Border Rhetorics

Download Border Rhetorics full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Border Rhetorics ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Border Rhetorics

Author : D. Robert DeChaine
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817357165
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Border Rhetorics by : D. Robert DeChaine

Download or read book Border Rhetorics written by D. Robert DeChaine and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undertakes a wide-ranging examination of the US-Mexico border as it functions in the rhetorical production of civic unity in the United States A “border” is a powerful and versatile concept, variously invoked as the delineation of geographical territories, as a judicial marker of citizenship, and as an ideological trope for defining inclusion and exclusion. It has implications for both the empowerment and subjugation of any given populace. Both real and imagined, the border separates a zone of physical and symbolic exchange whose geographical, political, economic, and cultural interactions bear profoundly on popular understandings and experiences of citizenship and identity. The border’s rhetorical significance is nowhere more apparent, nor its effects more concentrated, than on the frontier between the United States and Mexico. Often understood as an unruly boundary in dire need of containment from the ravages of criminals, illegal aliens, and other undesirable threats to the national body, this geopolitical locus exemplifies how normative constructions of “proper”; border relations reinforce definitions of US citizenship, which in turn can lead to anxiety, unrest, and violence centered around the struggle to define what it means to be a member of a national political community.

Rhetoric Across Borders

Author : Anne Teresa Demo
Publisher : Parlor Press LLC
ISBN 13 : 1602357404
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rhetoric Across Borders by : Anne Teresa Demo

Download or read book Rhetoric Across Borders written by Anne Teresa Demo and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rhetoric Across Borders features a select representation of 27 essays and excerpts from the “In Conversation” panels at the Rhetoric Society of America’s 2014 conference on “Border Rhetorics.”

The Border Crossed Us

Author : Josue David Cisneros
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817318127
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Border Crossed Us by : Josue David Cisneros

Download or read book The Border Crossed Us written by Josue David Cisneros and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Border Crossed Us explores efforts to restrict and expand notions of US citizenship as they relate specifically to the US-Mexico border and Latina/o identity. Borders and citizenship go hand in hand. Borders define a nation as a territorial entity and create the parameters for national belonging. But the relationship between borders and citizenship breeds perpetual anxiety over the purported sanctity of the border, the security of a nation, and the integrity of civic identity. In The Border Crossed Us, Josue David Cisneros addresses these themes as they relate to the US-Mexico border, arguing that issues ranging from the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848 to contemporary debates about Latina/o immigration and border security are negotiated rhetorically through public discourse. He explores these rhetorical battles through case studies of specific Latina/o struggles for civil rights and citizenship, including debates about Mexican American citizenship in the 1849 California Constitutional Convention, 1960s Chicana/o civil rights movements, and modern-day immigrant activism. Cisneros posits that borders—both geographic and civic—have crossed and recrossed Latina/o communities throughout history (the book’s title derives from the popular activist chant, “We didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us!”) and that Latina/os in the United States have long contributed to, struggled with, and sought to cross or challenge the borders of belonging, including race, culture, language, and gender. The Border Crossed Us illuminates the enduring significance and evolution of US borders and citizenship, and provides programmatic and theoretical suggestions for the continued study of these critical issues.

Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries

Author : Barbara Couture
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607324032
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries by : Barbara Couture

Download or read book Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries written by Barbara Couture and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With growing anxiety about American identity fueling debates about the nation’s borders, ethnicities, and languages, Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries provides a timely and important rhetorical exploration of divisionary bounds that divide an Us from a Them. The concept of “border” calls for attention, and the authors in this collection respond by describing it, challenging it, confounding it, and, at times, erasing it. Motivating us to see anew the many lines that unite, divide, and define us, the essays in this volume highlight how discourse at borders and boundaries can create or thwart conditions for establishing identity and admitting difference. Each chapter analyzes how public discourse at the site of physical or metaphorical borders presents or confounds these conditions and, consequently, effective participation—a key criterion for a modern democracy. The settings are various, encompassing vast public spaces such as cities and areas within them; the rhetorical spaces of history books, museum displays, activist events, and media outlets; and the intimate settings of community and classroom conversations. Crossing Borders, Drawing Boundaries shows how rich communication can be when diverse cultures intersect and create new opportunities for human connection, even while different populations, cultures, age groups, and political parties adopt irreconcilable positions. It will be of interest to scholars in rhetoric and literacy studies and students in rhetorical analysis and public discourse. Contributors include Andrea Alden, Cori Brewster, Robert Brooke, Randolph Cauthen, Jennifer Clifton, Barbara Couture, Vanessa Cozza, Anita C. Hernández, Roberta J. Herter, Judy Holiday, Elenore Long, José A. Montelongo, Karen P. Peirce, Jonathan P. Rossing, Susan A. Schiller, Christopher Schroeder, Tricia C. Serviss, Mónica Torres, Kathryn Valentine, Victor Villanueva, and Patti Wojahn.

