Borderland
April 3, 2014 11:34 PM   Subscribe

 
Fantastic, eye-opening (especially to a European). Those tostilocos look nice.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:56 PM on April 3, 2014


Well-done.
posted by univac at 12:15 AM on April 4, 2014


Great design (responsive too!) and storytelling.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:27 AM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Very informative. Thanks for posting!

Also, story 9 ("Apprehension") just seems to roll over into story 10 right away. Is it just me? I want to read or view it, bahh.
posted by one teak forest at 3:09 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Great storytelling overshadowed by incredible responsive site design. Seriously cool on a phone browser.
posted by panaceanot at 3:24 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah it actually looks better on the phone than the computer, now that I'm looking at it. The sparse text works a lot better on a small screen.
posted by empath at 3:57 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Beautiful, and seems pretty accurate & compassionate towards the ordinary people living in a difficult place.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:45 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Excellent, touching, outside politics, brilliant execution, informative--NPR deserves an award for this.
posted by rmhsinc at 4:49 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Our guy who runs the team that designs stuff like this has the motto, "If it doesn't work on mobile, it doesn't work." Thus: the super-responsiveness of this.

Also: Kainaz, who took those photos, is a superhero-level bad-ass lady. I love this project so, so much.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 5:07 AM on April 4, 2014 [24 favorites]


Incredible storytelling. Any recommendations for further related reading or documentaries on this issue?
posted by wingless_angel at 6:47 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


They were talking about this on the radio the other day and it honestly didn't sound interesting at all, but I just clicked all the way through it and it is really fantastic. Beautiful photography and sensitive writing.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:56 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Also, story 9 ("Apprehension") just seems to roll over into story 10 right away. Is it just me? I want to read or view it, bahh.

Story 9 you have to scroll down on the same screen for. It's the only one that you need to do that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:26 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


This was incredibly transfixing. Glad it was made. Hope it set some sort of precedent.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:29 AM on April 4, 2014


Into the Pacific Ocean.

I grew up with the border all my life, dipping over casually during safer times, with many cross border friends though the family I had mostly chose to stay on the United States side (I almost said American side, but Mexico and Canada are North American, too).

I'm used to borders, and fences, and rules, and what to expect when getting pulled over based on what part of town we were in, which country we were in, and how many of us looked like "troublemakers", or worse, sounded like "troublemakers".

But seeing that damn thing driven straight in to the goddamned ocean.

I moved to Florida years ago. To me, the ocean means open, means some rich dudes and dudettes trying to fence us all out, or people trying to float in (dryfoot or sneak in).

So seeing the goddamned ocean with a goddamned fence in it. Breaks my brain. But within a shattered glass you gain a new perspective as well.
posted by tilde at 9:05 AM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Great article. I smiled at the woman who wants her child to study so she can be a doctor or a secretary (I'm a secretary). The fence in the ocean made me really sad.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:14 AM on April 4, 2014


I found the format really frustrating and quit about twelve clicks in. When is responsive web design going to figure out that mobile computing imposes more than dimensional constraints on user experience? With less than a perfect connection, each page takes ten to twenty seconds to load and then there's like two sentences to read. What I really want when reading on my phone is for the whole thing to load once -- so I can read at the pace I choose, not a pace dictated by the designer.
posted by mississippi at 10:39 AM on April 4, 2014 [3 favorites]


An amazing bit of reporting. I was struck by this image of the Skinner family, both the age and (presumed) nationality difference of the married couple. Here's a more detailed story about them from NPR, part of this series.
posted by Nelson at 11:49 AM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Thank you for posting this great piece of journalism, Empath.

Incredible storytelling. Any recommendations for further related reading or documentaries on this issue?

A recent film that you might still be able to catch along the festival circuit, is Reyes' Purgatorio.

If you are more into learning about the physical attributes of the border, I would recommend checking out David Taylor's photographs of monuments. You can read about them here.

I also have experience traveling along the line, and made a little film: Tectonics. My work documents the architecture, infrastructure, and topography of the border. Of course, if you or anyone else is interested, I'd be happy to pass on a private Vimeo link or point them to a local screening.
posted by PBR at 2:48 PM on April 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


So seeing the goddamned ocean with a goddamned fence in it. Breaks my brain.

I've seen this and it is indeed very hard to process, on a few levels.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:27 PM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Any recommendations for further related reading or documentaries on this issue?

Luís Alberto Urrea's "The Devil's Highway". Non-fiction investigative account of a particularly deadly crossing, written by a guy whose life has straddled the border. He presents the story from multiple points of view.

The audiobook version makes for beautiful and terrifying late-night listening. I read the book, and listened to the audio version. I liked the latter because hearing the Spanish expressions and proper names spoken aloud gave me a very different experience of the material than just reading it in my gringa-ized inner Spanish.

His fiction works address the subject as well, and are lovely (and humorous).
posted by nacho fries at 3:21 PM on April 5, 2014 [2 favorites]


I grew up in Tijuana. I too consider it a privilege. To me it was the best of both worlds. I now live in Idaho, and I miss it so much. I miss the warmth of the people, I miss the two hour wait to cross, I miss the 2 am six peso tacos while drunk after dancing all night, I miss the joy of crossing over just to eat McDonald's because it was somehow better. The colorful concrete houses, The Beatles laser show, old ladies going to church, the sobreruedas, the taxis, aguas frescas, the dirt and the mud, the whole damn thing.

And the Tostilocos. Every year I go home. I have a bag every day of the trip!
posted by cobain_angel at 10:25 PM on April 5, 2014 [3 favorites]


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