Full Description
The Valley of South Texas is a region of puzzling contradictions. Despite a booming economy fueled by free trade and rapid population growth, the Valley typically experiences high unemployment and low per capita income. The region has the highest rate of drug seizures in the United States, yet its violent crime rate is well below national and state averages. The Valley's colonias are home to the poorest residents in the nation, but their rates of home ownership and intact two-parent families are among the highest in the country for low-income residential areas. What explains these apparently irreconcilable facts?
Since 1982, faculty and students associated with the Borderlife Research Project at the University of Texas-Pan American have interviewed thousands of Valley residents to investigate and describe the cultural and social life along the South Texas-Northern Mexico border. In this book, Borderlife researchers clarify why Valley culture presents so many apparent contradictions as they delve into issues that are "on the edge of the law"-traditional health care and other cultural beliefs and practices, displaced and undocumented workers, immigration enforcement, drug smuggling, property crime, criminal justice, and school dropout rates. The researchers' findings make it plain that while these issues present major challenges for the governments of the United States and Mexico, their effects and contradictions are especially acute on the border, where residents must daily negotiate between two very different economies; health care, school, and criminal justice systems; and worldviews.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Earthquakes and Volcanoes along the South Texas Border
Chapter 1. Traditional Health Care Practices (with Cristina De Juana)
Chapter 2. Other Cultural Beliefs and Practices (with Ana Leos and MarÍa Isabel Ayala)
Chapter 3. Displaced Workers (with Priti Verma)
Chapter 4. Undocumented Workers (with Alberto Gonzalez)
Chapter 5. Immigration Enforcement Issues (with Cristina De Juana)
Chapter 6. Drug Smuggling (with Lupe TreviÑo)
Chapter 7. Property Crime (Shoplifting and Auto Theft) along the Border (with Jesse Garcia and Hector Garcia)
Chapter 8. American Lives, Mexican Justice (with Juan JosÉ Bustamante)
Chapter 9. Dropping Out (with John Cavazos)
Conclusion
Appendix A. Borderlife Research Projects Utilized in This Volume
Appendix B. Student Interviewers Whose Ethnographic Accounts Are Included in This Book
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
