Exodus/Éxodo -- book review

Exodus/Éxodo by Charles Bowden and Julian Cardona.

Few subjects stir passions and fears more than illegal immigration along the border between the United States and Mexico. Yet most on either side of the issue are uninformed or worse yet, misinformed.

In Exodus/Éxodo Chuck Bowden and Julian Cardona present clear views of the people involved in this massive modern day migration, Chuck with eloquent prose and an American perspective and Julian with revealing photographs from a distinctly Mexican point of view, not only of the people risking life and limb to make the journey, but also the places from which they flee, the jobs to which they go and of the people that either aid or impede their efforts along the way. Unlike many journalists that regurgitate the works of others, Bowden and Cardona find the source of the story on their own dime, often at great personal risk, to bring back glimpses from the front lines of the event.

It is easy enough to condemn a hypothetical illegal immigrant but not near so easy to condemn a man with a face and a name, with real blood flowing through his veins, sharing the same air as we do, facing similar fears, and perhaps praying to the same God before laying his life on the line so that his family may have food and shelter. It’s also easy to condemn those along the border that dislike migrants until you witness the awful effect their passing has on the land of those that call the region home.

Chuck and Julian have the distinction of being the voice and the eyes that show us how things really are only to be rejected by those that control the accepted consensus until a number of years have passed; then and only then are the visions they tried to share quoted as fact and the original sources forgotten.

I for one, do not forget.

Thank you Chuck and Julian.