More Stories from the Border

By: Roxane Ramos

On August 15, members of the Tucson community gathered at the Temple of Music and Art Lounge to celebrate the release of The Haunting of the Mexican Border: A Woman’s Journey. To introduce local author Kathryn Ferguson’s reading, Gabriel Ayala, a Yaqui classical guitarist extraordinaire who has played for the president, the pope and at the Pan Am Games, was on hand to entertain the crowd with several moving pieces, and John Fife, co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement, shared anecdotes about his work at the border and how he came to know Kathryn. Kathryn is a documentary filmmaker and a long-time volunteer with the Tucson Samaritans. Her book describes her experience of growing up at the border, her travels through the desert and to the Sierra Madre, and her observations about the increasing violence in that area and the disturbing deadliness of migrant  journeys.

Her book, along with two from another local author, Margaret Regan, are excellent reading about the migrant experience and life at the borderlands.

• The Haunting of the Mexican Border: A Woman’s Journey
  Kathryn Ferguson, University of New Mexico Press, 2015.
• Detained and Deported: Stories of Immigrant Families Under Fire
  Margaret Regan, Beacon Press, 2015.
• The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona Borderlands
  Margaret Regan, Beacon Press, 2010.