Threshold: Emergency Responders on the US-Mexico Border (Volume 41) (California Series in Public Anthropology)

"Jusionyte explores the sister towns bisected by the border from many angles in this illuminating and poignant exploration of a place and situation that are little discussed yet have significant implications for larger political discourse."—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

Emergency responders on the US-Mexico border operate at the edges of two states. They rush patients to hospitals across country lines, tend to the broken bones of migrants who jump over the wall, and put out fires that know no national boundaries. Paramedics and firefighters on both sides of the border are tasked with saving lives and preventing disasters in the harsh terrain at the center of divisive national debates.
 
Ieva Jusionyte’s firsthand experience as an emergency responder provides the background for her gripping examination of the politics of injury and rescue in the militarized region surrounding the US-Mexico border. Operating in this area, firefighters and paramedics are torn between their mandate as frontline state actors and their responsibility as professional rescuers, between the limits of law and pull of ethics. From this vantage they witness what unfolds when territorial sovereignty, tactical infrastructure, and the natural environment collide. Jusionyte reveals the binational brotherhood that forms in this crucible to stand in the way of catastrophe. Through beautiful ethnography and a uniquely personal perspective, Threshold provides a new way to understand politicized issues ranging from border security and undocumented migration to public access to healthcare today.

• Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America
• Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
• Continental Drift (P.S.)
• Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother
• Alambrista and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Film, Music, and Stories of Undocumented Immigrants
• The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail (Volume 36) (California Series in Public Anthropology)
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
• Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
• Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (ethnoGRAPHIC)
• The Wherewithal of Life: Ethics, Migration, and the Question of Well-Being