The Line Becomes a River

Author : Francisco Cantú
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735217726
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Line Becomes a River by : Francisco Cantú

Download or read book The Line Becomes a River written by Francisco Cantú and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN CURRENT INTEREST FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NONFICTION AWARD The instant New York Times bestseller, "A must-read for anyone who thinks 'build a wall' is the answer to anything." --Esquire For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Driven to understand the hard realities of the landscape he loves, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Plagued by a growing awareness of his complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the full extent of the violence it wreaks, on both sides of the line.

Rhetoric Across Borders

Author : Anne Teresa Demo
Publisher : Parlor Press LLC
ISBN 13 : 1602357390
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rhetoric Across Borders by : Anne Teresa Demo

Download or read book Rhetoric Across Borders written by Anne Teresa Demo and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rhetoric Across Borders features a select representation of 27 essays and excerpts from the “In Conversation” panels at the Rhetoric Society of America’s 2014 conference on “Border Rhetorics.”

Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.—Mexico Border

Author : K. Jill Fleuriet
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030635570
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (36 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.—Mexico Border by : K. Jill Fleuriet

Download or read book Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.—Mexico Border written by K. Jill Fleuriet and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stemming from four years of ethnographic research, media analysis of over 750 national news articles published in the 2010s, and decades of the author’s professional and personal immersion in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, Rhetoric and Reality illuminates a place at the heart of our national conversation: the U.S.-Mexico border. K. Jill Fleuriet contrasts the rhetoric of national political and media discourse with that of local border leaders in economics, health care, politics, education, law enforcement, philanthropy, and activism. As she deconstructs the common narrative of a border in need of external intervention to control corruption, poverty, sickness, and violence, Fleuriet engagingly illustrates the range of regional organizing, local development strategies, and community responses in the borderlands that ultimately situate the Rio Grande Valley as the “true North” of the U.S. national compass—where the Valley goes, the rest of the country soon will follow. Rhetoric and Reality asks us to question our own assumptions, especially about those areas that drive national decisions about resource allocation, economic development and national security. “Rhetoric and Reality is an important ethnographic study of the deeply misunderstood, increasingly vilified, Rio Grande Valley located on the Texas-Mexico border. Fleuriet presents a balanced counter-narrative that that shows the region as one of growth, innovation, complexity, and rich with meaning. Rhetoric and Reality is an excellent example of place-based, reflexive scholarship appropriate for use in courses on border theory, applied anthropology, and research methods. Written clearly and crisply with a wide readership in mind, Rhetoric and Reality is mandatory reading for those wanting to better understand the US-Mexico border region and the people who live there.” --Margaret A. Graham, Professor and Chair, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA “This is an important book, as it describes life in the Rio Grande Valley rather than ‘on the border.’ The notion of ‘the border’ as an open range in need of external help is challenged, as the author illustrates the wide range of leadership and programmatic change occurring in the Rio Grande Valley.” --Roberto R. Alvarez, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego, USA

Climate Politics on the Border

Author : Kenneth Walker
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 081732111X
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Climate Politics on the Border by : Kenneth Walker

Download or read book Climate Politics on the Border written by Kenneth Walker and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Based on years of archival work and fieldwork, Climate Politics on the Border distinctly demonstrates why ecological and anticolonial approaches to rhetoric are essential for grappling with climate politics. The book argues persuasively for treating climate and environmental justice through ecology and decoloniality, and it provides rich theoretical language, methodological innovations, and practical insight for engaging these intersections through local climate politics"--

The Rhetorics of US Immigration

Author : E. Johanna Hartelius
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271076550
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Rhetorics of US Immigration by : E. Johanna Hartelius

