugation and erasure, literal and figurative. This is a poststructuralist study in the best sense, of the most positive sense, of the term. The inversion of traditional hierarchies and the reinscription of difference allow one ro see the poems in a mote comprehensive, more critical context. The study is ambitious, nuanced , effectively argued, and well written. Davis does not just fill in gaps in literary history; rather, she contributes to the polemical and fundamental topic of subjectivity, and she illuminates the poetry and its underlying politics. It is to be hoped that hei efforts will inspire new interest in the Spanish epic. Edward H. Friedman Vanderbilt University Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the U.S. Mexico Border The University of Arizona Press, 2000 By Miriam Davidson The compelling study attempts to chart the struggles for survival and empowermenr by Mexicanas/os in Ambos Nogahs; two cities divided by the U.S. /Mexico boidei, one in Sonora, Mexico and the other in Arizona. Lives attempts to put a human face on the maquiladora economies vitalized by globalization and its effecrs on the most disadvantaged members of subaltern communities : the tunnel kids, women shanty-town organizers , cancer victims of environmental racism, and shooting victims of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The book is divided into five major chapters and each includes evocative and eloquent testimony by a variety of people negotiating their survival in Ambos Nogahs. Lives has detailed analysis of different policies and actions that came as a result of the maquiladora boom, and law enforcement and environmental abuses on both sides of the border; its puipose is to show the "teal" consequences on "real" people and "real" communiries of this economy and these abuses. The book succeeds on many levels and demonstrates Davidson's skill and commitment to provide a balanced "stoiy," undertaking the responsibilities of an investigative journalist in champion of die people and communities most affected by poverty on both sides of the border. In specific, rhe chapter on the tunnel children who survive in rhe maze of stoim tunnels between Arizona and Nogales, Mexico was gripping and important in its focus on the children, especially La Negra and orher girls who are most vulnerable to sexual and physical violence. These children are, in many cases, the by-products of families ripped apart by the poverty and violence of the maquiladora economy, as well as alcoholism and substance abuse, which in many cases is spurned by the despair of poverty. Part of what this chaptei accomplishes is to allow the readeis to understand how the tunnel children who form the transnational gang Barrio Libre Sur see themselves and the way they try to creare an alternate family and support srructure for themselves in these "abject" spaces. Their stories challenge the way these street children are seen and treated as an anathema by the Mexican and the U.S. media and police. The "Rodney King on the Boidei" chaptei cleady shows Davidson's willingness to examine the impunity and protectionism with which the migra or INS can enacr severe civil rights abuses including manslaughter and rape by concentrating on a tt agic (yet common) shooting of an "illegal" and suspected "drugrunner." Similar to the Rodney King case, trigger happy Agent Elmei who has a iecotd of excessive use of force, was acquitted twice on all counts by mainly all white juries for fatally shooting DarÃ-o Miranda with an AR-15 rifle. Miranda was a hardworking, loving farher and husband and avid soccer player. 260 Arizona Journal of...