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June 2016
Book Review Kathryn Ferguson The Haunting of the Mexican Border Reviewed by Carolyn Neithammer |
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KFerguson.The Haunting of the Mexican Border
The Haunting of the Mexican Border: A Woman’s Journey by Kathryn Ferguson. University of New Mexico Press, 2015.
This engaging memoir is actually two books in one, linked by Kathryn Ferguson’s involvement in making a film of the lives of the Rarámuri (also called Tarahumara) of the state of Chihuahua in Northeastern Mexico, and her subsequent involvement in the lives of Mexican migrants looking for a better life in the United States.
After a couple of exploratory trips to Northern Mexico and meeting some Rarámuri, Ferguson decides she wants to make a movie centered on their life. The fact that she has never made a movie and has little access to money are mere inconveniences. Over the next 15 years, and numerous trips from Mexico to the remote villages of the Rarámuri, Ferguson finds funds here and there and collaborators who help her tell the story of these canyon-dwelling people.
The story of one rugged trip into backcountry where expected water did not materialize keeps the reader turning pages fearing for the lives of the people and animals. The incident leads the careful reader to consider the contrast between Ferguson’s life in Tucson where water is just the twist of a tap away, and the lives of the people she is visiting from whom access to water is a constant consideration. Her first film from these forays, The Unholy Tarahumara, was originally screened in 1998 at the Arizona International Film Festival in Tucson, and subsequently in 11 festivals in the U.S. and Europe.
This engaging memoir is actually two books in one, linked by Kathryn Ferguson’s involvement in making a film of the lives of the Rarámuri (also called Tarahumara) of the state of Chihuahua in Northeastern Mexico, and her subsequent involvement in the lives of Mexican migrants looking for a better life in the United States.
After a couple of exploratory trips to Northern Mexico and meeting some Rarámuri, Ferguson decides she wants to make a movie centered on their life. The fact that she has never made a movie and has little access to money are mere inconveniences. Over the next 15 years, and numerous trips from Mexico to the remote villages of the Rarámuri, Ferguson finds funds here and there and collaborators who help her tell the story of these canyon-dwelling people.
The story of one rugged trip into backcountry where expected water did not materialize keeps the reader turning pages fearing for the lives of the people and animals. The incident leads the careful reader to consider the contrast between Ferguson’s life in Tucson where water is just the twist of a tap away, and the lives of the people she is visiting from whom access to water is a constant consideration. Her first film from these forays, The Unholy Tarahumara, was originally screened in 1998 at the Arizona International Film Festival in Tucson, and subsequently in 11 festivals in the U.S. and Europe.
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The second half of the book is a combination love story and political treatise on the experience of Mexican immigrants and the distress they encounter on their journeys north. Fergusson volunteers with the Samaritans who provide food and water and sometimes first aid for migrants making the treacherous journey across the Southern Arizona desert. Unwittingly she ends up in handcuffs herself, getting a taste of what the people she is trying to help experience.
Meanwhile, she has started a relationship with Valentín, a Mexican living in Tucson on a visa. Despite his legal status, there is always tension as in today’s political climate, the tiniest infraction, real or manufactured can be cause to revoke a visa. Eventually things seem to work out for them, but the real message here is that for thousands of people caught in this clash of two worlds, the nightmare continues. |
Kathryn Ferguson
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What others have said:
“A wise and humane account that draws on a lifetime of exploring the border country and pondering its meaning.” – Kirkus Reviews
“(This) is a Mexico far from the tourist-strewn beaches and the bars playing “La Cucaracha” on repeat to spring breakers. Ferguson’s prose is transcendent, effortless, lifting off the page with the eye of a smart filmmaker who finds just enough detail to tell the imagination where to go but leaves off before layering on so much as to drown out that self-steered vision.” -- Santa Fe Reporter
"The writing is exquisite, description, action packed, and deeply meditative. The book reads like a novel; I couldn’t put it down.” – author Demetria Martinez
Learn more about this book at Kathryn Ferguson’s website: http://www.thehauntingofthemexicanborder.com/
Carolyn Neithammer is a journalist and author of non-fiction and fiction books. Her most recent book is The Piano Player. You can learn more about Carolyn at her website http://www.cniethammer.com/ or read an interview with her on Sonoran Arts Network, May/June 2015 http://www.sonoranartsnetwork.net/carolyn-niethammer.html
“A wise and humane account that draws on a lifetime of exploring the border country and pondering its meaning.” – Kirkus Reviews
“(This) is a Mexico far from the tourist-strewn beaches and the bars playing “La Cucaracha” on repeat to spring breakers. Ferguson’s prose is transcendent, effortless, lifting off the page with the eye of a smart filmmaker who finds just enough detail to tell the imagination where to go but leaves off before layering on so much as to drown out that self-steered vision.” -- Santa Fe Reporter
"The writing is exquisite, description, action packed, and deeply meditative. The book reads like a novel; I couldn’t put it down.” – author Demetria Martinez
Learn more about this book at Kathryn Ferguson’s website: http://www.thehauntingofthemexicanborder.com/
Carolyn Neithammer is a journalist and author of non-fiction and fiction books. Her most recent book is The Piano Player. You can learn more about Carolyn at her website http://www.cniethammer.com/ or read an interview with her on Sonoran Arts Network, May/June 2015 http://www.sonoranartsnetwork.net/carolyn-niethammer.html