The Border: Life on the Line

Dramatic photographs capture the people and places along the Mexican-American border, those living in wealth and poverty, in hope and in despair, and the Mexicans who attempt to cross the border and the patrol out to stop them

The Mexican-American border region is many things: a no-man's-land for illegal emigres; a home to poor, hardworking villagers; a vast patchwork of ranches and farms; a zone of economic conquest as the U.S. economy pushes south. Seldom-explored facets of this twilight world are spotlighted in Hall's leisurely photoessay. A writer-photographer whose previous books include Shot in Prison and Working Cowboys, Hall lets the border inhabitantsteachers, ranchers, poets, prostitutesspeak for themselves. An American priest discusses his work with Central American political refugees. A Border Patrol agent complains that his heavy paperwork load prevents him from nabbing more illegals. Members of a Mexican-American family explain their belief in spirits. The photographs and rambling narrative succeed in capturing the dignity and inner strength of the Mexicans who eke out a living in this "corridor between the richest nation on earth and one of the poorest."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This photographer's insightful personal view of the U.S.-Mexican border culture is a cross between Alan Weisman and Jay Dusard's La Frontera ( LJ 2/1/87) and Lester D. Langley's MexAmerica ( LJ 7/88). Hall's work covers the usual border subjects, but also accurately captures the complexity of the frontier through more unusual personalities such as a priest, a teacher, and an artist. The work is rife with numerous black-and-white and color photographs, many quite striking, but the layout is often crowded. More judicious use of pictures, combined with a a better focused narrative, would have enhanced this work. Recommended for public libraries without the above books. Roderic A. Camp, Central Coll., Pella, Ia.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.