Border lives : fronterizos, transnational migrants, and commuters in Tijuana /

In his first book, Chávez (sociology, Rice Univ.) examines the border crossing strategies that commuters in the Tijuana-San Diego international boundary have used since the 1960s. Combining historical analysis with a richly detailed ethnography, the author reveals how border commuters have adapted in the face of changing immigration policies and structural transformations. Chávez organizes this history into three phases: the period of the Bracero Program (1942-64) and internal rural-urban Mexican migration; the 1980s Mexican economic crisis and the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act; and the simultaneous, yet contradictory, intensification of border surveillance and adoption of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Demonstrating how Tijuana residents mobilize their resources to access the US and carve out transborder livelihoods that increase their life opportunities, the author offers a balanced examination of structure and agency. The book's appendix on methodology might be particularly useful for advanced undergraduate and graduate students starting their own fieldwork. An important contribution to migration and borderlands studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. --Alina R. Mendez, University of California San Diego