Border Odyssey

Farmer-turned-activist and Duke University professor Charles D. Thompson’s compelling books and films intertwine agriculture and immigration, culture and philosophy.

• 1. Evidence of Things Not Seen2. The Border Etched in Bones3. Traveling the Valley of the Shadow4. Two Kinds of Flight5. Of Roads, Fences, and Neighbors6. Boca Chica Sunset7. The Ghosts of Palmito Ranch8. El Ranchero9. Border Guards10. Brownsville Raids11. Rio Grande Guardians12. Progress?13. World’s Most Honest Man14. Cowboy Priests15. The Hand-Drawn Ferry16. Prohibition Bar17. Border Walker18. The Road to Eagle Pass19. Border Ambassador20. The Last Stay at Del Rio21. Seminole Canyon22. Braceros in Murder City23. Fort Davis and the Buffalo Soldiers24. National Park on the Line25. Pancho Villa and the Pink Store26. Smoke on the Apacheria27. A Grandmother Mourns at the Wall28. Fences and Neighbors29. Ground Zero of the Border Crisis30. Altar and Sacrifice31. Phoenix Rising32. Tohono Sacred Peak and Desert Deaths33. Campesinos Sin Fronteras34. The Wall of Shame and Entrepreneurship35. Graves of Unknown Farmworkers36. Desert View Tower and the X-Men37. Walking Alone through Friendship Park38. As If It Were Not ThereAcknowledgmentsBibliographyIndex

A potent cri de coeur for a more compassionate, sane and humane border policy. (Kirkus Reviews) Thompson uses his travels to share his passion for the welfare of hard-working, good people, and to persuade his readers that such people have been trapped and exploited by a flawed immigration system. - D.G. Martin (Winston-Salem Journal) [Thompson] sought a firsthand look at how modern U.S. border policy has affected the people in the region, from migrant workers to indigenous people to border patrol agents to residents of economically stagnant towns just north of the boundary. The result is a travel memoir with a conscience, an extension of Thompson’s ongoing work to humanize the hotly debated region. - Corbie Hill (The News & Observer) Does Border Odyssey bring us any closer to dissolving entrenched divisions and ingrained attitudes about the border? In presenting the struggles and strife of this place and its people with honesty and hope, Thompson shows the possibility and potential of such a beautiful dream. - Yvette Benavides (The Texas Observer)