Synopses & Reviews
In May 2001, two dozen Mexican workers struck out across the U.S. border, plunging into the forbidding desert of southern
Arizona with little water. Three days later, following a frenzied search by U.S. Border Patrol agents, fourteen were found dead. The Yuma tragedy seized national headlines, but it was just one more example of the high-stakes game that crossing and guarding America's southern border has become.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S.-Mexico border has been rife with intrigue, lore, and tragedy. In Hard Line, Ken Ellingwood brings this region to life with an intimacy that eludes the daily news. A former border correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Ellingwood tells the stories of undocumented immigrants, American ranchers, and townspeople overwhelmed by an influx of border crossers; of the Native Americans whose land is cut in two by this modern boundary; and of border agents and human-rights workers struggling to prevent more tragedies. He captures the symbiotic relationships between towns on opposite sides of the border, where residents have long crossed between countries as easily as crossing a street.
As immigration reshapes the face of America, what happens at our borders is increasingly relevant to the rest of our nation. Hard Line offers a vivid and informative portrait of the people and the difficult issues that lie at the heart of the region.
Please note: On page 229 of Hard Line by Ken Ellingwood, there is an inaccurate description of the role played by Humane Borders in a federal lawsuit against the government. Humane Borders did not file a legal claim as the book states; it was filed by Yuma attorneys. This has been corrected for future printings. We regret the error.
Review
"Ellingwood transcends ideologies, rendering the border and all who dwell along it with the utmost respect and care....[A] complex portrayal of politics, culture and human interaction along this country's most controversial slice of land." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
In 1994 the Clinton administration implemented Operation Gatekeeper, which succeeded in reducing the number of illegal border crossings into the San Diego area. But as a result, immigrants began to make crossings farther east, through some of the world's most inhospitable desert areas, and every year more and more of them died in transit.
Ken Ellingwood, who covered the U.S.-Mexico border for the Los Angeles Times from 1998 to 2002, has unequaled knowledge of Operation Gatekeeper's impact on the immigrants and on the borderland in general. He brings this drama to life through the stories of Mexican immigrants, American ranchers, and Native Americans whose land is bisected by the border, and through interviews with border patrol agents and human rights workers. He captures the symbiotic relationships between towns on opposite sides of the border, where residents once crossed between countries as easily as crossing a street. He weaves the personal with the historical, chronicling the changing world of the border from the mid-19th century on. The result is a book that is both a clarifying exploration of government policy and a powerful, richly human saga of the American West.
Synopsis
Ellingwood, who covered the U.S.-Mexico border for the Los Angeles Times from 1998 to 2002, captures the symbiotic relationships between towns on opposite sides of the border, where residents once crossed between countries as easily as crossing a street. He weaves the personal with the historical, chronicling the changing world of the border from the mid-19th century on.
About the Author
Ken Ellingwood is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, for which he covered the U.S.-Mexico border from 1998 to 2002. He has also reported from Atlanta, and his journalism has won several awards. Ellingwood is currently based in the newspaper’s bureau in Jerusalem, where he lives with his wife and daughter.