Geography. Gee-Og-Graph-Phee. Four syllables to describe the study of 194 countries, seven continents, and four oceans. Endlessly boring in seventh-grade, geography becomes increasingly interesting when European history rolls around in the course of one’s study (oh Napoleon). Memorization of capitals and rivers transforms into the study of the human impact on geography. You learn that borders are subject to the unstable dictates of people. Marriage, war, money, and the poor self-esteem of a diminutive Corsica constitute the determinants of geography; borders don’t draw themselves on maps. Geography is incredibly relevant today and the subject of Joseph Nevins’ new book, Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration In an Age of Apartheid. An associate professor of geography at Vassar College, Nevins pens a passionate manifesto exploring the effects human manipulation of geography has on the populations of the United States and Mexico.
Nevins frames his exploration with the story of Julio César Gallegos, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. Gallegos perished with seven other migrants on August 13, 1998, 25 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Dehydrated, undernourished, and suffering from excessive body temperature, the seven migrants died in agony. The media jumped on the story. The largest group of migrant corpses to ever be found within California state borders, their deaths received considerable media attention. However, as Nevins notes, the tragedy that August was much bigger than the individual stories of Gallegos and his companions. He sets out to explain the larger forces that caused the death of Gallegos, “contingent and structural, incidental and historical” (25).
The key factor, however, is geography. Nevins writes, “While shaped to a significant degree by physical forces, geographic space is largely a social creation in terms of what is contained within it, how it is divided up and bounded, and how it is perceived and lived. It is...a product of power relations and all the conflict—as well as cooperation—that they entail” (25).
Dying to Live traverses the economic and political history of the Imperial Desert, the area where Gallegos would meet his death. Tracing broader U.S. involvement in Mexico, ideology, politics, and economics intersect in chapter 3. Chapter 4 details Gallegos’ hometown of Juchipila, Mexico while chapter 5 highlights contemporary political debates. The fifth chapter is where he defends the use of his contentious term “apartheid” to describe U.S. immigration policies. Although he acknowledges the intent is not the separation of races, this is the effect.
He writes, “...a boundary such as that which now exists between the United States and Mexico makes a lot of sense in that it reflects and reproduces the logic of a world of nation-states, which require physical lines that delimit and define national space and, thus, ‘us’ and ‘them’ and ‘our’ territory and ‘theirs’” (77). He concludes by calling for the recognition of borders as socially constructed entities and asks for a redefinition of boundaries.
The violent drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border discredits aspects of Nevins' argument. Operating in the face of inadequate, ill-equipped and corrupt Mexican law enforcement, marijuana and cocaine drug cartels smash their way across borders leaving political credibility, immigration reform, and mutual trust dying in the heat. Nevins is right to highlight the political and historical circumstances that converged to create an unequal and separate society, but past crimes do not justify overlooking present contingencies.
Dying to Live combines prodigious research, passionate argument, and masterful storytelling to describe the complicated landscape of U.S. immigration policies. While he engages in rhetorical hyperbole time and again (the term “apartheid” is certain to invite well-founded criticism), Nevins illuminates the vortex of structural constraints that contributed to the death of Julio César Gallegos. Photographs by Mizue Aizeki appear throughout the book and add an element of human empathy that Nevins tries to cultivate in geography through story and argument. Dying to Live expands minds, ideas of borders, and notions of geography, all without the aid of a certain herbal remedy often found south of the border. Add Nevins book to your essential reading list.
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