When I Wear My Alligator Boots - Shaylih Muehlmann

 Sub-title: Narco-Culture in the U.S. - Mexico Borderlands

I was given this book as a gift.  The young woman who wrote it was working on her doctorate and stayed in the communities of Mexico that live with the drug culture that has invaded parts of the country.  It was eye-opening.  She suggests that the "war on drugs" has feed the growth of the cartels as it provides a market for illegal drugs. Everyone becomes involved either directly or indirectly.  A difficult read.

Quotes:

"The phenomenon whereby people simultaneously become defensive during an interview and inflate their own role is what Elizabeth Dunn (2007) has called the 'pufferfish syndrome'."

Published: 2014  Read: October 2023  Genre: Non-fiction Sociology

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction - Linda Gordon

A story tied to the orphan trains of the early 1900s, this book revealed to me a slice of Arizona history I'd never known.  A group of Irish orphans from New York were taken by Catholic nuns to pre-chosen adoptive parents in Morenci and Clifton.  The towns were Arizona copper mine centers.  The children were to be adopted by Mexican families arranged by the local Catholic French priest.  When they arrived, the white locals kidnapped them, objecting to their placement with Mexican families. The resulting dispute between the kidnappers and the Catholic guardians went to the US Supreme Court.

This is a dense volume of historical accuracy with many details of the people, copper mining industry, Arizona territory settlement and the prejudices of the 1900s.  For those who have lived in Arizona, there are many familiar names that will resonate.  

Quotes/Notes:

p. 16 after 1880 the Catholic church had a faction with assimilationist tendency that promoted Catholic expansion westward

"Nortenos" were Northern Mexicans and they were anti-clerical 

p. 99 - "Race is a pigment of the imagination" - sociologist Ruben Rumbaut

p. 207-list of names of families and the children they adopted [saved image]

p. 257 - Vigilantism 

p. 284 - William Henry Brophy, mgr of the Phelps Dodge company store in Bisbee -founded Brophy Prep

[note: I gave book to speaker at WVGS conference in 2024]

Published: 1999  Read: 2023  Genre: History

Brooklyn - Colm Tobin

 A young Irish woman immigrates to America for a better life and evolves as a person as she struggles to understand her new environment and yearns for home.  I was intrigued and frustrated by this story at the same time.  Eilis is thoughtful and ponders her actions and those of others and too often choses non-action, non-response.  A coming of age in America story that eventually fell flat for me.

Published: 2009  Read: December 2021  Genre: Fiction

Infinite Country : A Novel - Patricia Engel

 A family facing poverty, hopelessness and danger in their home in Columbia immigrate to the U.S. in secret.  A child is born in the U.S., the father is deported during a round-up and the eldest daughter returns to Columbia to help him care for her grandmother. They spend years trying to stay a family.  

The story is told over time from the lives of those in Columbia and the U.S.  The struggles they bear felt very real and gave me a different perspective on those wanting a better life.  Good read.

Published: 2021  Read: October 2021  Genre: Fiction

The New Odyssey - Patrick Kingsley

Sub-title: The story of the twenty-first century refugee crisis

This book is an eye-opener.  The author parallels the journey of one refugee with the facts and evolution of the massive migration of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.  The numbers of people impacted by the wars and repressive regimes is staggering - hundreds of thousands of attempted to leave their countries for a safer existence in European continent.

The book changed my understanding of the Syrian conflict and others in the region and humanized the people just trying to live and raise their families some place safe and secure.  These are not all individuals who are poor and uneducated, instead they are people like you and me who are caught up in societies being destroyed by tyrants and fanatics, paralleling the reign of Hitler in the 1930's.

The response of European nations that are overwhelmed with the numbers of people seeking asylum creates division and cooperation as they try to address the crisis.

A must read.

Published:  2017   Read: April 2017   Genre: Non-fiction