Between Two Worlds – Life on the Border

No writer understands the border culture between Mexico and the United States more intimately than Luis Alberto Urrea, whose life is the stuff of great novels. Son of a Mexican father and Anglo mother, Urrea grew up first in Tijuana and then just across the border in San Diego. Over the years he has produced a series of acclaimed novels, including The Hummingbird’s Daughter, The Devil’s Highway, and his latest, Queen of America ”” each a rich and revealing account of the people of the borderlands that join and separate our two nations.

Not much about the narco-violence related issues in this piece. Mostly heartbreaking…, and sometimes heartwarming…, stories about the plight of “illegal immigrants”…, the circumstances and motivations that drive them north…, and the dangers they face getting here…, and the persecutions they endure once they arrive. You can watch nearly an hour of it via Moyers…, or you can hear it in five minutes via Tom Russell. I hesitate to post some of these YouTube videos due to the poor quality of the recordings…, this one certainly doesn’t do justice to Tom’s talent…, but the message comes through loud and clear.

California Snow (cowritten with Dave Alvin)

I’m just trying to earn a livin’, I’m an old man at thirty-nine
My two kids and my ex-wife, moved up to Riverside
I’m an agent on the border, I drive the back roads late at night
The mountains east of El Cajon, north of the Tecate line
Where the California summer sun will burn right through your soul
But in the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow

I catch the ones I’m able to, I watch the others slip away
And some I know their faces, I might even know their names
I guess they think that we’re all movie stars and millionaires
I guess they think their dreams and hopes, will all come true up here
But I bet the weather’s warmer, way down in Mexico
And no one ever warned them, about the California snow

Last winter I found a man and wife and it was just about daybreak
Layin’ in a frozen ditch north of the interstate
I wrapped ”˜em in a blanket, Lord but she’d already died
We shipped the man on back alone, south of the borderline
I don’t know where they came from or where they’d hoped to go
But he carried her body all night long, through the California snow

Man, the things I’ve seen up here, make me think about my life
I might go back to Riverside, try to fix things with my wife
Or maybe I’ll just get in the truck, and drive as far as I can go
Away from all these ghosts that haunt, the California snow
And the California summer sun will burn right through your soul
But in the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow
In the winter you can freeze to death in the California snow.