Tunnel Kids [Paperback]

Lawrence Taylor (Author), Maeve Hickey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2001

Winner of the Southwest Book Award! Beneath the streets of the U.S.-Mexico border, children are coming of age. They have come from all over Mexico to find shelter and adventure in the drainage tunnels that connect the twin cities of Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona. This book opens up the world of the tunnel kids and tells how in this murky underworld of struggling immigrants, drug dealers, and thieves, these kids have carved out a place of their own. Two parallel tunnels— each fourteen feet wide and several miles long— drain the summer rains from Mexico to the United States. Here and in the crumbling colonias you'll meet the tunnel kids: streetwise El Boston, a six-year veteran of the tunnels; his little pal Jesús; Jesús' girlfriend, La Flor, and her six-month-old baby; wild Negra; poetic Guanatos; moody Romel and his beautiful girlfriend, La Fanta. They form an extended family of some two dozen young people who live hard-edged lives and answer to no one in El Barrio Libre— the free barrio. Lawrence Taylor and Maeve Hickey met these kids at Mi Nueva Casa, the safe house built to draw the youths out of the tunnels and into a more normal life. The authors spent two summers with tunnel kids as they roamed all over Nogales and beyond in their struggle to survive. In the course of their adventures the kids described their lives, talking about what might tempt them to leave the tunnels— and what kept them there. Hickey's stunning portraits provide a heart-stopping counterpoint to Taylor's incisive prose. Story and photos together open a window into the life of the tunnel kids—a world like that of many homeless children, precarious and adaptive, albeit unique to the border. Where most people might see just another gang of doped-up, violent children, Taylor and Hickey discover displaced and sometimes heroic young people whose stories add a human dimension to the world of the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the drainage tunnels between sister cities Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, live dozens of people, most of them teenagers. Lawrence Taylor, head of the anthropology department at the National University of Ireland, and photographer Maeve Hickey spent two summers with tunnel regulars and visitors, working with them on video projects, accompanying them on trips, witnessing and helping them in major and minor crises. Having gained the kids' trust, Taylor delivers unassuming, respectful and keen observations of the teens' lives, paired with Hickey's lovely photographs in Tunnel Kids (the two also collaborated on The Road to Mexico). They have produced a haunting, nuanced sketch of a world far outside the experience of most Americans and an important, unpretentious contribution to border literature.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Taylor and Hickey spent two summers in the underworld of Mexican youths who work and live in the mile-long parallel drainage tunnels connecting Mexico and the U.S. at Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona. The tunnels drain the water of summer rains but also accommodate a flow of illegal immigrants and the illegal activities associated with that enterprise. In the filth of the tunnels, homeless Mexican youths, many of whom have been abandoned by their parents, are exposed to a seamy, violent world of drug dealers, thieves, and other criminals. Among the tunnel's streetwise denizens are six-year veteran El Boston, 17; Flor, 15, and her six-month-old baby; heavily made-up, pregnant La Halloween; mercurial Negra; and moody Romel. Taylor and Hickey reveal the poverty and uncertainty of these teens' lives and the fragility of their relationships and their futures. Their circumstances express the sharp, heartbreaking contrast between U.S prosperity and Mexican poverty, which continues despite increasing signs of enterprise and economic growth. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press (February 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816519269
• ISBN-13: 978-0816519262
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #625,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, September 27, 2005

By 

P. Chengelis "Greatrussian" (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tunnel Kids (Paperback)

If you are looking for books about what life is like on the border, this is a good one. Written in an engaging style, it tells the story of a group of teenagers, most of whom are gang members (although, the book certainly describes it more as a family), and are habitual drug users (especially, inhaling paint fumes). Most interesting for me is that most of these teenagers have family that is nearby, or otherwise accessible. The author even takes some on trips to their homes; however, few of them choose to stay with their families. It seems, despite the lack of future in the Barrio, it is the family they prefer. The children, who we might suppose are innocent victims, are also depicted as the criminals, robbing entrants in the tunnel of everything they own. This book provides a very different context to the places than the one I and so many living on the American side of the border know and understand.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars very highly recommended, January 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Tunnel Kids (Paperback)

Que padre! This is a wonderful book, and well deserving the various awards it has won. The understated but beautiful narrative works so well with the penetrating photographic portraits. The writer and photographer have given these kids real voices and faces and captured very well the texture, even the sounds and smells of this place. It is all very recognizable to locals like me, and the book will help those further afield understand the human dramas of our border.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, August 22, 2002

By 

Ron Mader "Planeta.com Founder" (Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tunnel Kids (Paperback)

- (Planeta.com Journal) The creative team behind the wonderful book The Road to Mexico return to the border to sketch an intimate portrait of street kids who work and live in the drainage tunnels that connect the cities of Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona. "It is their story of themselves and of the border, and it is our story of them -- of getting to them -- and of the border as it appeared to us through their lives."