Myth and Reason on the Mexican Border
For months there’s been talk about building a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico. Renowned travel writer, Paul Theroux, traveled the 1,989-mile border, crossing frequently between the two countries, to get a firsthand look at life along this region.
“These dozen crossings were a revelation to me, putting the entire border protection debate into perspective, giving a human face – or rather many faces. It is at once more heartening and more hopeless than I had imagined,” Theroux writes in Living in No Man’s Land, his feature story in the October issue of Smithsonian magazine.
Theroux discovered that people in the region have their own unique culture, distinct from Mexico’s or the U.S. Tens of thousands cross the border daily – in both directions – to work or shop in the U.S.