Buh Bye Kristi Noem, and who the heck is Markwayne Mullin? Trump's new pick for DHS secretary. Plus, an epic novel about the U.S. and Mexico's joint erasure of Apachería, and historian and author Lydia Otero on Tucson's racial and urban history, and more.
Historian and writer Lydia Otero on growing up in the borderlands, Tucson's racial and urban history, and their most recent book, Storied Property: María Cordova's Casa.
Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel, Now I Surrender, is an epic about the U.S. and Mexico’s joint erasure of Apachería.
Alix Dick speaks about her new memoir, cowritten with Antero Garcia, on the high cost of living without legal status in Trump's America.
Alix Dick arrived in the U.S. more than a decade ago, fleeing violence in Sinaloa, Mexico, that tore her family apart. But the impact of living without legal status in the United States has been almost as brutal as the violence she fled.
In her new memoir, The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning with America’s Inhumane Math, cowritten with Stanford University sociology professor Antero Garcia, Alix Dick tallies the costs—spiritual, mental, physical, and economic—of being undocumented in the United States, especially as the Trump administration escalates its cruelty and persecution of people living without legal status.
Alix and Antero discuss how they decided to cowrite her memoir, why they chose to publish it now, and how Alix worries that she might be unable to promote it publicly because of Trump’s harsh crackdown. She also explains why many immigrants supported Trump in the election. “I believe when a society is so desperate for answers and leadership, and they lack identity, they will follow whoever seems the strongest,” she said.
The two also run a Substack called La Cuenta, which is one of our recommended Substacks at The Border Chronicle. La Cuenta, launched in 2022, highlights the experiences and perspectives of people living without documents in the United States. It’s crucial reading for Americans, especially in this era. The Cost of Being Undocumented will be released June 17.
"I understand what people are going through because I lived it myself."
Logan Phillips was born in Tombstone, Arizona—a town best known for Old West-themed gunfight tourism. In his new book, Reckon, Phillips explores his relationship to the unusual setting of his childhood through themes of masculinity, history, and land.
In the spirit of broadening the analysis beyond ICE, Border Chronicle cofounders Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller discuss the
Rollbacks to the Clean Water Act may have affected the borderlands more than any other region. States are stepping up—but there’s still more to do.
Independent news, culture and context from the U.S.-Mexico border.