Download or read book The Rhetorics of US Immigration written by E. Johanna Hartelius and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the current geopolitical climate—in which unaccompanied children cross the border in record numbers, and debates on the topic swing violently from pole to pole—the subject of immigration demands innovative inquiry. In The Rhetorics of US Immigration, some of the most prominent and prolific scholars in immigration studies come together to discuss the many facets of immigration rhetoric in the United States. The Rhetorics of US Immigration provides readers with an integrated sense of the rhetorical multiplicity circulating among and about immigrants. Whereas extant literature on immigration rhetoric tends to focus on the media, this work extends the conversation to the immigrants themselves, among others. A collection whose own eclecticism highlights the complexity of the issue, The Rhetorics of US Immigration is not only a study in the language of immigration but also a frank discussion of who is doing the talking and what it means for the future. From questions of activism, authority, and citizenship to the influence of Hollywood, the LGBTQ community, and the church, The Rhetorics of US Immigration considers the myriad venues in which the American immigration question emerges—and the interpretive framework suited to account for it. Along with the editor, the contributors are Claudia Anguiano, Karma R. Chávez, Terence Check, Jay P. Childers, J. David Cisneros, Lisa M. Corrigan, D. Robert DeChaine, Anne Teresa Demo, Dina Gavrilos, Emily Ironside, Christine Jasken, Yazmin Lazcano-Pry, Michael Lechuga, and Alessandra B. Von Burg.

Deportable and Disposable

Author : Lisa A. Flores
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271088656
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Deportable and Disposable by : Lisa A. Flores

Download or read book Deportable and Disposable written by Lisa A. Flores and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1920s, the US government passed legislation against undocumented entry into the country, and as a result the figure of the “illegal alien” took form in the national discourse. In this book, Lisa A. Flores explores the history of our language about Mexican immigrants and exposes how our words made these migrants “illegal.” Deportable and Disposable brings a rhetorical lens to a question that has predominantly concerned historians: how do differently situated immigrant populations come to belong within the national space of whiteness, and thus of American-ness? Flores presents a genealogy of our immigration discourse through four stereotypes: the “illegal alien,” a foreigner and criminal who quickly became associated with Mexican migrants; the “bracero,” a docile Mexican contract laborer; the “zoot suiter,” a delinquent Mexican American youth engaged in gang culture; and the “wetback,” an unwanted migrant who entered the country by swimming across the Rio Grande. By showing how these figures were constructed, Flores provides insight into the ways in which we racialize language and how we can transform our political rhetoric to ensure immigrant populations come to belong as part of the country, as Americans. Timely, thoughtful, and eye-opening, Deportable and Disposable initiates a necessary conversation about the relationship between racial rhetoric and the literal and figurative borders of the nation. This powerful book will inform policy makers, scholars, activists, and anyone else interested in race, rhetoric, and immigration in the United States.

The Rhetorics of US Immigration

Author : E. Johanna Hartelius
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271076534
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Rhetorics of US Immigration by : E. Johanna Hartelius

Download or read book The Rhetorics of US Immigration written by E. Johanna Hartelius and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-11-10 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the current geopolitical climate—in which unaccompanied children cross the border in record numbers, and debates on the topic swing violently from pole to pole—the subject of immigration demands innovative inquiry. In The Rhetorics of US Immigration, some of the most prominent and prolific scholars in immigration studies come together to discuss the many facets of immigration rhetoric in the United States. The Rhetorics of US Immigration provides readers with an integrated sense of the rhetorical multiplicity circulating among and about immigrants. Whereas extant literature on immigration rhetoric tends to focus on the media, this work extends the conversation to the immigrants themselves, among others. A collection whose own eclecticism highlights the complexity of the issue, The Rhetorics of US Immigration is not only a study in the language of immigration but also a frank discussion of who is doing the talking and what it means for the future. From questions of activism, authority, and citizenship to the influence of Hollywood, the LGBTQ community, and the church, The Rhetorics of US Immigration considers the myriad venues in which the American immigration question emerges—and the interpretive framework suited to account for it. Along with the editor, the contributors are Claudia Anguiano, Karma R. Chávez, Terence Check, Jay P. Childers, J. David Cisneros, Lisa M. Corrigan, D. Robert DeChaine, Anne Teresa Demo, Dina Gavrilos, Emily Ironside, Christine Jasken, Yazmin Lazcano-Pry, Michael Lechuga, and Alessandra B. Von Burg.

Not One More!

Author : Nina Maria Lozano
Publisher : Rhetoric and Materiality
ISBN 13 : 9780814255186
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (551 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Not One More! by : Nina Maria Lozano

Download or read book Not One More! written by Nina Maria Lozano and published by Rhetoric and Materiality. This book was released on 2019 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critiques and extends theories of new materialism to reveal the socioeconomic and geopolitical forces at work in the Juárez feminicidios.

