In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

This book has been made possible by the help of numerous people. First of all I want to thank the interviewees who participated in the group discussions with the photographs. Without their willingness to share with me their daily joys and sorrows, as well as their narratives about themselves, none of this endeavor would have been possible . I would also like to thank the agencies that supported, in different stages, my research: the Social Science Research Council, the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin, the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, the Center for Inter American and Border Studies of the University of Texas at El Paso, the University Research Institute and the Liberal Arts Faculty Development Grant of the University of Texas at El Paso, the sociology and anthropology departments of the University of Texas at El Paso, the Division of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas–San Antonio, the Seminario de Estudios de la Cultura in Mexico City, and especially, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Several persons have played a particularly important role in the process of writing this book. Very special thanks go to Angela Escajeda and Pablo Luna for their outstanding assistance during the initial fieldwork and after that for their critical reading of my drafts; to Yvonne Montejano, Theresa Hughes, Berta Hall, Zulma Méndez, Araceli Arceo, Joel González, and Sylvia Richards for their help in the process of reinterviewing people; and to Sherry Jewel for her incredible help with the translation of most of the testimonies from Spanish to English. Also important were other students that kindly helped me with other translations: Bibiano Maldonado, Eduardo Acosta, Karina Gerdau-Radonic, Damariz Macías, Adrianna Sáenz, Ivan Cervantes, and Mark Alvarado. Howard Campbell deserves a very special place in my acknowledgments : Where do you find a fine anthropologist, with more than twenty years of experience working in Mexico, the author of two highly acclaimed books about Mexican culture, who is willing to read the thousands of different drafts you give him and return them with their English polished, plenty of very thoughtful criticisms . . . two days later!? Thank you very much, Manny! My advisors in Austin (Bryan Roberts, Henry Selby, and Harley Browning) also deserve a ACKNOWLEDGMENTS very special acknowledgment, because they also were kind enough to go through the different versions of this book and always provided very good advice. I cannot thank them enough for their time, energy, care, kindness . . . and the list goes on. Duncan Earle and an anonymous reviewer advanced very important points that, I am sure, improved very much the final product of my research. And Duncan was particularly encouraging and helpful in the final process of editing the volume, when I thought it couldn’t be done. The book was also improved by my participation in a two-year long seminar about the border, organized by Victor Zúñiga, whose participants were Norma Alarcón, Jorge Arditti, Victoria Novelo, Laura Velazco , Olivia Ruiz, and Luis García. To all of you, thank you so much for your comments and criticisms. Other people have read and criticized different chapters of this book: John Peterson, Cheryl Howard, Debbie Nathan, Melissa Wright, Sarah Hill, Leslie Salzinger, José Manuel Valenzuela, Néstor García Canclini , Elea Aguirre, Patricia Fernández de Castro, David Mariscal, Eduardo Archetti, Elizabeth Mahan, Jan Fairley, Jorge González, Samuel Schmidt, Susan Kern, Antonio Alfau, Eduardo Barrera, Elizabeth Jelín, Kathy Staudt, and Dennis Bixler-Márquez. All of them made insightful comments that I really appreciate. Theresa May and Mandy Woods, at the University of Texas Press, were very helpful in all the process that led to the finishing of this book. And Sue Carter, the editor of the manuscript, performed miracles with my particular version of the English language. I am a social scientist, but I also have several other identities that overlap with my professional one. I want to thank those people who, due to their relationship with me in my other subject positions, also made this book possible. First of all, I have to mention my children, Juanchi and Paloma, who filled me with joy and truly understood the importance of their father’s research. Second, my parents, Becky and Daniel, from whom I learned the importance of critical thinking. Then, my friends Oscar Riccardi, Nora Agostini, Enrique Figueroa, Mónica Maselli, Fernando Nachón, Juan Silva, Tito Palermo, and my...

Share