Synopses & Reviews
Praise for A Not-So-Distant Horror:
andldquo;[A] remarkable book.andrdquo;andmdash;Noam Chomsky
Told through the life story of a young man who perished in the California desert, Dying to Live is a compelling account of US immigration/border enforcement and the rapidly growing death toll among migrants. Stunning photos by Mizue Aizeki complement the text.
Joseph Nevins authored Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2002), and A Not-So-Distant Horror (Cornell, 2005). His writings have appeared in the Boston Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and the International Herald Tribune.
Review
"Illegal immigration has become one of the intensely controversial social issues of our day. What are the side effects of the United States' stern position on Mexican immigration? "Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration In an Age of Global Apartheid" is a definitive criticism by author Joseph Nevins of the U.S.'s practices on immigration today. Following the story of Julio Cesar Gallegos, a man who died crossing the border to try to reach his wife and son, it's an eye opening account of immigration that is judicially defined as illegal -- and the cruelty that sometimes lies within. Discussing human rights and homeland security as well, "Dying to Live" is a deftly written treatise on immigration, a must to those who want to further understand the subject." Midwest Book Review
Review
"Joseph Nevins blows the cover off the scapegoating of "illegal" immigrants by meticulously and grippingly compiling the history of why so many try to come to the U.S. and, tragically, why so many die. This book strikes at our very moral core."
—Deepa Fernandes, author of Targeted, Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration
Review
"...packs a many-sided, moving, and uncompromising account of the development of U.S. immigration and its associated politics into a short and readable book." International Socialist Review
Review
" Dying to Live is an invaluable book—one which is as contextual as it is analytical, as factual as it is moving. . . . In a compelling, accessible story, Josehph Nevins guides his readers through the complexities and intricacies of immigration, boundary-making, and their human affects and realities . . . with a Howard Zinn-like attention to historical detail, Nevins provides a comprehensive accounting of the actors, circumstances, and dynamics that culminated to create the current situation at the United States' southern border, specifically focusing on the Imperial Valley region of California." Fellowship Magazine, Fall 2008
Review
"Ten years ago Julio César Gallegos, one of countless immigrants, attempted to reunite with his family in Los Angeles and died of dehydration while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in California's Imperial Valley. In Dying to Live, Nevins not only tells Gallegos's story, but also presents the geographic, historical, and political context of the U.S-Mexico border. Gallegos's motivations, struggles, and sacrifices serve as examples throughout the book of both past and present social stratification, political hypocrisy, and 'global apartheid.' Including photographs and maps, the book details the history, policies, and economics that have driven and prevented Mexican migration to the United States. The social and economic links between the two countries are described, primarily in relation to the agricultural industry in the border states. The strength of this book lies in the wealth of research and information presented on the history and politics of the border regions of Mexico and California. Teens will not only find the author's information valuable, but will also revel in the sources presented in the bibliography. However, researchers looking for insight into migration through Mexico from other Latin American countries will not find much information in this title. The scholarly tone and depth of the material make this book best suited for advanced readers and researchers." School Library Journal, January 1, 2009
Review
" Dying to Live is a journey into the historically evolved and still evolving meanings and effects of the US–Mexico boundary.Through his analysis, that moves from the early nineteenth century to the present (pp.75–121), Nevins shows the shift in the ideological and material weight of the boundary from a line on a map to a set of practices of inclusion and exclusion. . . Anyone interested especially in migration in the US -- Mexican region, or more generally in the effects borders bear in people’s lives, should take a look at Nevins’s story." -- Eeva Puumala, Cooperation and Conflict
Review
" Dying to Live combines prodigious research, passionate argument, and masterful storytelling to describe the complicated landscape of U.S. immigration policies. . . Photographs by Mizue Aizeki appear throughout the book and add an element of human empathy that Nevins tries to cultivate in geography through story and argument. Dying to Live expands minds, ideas of borders, and notions of geography. . . Add Nevins book to your essential reading list." -- Jillian McLaughlin, The Kosmopolitan Online, http://www.thekosmo.com/books/
Review
"[Nevins'] careful and well-written documentation of the historical and social antecedents of immigrant deaths on the desert conveys how absurd United States's politics of immigration and exclusion play out. By focusing first on geography - specifically the U.S.Mexico boundary and all that it implies in political and sociological terms - Nevins produces an ongoing accumulation of the prejudice and abuse that culminated in Gallegos' - and hundreds of other immigrants' - deaths. . . In spite of its title, Dying To Live is no tearjerker. Although Nevins makes no attempt to conceal where his sympathies lie, and pointedly criticizes U.S. policies and aggression, he focuses on facts, quotes, descriptions. And although one feels an immense sympathy for Gallegos and his American-born wife and children, the book engenders outrage, not tears." -- New Politics
Review
"Joseph Nevins's Dying to Live weaves the struggle of one family into the history of U.S. racism, global economic inequality, and 'nationalization' to provide a forceful indictment of global apartheid. Dying to Live is a hard-hitting book that should be read as a call to action. It breaks the silence surrounding migrant deaths at the hands of the power elite. Interspersed throughout the book are equally powerful photographs by Mizue Aizeki." - Gilda L. Ochoa, Latin American Perspectives
Review
“. . . a powerful, multifaceted study of Mexican and Central American migration to the US that combines historical analysis with a graphic narrative account of the economic and social factors that perpetuate it. . . . [Nevins] reminds us why we must tear down these artificial and illegitimate boundaries and allow migrants to find the same dream of a better life that so many Americans have had the privilege to live.” — Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books
Review
“Dying to Live is a powerful examination of the messy politics and human consequences of US immigration policies. Joseph Nevins skillfully weaves the personal story of Julio César Gallegos, a migrant who died attempting to cross the US-Mexico boundary, together with detailed historical research to explore the boundary’s ideological construction, the USA’s ‘race-class-nation hierarchy’, and the role of law in shaping Americans’ geographical imagination.” Nancy Hiemstra, Progress in Human Geography
Review
"Nevins’s book, thanks to excellent research and a nuanced application of theory, demonstrates not only professional excellence but also an ongoing commitment to justice and human rights. By calling the entire notion of a 'right to be here' into question, Dying to Live serves as a powerful antidote to nationalistic amnesia on the part of the U.S. public, which has been too willing to embrace a shortsighted version of U.S.-Mexican history. By analyzing enforcement in the space of the border, he has provided an extension of the concept of structural violence. Those of us living in border states, especially Arizona, owe Nevins our appreciation. He shows how one can analyze policy information in a way that clearly communicates how common racial constructions support and extend the state’s use of violence."
--Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, North American Congress on Latin America
Synopsis
A compelling account of U.S. immigration and border enforcement told through the journey of one man who perished in California's Imperial Valley while trying to reunite with his wife and child in Los Angeles. At a time when Republicans and Democrats alike embrace increasingly militaristic border enforcement policies under the guise of security, and local governments around the country are taking matters into their own hands, Dying to Live offers a timely confrontation to such prescriptions and puts a human face on the rapidly growing crisis. Moreover, it provides a valuable perspective on the historical geography of U.S./Mexico relations, and immigration and boundary enforcement, illustrating its profound impact on people's lives and deaths. In the end, the author offers a provocative, human-rights-based vision of what must be done to stop the fatalities and injustices endured by migrants and their loved ones.
Praise for Dying To Live
"In Dying to Live, Joseph Nevins and Mizue Aizeki have produced an important and visually moving book that adds to our knowledge of the border and its place in history. Nevins' painstaking research documents the development of the Imperial Valley--its industrial agriculture, its divided cities, and the chasms between rich and poor, Mexican and anglo, that have marred its growth. Through the valley runs the border, and Nevins' accounts of the growth of border enforcement on the U.S. side, and the racism of its legal justifications, will be a strong weapon for human rights activists. Mizue Aizeki takes her camera and tells the story of Julio Cesar Gallegos, who died in the desert trying to make it across. Her images of the stacked bodies of border crossers held in refrigerator trucks, and the barrenness of the ocotillo cactus on the flat hardpan are eloquent testimony to the terrible risks and human costs imposed on migrants. Her beautifully composed portraits of Gallegos' family make a direct appeal to the heart in a way that words cannot. And her documentation of border protests and immigrant rights demonstrations, including the rows of jugs of water put out in the desert to save lives, are all compelling evidence that there is a struggle going on to halt the human rights crisis she and Nevins document."
--David Bacon, author of Communities Without Borders: Images and Voices from the World of Migration
"Joseph Nevins blows the cover off the scapegoating of "illegal" immigrants by meticulously and grippingly compiling the history of why so many try to come to the U.S. and, tragically, why so many die. This book strikes at our very moral core."
--Deepa Fernandes, author of Targeted, Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration
"A fierce and courageous denunciation of the foul politics of immigration and the two-thousand mile tragedy of the Mexican border, snaking its way between two worlds, two nations, separated at birth but forever joined at the hip. Starting from one man's blackened corpse, the tale wends its way across the desert of racial amnesia to reveal the sources of America's reactionary (and futile) attempt at closure of a porous frontier. Deftly stitching together disparate times and places-from the Imperial Valley to Zacatecas to Mexicali and back to East L.A.-Nevins and Aizeki weave a memorial quilt to the hundreds of innocents in unmarked graves."
--Richard Walker, professor of geography, UC Berkeley, and author of The Conquest of Bread and The Country in the City.
"Dying to Live is a compelling, perceptive and invaluable book for our times. Our new apartheid, as explored here, is as bleak and hostile as the landscapes in which people lose their lives trying merely to survive. Those lives delineated here are unforgettable."
--Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales and Highwire Moon
"Invisible in life, like most exploited immigrants, Julio Cesar Gallegos now judges us from the hour of his terrible death. He reminds us-thanks to the passionate investigations of Nevins and Aizeki-that the eyeless corpses in the Imperial Valley are murder victims: abandoned to heat, thirst, and anonymous graves by a border politics compounded of historical ignorance and contempt for human rights."
--Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and In Praise of Barbarians
Synopsis
The real story--and human price--of US/Mexico border enforcement.
About the Author
Joseph Nevins authored Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2002), and A Not-so-distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor (Cornell University Press, 2005). His writings have appeared in numerous journalistic publications, including The Boston Review, The Christian Science Monitor, CounterPunch, and the International Herald. Mizue Aizeki is a documentary photographer. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications including The Wall Street Journal, ColorLines, L.A. Weekly, The Nation, The Progressive, and Z Magazine. She has also exhibited her work in several venues, including the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.