Dead in Their Tracks: Crossing America's Desert Borderlands

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Summary: ABC NEWS.com reported the following on August 6, 1999.
Review: "A DEADLY TRAIL. Aug.6-Men often die in a 4,100-square-mile swath of angry land along the U.S-Mexico border that is known as the "empty quarter." But news of their deaths - and, more importantly, details of their lives - rarely become known. The men are usually Mexicans illegally making their way into the United States, searching for farm jobs that pay about $300 a week, far more than the $3 a day they're used to making on Mexican farms. Without marked trails, they lose their way among the dirt and cactus. And without water, they die. Photojournalist John Annerino has crossed the border several times to document the lives of the Mexican nationals seeking work in the United States as well as the U.S. Border Patrol agents whose job it is to keep them out. Annerino wrote about his experiences and presents some of his photographs in the book DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS: CROSSING AMERICA'S DESERT BORDERLANDS [Four Walls Eight Windows Publishers, New York]. "I'm trying to illuminate the lives of those who continue to die in America's killing ground," Annerino said from his home in Tucson, Ariz. "Frequently in the [Border Patrol] incident reports, you'll see a person or a body with no identification. They're labeled 'John Doe Mexican.' They're faceless people. But to the people who recover the bodies, they're really not. They're individual human beings who left familes behind." For the book, Annerino followed four men as they made a 50-mile trip from Mexico's Highway 2 to U.S. Interstate 8 in Arizona. They made the trip at the height of the summer, the usual time Mexicans try to cross the border, as it is harvest time in much of the country. "I felt this had been and continues to be a story that has been ignored by the mainstream press and the networks," Annerino said in describing what motivated him to do the book. "As journalists, we'll go off to Africa or Bosnia or other trouble spots and show massacres and wars. Yet, when our neighbors are dying on American soil, no one is covering it...At one time, I called this the Bermuda Triangle on the U.S.-Mexico border. Nobody knows how many people come in, how many die out there, and how many actually escape," Annerino says. [Illustrated with eight photographs by the author from the book].

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Summary: Following is a review from the June 15 Library Journal:
Review: "For many years, there has been considerable movement across the U.S.-Mexico border but recent initiatives have brought this issue to the forefront of national affairs. Annerino, an Arizona native, focuses on the hardships endured by illegal immigrants crossing the deserts of Arizona and California. He visits familes of immigrants in Mexico and joins them on their journey north, actually crossing the desert on foot and experiencing the extreme conditions personally. The book, which includes many photos and maps, is a stunning portrayal of the dangers (including death) faced by immigrants eager to work in the United States."

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Summary: "It's incredible - a great book."
Review: "I was just given a copy of [John Annerino's] latest book, DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS, and am impressed with the way [he] captured the reality of the southwest desert conditions endured by people trying to cross into the US. "It's incredible - a great book." -American Friends Service Committee, U.S.-Mexico Border Program

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Summary: Following is from the July/August 1999 Bloomsbury Review.
Review: "It is after midnight. The heat is still smothering me. And I am lying on the scorched, bare earth next to four strange men, who others warned me, "will slit your throat for your water." So writes John Annerino in DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS. Part memoir, part history, and part political commentary, this book is a passionate chronicle of the human traffic across one especially inhospitable stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. Annerino, a photojournalist with credits in Time, Life, Newsweek, and other publications, as well as eight previous books, writes of the legions of "illegals" who have braved this harsh, waterless landscape in pursuit of a better life. From gold-seekers in the 1850s to job-seekers of today - people who must sneak across the border and then walk "fifty, seventy, one hundred miles or more across the deadliest desert in North America in hopes of finding tough, poor-paying jobs most Americans wouldn't consider taking." He also chronicles the work of the Border Patrol trackers and pilots assigned to this stretch of wild desert, for whom an "appprehension of illegal immigrants" is, more often than not, a race to rescue half-dead human beings. Annerino describes firsthand the brutal environment: the searing soil that burns through thin soles, mirages that track salt-rimmed eyes with shimmering pools of nonexistent water, dust that chokes cracking lipes, heat exhaustion and nausea that threaten to kill. Despite the risks, he writes, each year people still set out across this desert for the golden promise...driven by the dismal economic situation south of the border. Official records chronicle dozens of deaths here each year; anecdotal evidence from evidence suggests that a more accurate figure might be in the hundreds. The story, framed by Annerino's own treks including the brutal 24-hour, 50-mile march in 110-degree heat with four Mexican immigrants who did not, indeed, slit his throat - is gripping and profoundly disturbing. But it is Annerino's photographs of the nameless dead that I cannot shake: the dried, blackened hand of a corpse, fingers still clutching the soil; the burned van of a coyote, a trafficker in humans, who abandoned his group of immigrants 60 miles from the nearest water; a cluster of black rocks on pale sand, spelling "Belia RIP" (rest in peace). What gives us the right to draw a line in the sand and declare that those outside the line must risk their lives to get in?

