{"id":870,"date":"2023-04-03T11:16:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T15:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/?page_id=870"},"modified":"2023-10-06T13:21:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T17:21:35","slug":"review-of-david-bowles-mis-dos-pueblos-fronterizos","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/review-of-david-bowles-mis-dos-pueblos-fronterizos\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos \/ My Two Border Towns"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Review of Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos \/ My Two Border Towns<\/em> by David Bowles<\/strong>
\nReviewed by Amy Reed-Sandoval<\/strong><\/p>\n

When children talk about migration and displacement, they generally speak and inquire
\nabout people. Why are some people forced to leave their homes\u2014or why was I forced to
\nleave my home? Why won\u2019t other countries let them in\u2014or why won\u2019t other countries let
\nmy family and me in? What does it feel like to live in a shelter, or in a refugee camp, or on a
\nbridge between two countries\u2014or why must my family live this way, while others do not?
\nThis is, of course, strikingly different from the way that many recognized pundits and
\npoliticians talk about the so-called \u201cimmigration debate.\u201d The children with whom I have
\nhad the privilege of engaging in philosophical discussions about the ethics of borders have
\nnever asked me whether borders could ever be justified under ideal conditions, or who
\nshould get to \u201ccount\u201d as a refugee (which is not to deny the importance of these
\nphilosophical questions). Rather, they want to explore difficult ethical challenges about
\nmigration through discussion of real migrants with real faces, stories, and names who are
\nembedded in real, named communities and crossing real, named borders. The question of
\nwhat migration feels like from different angles\u2014the question of what it actually is\u2014tends to
\nbe, at least in my experience, the phenomenological starting point for many children
\ninquiring about migration ethics.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the next time I facilitate a pre-college philosophy session about migration and
\nborders, I will be able to use for that purpose the recent storybook Mis Dos Pueblos
\nFronterizos (available in Spanish under this title, and also in English with the title My Two
\nBorder Towns), authored by David Bowles and gorgeously illustrated by Erika Meza. The
\nbook shows how philosophical questions about migration can be inspired by, and embedded
\nin, communities and characters that children can read, imagine, and care about. Mis Dos
\nPueblos Fronterizos tells the story of the journey of a young boy, Asere, and his dad\u2014both
\nof whom live in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands with the rest of their family\u2014across the
\nMexico-U.S. border for a day trip to a Mexican border town where they do the things they usually do on this bi-monthly, Saturday trip. They have breakfast at their favorite restaurant,
\nwhere they sip caf\u00e9 de olla and hot chocolate, then visit an uncle\u2019s jewellery shop where
\nAsere plays soccer with his cousins while the grownups talk about politics. They enjoy sweet
\npaletas, buy groceries, and pick up various medicines at a pharmacy.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

After an enjoyable morning of errands, food, and family visits comes what Asere\u2019s father
\ndescribes as the most important part of the trip: it is time for them to \u201ctake care of our
\npeople.\u201d Asere is prepared for the ensuing event\u2014he has a backpack filled with comic
\nbooks, pencils, notebooks, and video game cassettes, and he adds to his backpack additional
\nitems that they bought throughout the day. Then, Asere and his father drive to the Mexico-
\nU.S. border (still on the Mexican \u201cside\u201d) where they approach families of Caribbean and
\nCentral American migrants who have sought shelter inside the pedestrian bridge that
\ncountless people have used to cross and recross the Mexico-U.S. border. These families,
\nhowever, are described by Asere\u2019s father, in conversation with Asere, as \u201crefugees\u201d who are
\n\u201cstuck between two countries.\u201d Neither the United States nor Mexico, the father explains,
\nwants to take responsibility for letting these individuals and families in despite their
\nobviously desperate circumstances.<\/p>\n

Asere spots one of his friends, Elder, from the community of migrants currently sheltered on
\nthe bridge, and they begin to play. Asere and his father then distribute needed medicines,
\ntoys, and educational materials, and everyone catches up with one another. Later, when
\nAsere and his father drive home, he says that he wishes that Elder could come to his house
\nto play. His father replies that it is unfair of the United States to deny Elder and other
\nmigrant people the right to enter when the country is perfectly capable of doing so. Finally,
\nwhen they take out their passports to return to the United States, the boy seems to reflect
\non the freedom those documents give them.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos is not only a beautifully-illustrated book and a rich and an
\nengaging read; it is also an excellent tool with which to inspire philosophical conversations
\nabout immigration with young people. Children who do not live in borderlands contexts may
\nraise questions about what it is like to identify with two pueblos located on different styles
\nof the border. Meanwhile, borderlands children, like my own El Paso-born four-year-old and
\nthe children with whom I worked in the Philosophy for Children in the Borderlands program,
\nwill surely identify with the Saturday border-crossing experience of the boy and his father.
\nThis, in turn, can raise broad philosophical questions about transborder identities, familial
\nconnections, and lives.<\/p>\n

Young readers may also be drawn, in different ways, to the friendship between Asere and
\nElder. What does it feel like to be separated from a friend by a giant border wall? Is it fair for
\nfriends to be kept apart? Why can\u2019t Asere and his father simply let Elder and others into the
\nUnited States on their own\u2014that is, why aren\u2019t they somehow empowered to do this?
\nThe book also inspires questions about fairness and migration ethics. Is it fair for countries
\nto keep people out? Why, exactly, is this happening today? What can people born in
\ncomparatively wealthy and privileged countries like the United States do to help those who
\nare excluded?<\/p>\n

Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos deals sensitively, and artfully, with one of the major
\nhumanitarian crises of our time. And it does so in a way with which children can
\nidentify\u2014emphasizing play, friendships, familial customs, and concrete ways in which
\nchildren and adults can help others. The book emphasizes what young philosophers already
\nknow: that migrants are real people, living in real places, and embedded in real human
\nrelationships that are philosophically perplexing and deserving of collaborative analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of Mis Dos Pueblos Fronterizos \/ My Two Border Towns by David Bowles Reviewed by Amy Reed-Sandoval When children talk about migration and displacement, they generally speak and inquire about people. Why are some people forced to leave their homes\u2014or why was I forced to leave my home? Why won\u2019t other countries let them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":177,"parent":0,"menu_order":84,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-870","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1010,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/870\/revisions\/1010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/iapc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}