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The U.S.-Mexico border is a source tension and upheaval, and has been so for years. Though no iron wall has been built across its environs, it evokes a boundary that may be stronger than barbed wire. On the north side is a mighty nation of modern times. On the south, there is mighty nation of yesteryear. One is the conqueror, one the conquered. One nation is Anglo, the other Latino. The comparisons are endless, and they remind the listener that the other is Different and Foreign. Along the border itself, these comparisons are real, and yet they are muted at the same time. This strange phenomenon is like seeing a mirage in a desert and betting on it. One is not sure if he is talking to a full-blooded Anglo, is part Navajo or Mexican, if the person he is talking to is an illegal immigrant, or even what side of the issue a person is on. There are ranchers who oppose illegal migrants hopping the border, yet they will give these same people a safe place to stay or something to eat if they happen to cross paths. There is tension, but yet life continues as normal, as though the border was invisible and not even an issue. This strange surreal universe is depicted in a wide-angle view in William Langewiesche's "Cutting for Sign". The title, which means "searching for tracks", is what Langewiesche does for the better part of the book. Beginning in Marfa, Texas, he straddles the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Presidio and Ojinaga, and the American and Mexican cities of Nogales, just to name a few. He has conversations with ranchers, store owners, and workers of Anglo, Native American, and Mexican descent, all in an attempt to try and give a face which seems to gloss the headlines and be the root of mass propaganda from media halls in New York and Washington. Langewiesche approaches his topic as an investigative journalist, quite different from Ted Conover's undercover method in his book, "Coyote". Langewiesche's distance from the topic allows him to see the marked contrast between two sides of a border, and in the case of Rio Grande, on two sides of a river. He witnesses migrants crossing the border as well as going on tour with the American Border Patrol. He goes to Mexico where he talks to people about their economy, their lives, and what the American border means to them. In depicting the economic realities of the border, he describes the making of a maquiladora, which is an American factory that has a plant in Mexico because of lower costs and looser environmental standards. For anyone who has looked at the label on some apparel and wondered what "Made of U.S. materials assembled in Mexico", this is what the maquiladora is, and Langewiesche gives an informative tour. The desert is a present companion as Langewiesche leads his readers along the journey along the border, and its sparseness and shadows mark much of the narrative. This background lends a brevity to the author's writing, living among people who hide secrets and must survive a shadowy journey, whether they are Chicanos who hide from the Border Patrol, American residents trying to survive amidst the cloak and dagger world, or even the law enforcement officials themselves who have to outfox the coyotes and other smugglers. It feels like no one is who he or she seems, and everyone knows it but pretends it is something else. Looking over vast plains where anyone could be hiding in the shadows, the mood that "Cutting for Sign" paints is dark and bleak. Written just at the beginning of NAFTA's inception, the question of free enterprise is explored, to see if it is a viable solution to the hemorrage of Mexicans bleeding across the northern border. In the meantime, the border is breached and the south slips in the night to the north, while the debate continues. Looking for the tracks in the sand, they soon evaporate in the wind. |