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Summary: A serious documentary investigation - stunning.
Review: "With a serious documentary investigation, in stunning photographs, and his own commentary, this text is something more than a denouncement, John defines it like this: "It's a testimony for the people who died trying to cross the frontier, but it's also a memorial to them because the book includes the dates, places, and [when known] facts of how they died." The photoraphy - it became a necessity for him to show the pain, the suffering of Mexicanos, and their courage to cross the other side: "They are heroes to me, because they're looking for ways to help their families by doing the work Americans refuse to do." The tone of his voice changed, again his look became more clear, his hands trembled with emotion, his words demanded an answer: "Why is life different for people? All of us are the same. The life of a movie star is no more important than a poor Mexicano." "The press in the U.S. focuses on movie stars, music, politicians, killings in schools, problems in other places around the world, but when Mexican citizens die on American soil, they keep quiet." -El Independiente

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Summary: Following is a review from July 4 San Diego Union Tribune:
Review: 'DEATH IN THE DEVIL'S DESERT. PHOTOJOURNALIST CAPTURES THE LIFE OF IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR TRACKS....In "Dead in Their Tracks: Crossing America's Desert Borderlands," author- photojournalist and desert explorer John Annerino traverses the expansive region east of Yuma and west of Tucson with immigrants and their pursuers, Border Patrol agents. The story is riveting. Annerino's writing is emotional and graphic, with disturbing photographs of bloated decomposing bodies, sun-bleached human skeletal remains and discarded clothing of anonymous travelers who may or may not have survived the perilous trek. How else to detail the incredible journey that so many desperate people choose to make?...Annerino reminds us, even if so many deaths go unnoticed and barely ripple our concience. Annerino asks, "Does anyone really care?"

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Summary: Awesome.
Review: -August 13, 1999. The book is awesome

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Summary: Another terrific work from Annerino
Review: A story like this demands a great deal from an author. Although Annerino has obviously spent many hours researching the borderlands of the Southwest, the key to this monumental work is the extent to which he is willing to live the story he writes. He has taken immense risks, walking side by side through the desert with Mexican immigrants, and coming face to face with the coyotes and narcotraficantes and Border Patrol agents and ranchers of this volatile area. With Annerino's books, you always learn tons of local history, but never at the expense of that vivid sensation of dust and sweat and heat and imminent danger that keep it an interesting read. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about the little-known wilderness along the Mexican border and the human cost it extracts due to current immigration policies.

Rating:
Summary: Another terrific work from Annerino
Review: A story like this demands a great deal from an author. Although Annerino has obviously spent many hours researching the borderlands of the Southwest, the key to this monumental work is the extent to which he is willing to live the story he writes. He has taken immense risks, walking side by side through the desert with Mexican immigrants, and coming face to face with the coyotes and narcotraficantes and Border Patrol agents and ranchers of this volatile area. With Annerino's books, you always learn tons of local history, but never at the expense of that vivid sensation of dust and sweat and heat and imminent danger that keep it an interesting read. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about the little-known wilderness along the Mexican border and the human cost it extracts due to current immigration policies.

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Summary: Este si que es un magnifico libro.
Review: Agosto 9. DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS es estupendo. Annerino arriesgo su propia vida para contar esta historia. (August 9. DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS is a great book. Annerino risked his life to tell this story.)