Telling Border Life Stories

Author : Donna M Kabalen de Bichara
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1603448047
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (34 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Telling Border Life Stories by : Donna M Kabalen de Bichara

Download or read book Telling Border Life Stories written by Donna M Kabalen de Bichara and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voices from the borderlands push against boundaries in more ways than one, as Donna M. Kabalen de Bichara ably demonstrates in this investigation into the twentieth-century autobiographical writing of four women of Mexican origin who lived in the American Southwest. Until recently, little attention has been paid to the writing of the women included in this study. As Kabalen de Bichara notes, it is precisely such historical exclusion of texts written by Mexican American women that gives particular significance to the reexamination of the five autobiographical works that provide the focus for this in-depth study. “Early Life and Education” and Dew on the Thorn by Jovita González (1904–83), deal with life experiences in Texas and were likely written between 1926 and the 1940s; both texts were published in 1997. Romance of a Little Village Girl, first published in 1955, focuses on life in New Mexico, and was written by Cleofas Jaramillo (1878–1956) when the author was in her seventies. A Beautiful, Cruel Country, by Eva Antonio Wilbur-Cruce (1904–98), introduces the reader to history and a way of life that developed in the cultural space of Arizona. Created over a ten-year period, this text was published in 1987, just eleven years before the author’s death. Hoyt Street, by Mary Helen Ponce (b. 1938), began as a research paper during the period of the autobiographer’s undergraduate studies (1974–80), and was published in its present form in 1993. These border autobiographies can be understood as attempts on the part of the Mexican American female autobiographers to put themselves into the text and thus write their experiences into existence.

Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life

Author : Bridie McGreavy
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319657119
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (196 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life by : Bridie McGreavy

Download or read book Tracing Rhetoric and Material Life written by Bridie McGreavy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together three areas of scholarship and practice: rhetoric, material life, and ecology. The chapters build a multi-layered understanding of material life by gathering scholars from varied theoretical and critical traditions around the common theme of ecology. Emphasizing relationality, connectedness and context, the ecological orientation we build informs both rhetorical theory and environmentalist interventions. Contributors offer practical-theoretical inquiries into several areas - rhetoric’s cosmologies, the trophe, bioregional rhetoric’s, nuclear colonialism, and more - collectively forging new avenues of communication among scholars in environmental communication, communication studies, and rhetoric and composition. This book aims at inspiring and advancing ecological thinking, demonstrating its value for rhetoric and communication as well as for environmental thought and action.

The Borders of AIDS

Author : Chair and Associate Professor of Mexican American and Latina/O Studies Karma R Chávez
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780295748962
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (489 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Borders of AIDS by : Chair and Associate Professor of Mexican American and Latina/O Studies Karma R Chávez

Download or read book The Borders of AIDS written by Chair and Associate Professor of Mexican American and Latina/O Studies Karma R Chávez and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As soon as US media and politicians became aware of AIDS in the early 1980s, fingers were pointed not only at the gay community but also at other countries and migrant communities, particularly Haitians, as responsible for spreading the virus. Evangelical leaders, public health officials, and the Reagan administration quickly capitalized on widespread fear of the new disease to call for quarantines, immigration bans, and deportations, scapegoating and blaming HIV-positive migrants--even as the rest of the world regarded the US as the primary exporter of the virus. In The Borders of AIDS, Karma Chávez demonstrates how such calls proliferated and how failure to impose a quarantine for HIV-positive citizens morphed into the successful enactment of a complete ban on the regularization of HIV-positive migrants--which lasted more than twenty years. News reports, congressional records, and AIDS activist archives reveal how queer groups and migrant communities built fragile coalitions to fight against the alienation of themselves and others, asserting their capacity for resistance and resiliency. Building on existing histories of HIV/AIDS, public health, citizenship, and immigration, Chávez establishes how politicians and public health officials treated different communities with HIV/AIDS and highlights the work these communities did to resist alienation.

Linguistic Justice

Author : April Baker-Bell
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351376705
Total Pages : 129 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Linguistic Justice by : April Baker-Bell

Download or read book Linguistic Justice written by April Baker-Bell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism and white linguistic supremacy, this book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts. By highlighting the counterstories of Black students, Baker-Bell demonstrates how traditional approaches to language education do not account for the emotional harm, internalized linguistic racism, or consequences these approaches have on Black students' sense of self and identity. This book presents Anti-Black Linguistic Racism as a framework that explicitly names and richly captures the linguistic violence, persecution, dehumanization, and marginalization Black Language-speakers endure when using their language in schools and in everyday life. To move toward Black linguistic liberation, Baker-Bell introduces a new way forward through Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, a pedagogical approach that intentionally and unapologetically centers the linguistic, cultural, racial, intellectual, and self-confidence needs of Black students. This volume captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in classrooms while simultaneously illustrating how theory, research, and practice can operate in tandem in pursuit of linguistic and racial justice. A crucial resource for educators, researchers, professors, and graduate students in language and literacy education, writing studies, sociology of education, sociolinguistics, and critical pedagogy, this book features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.

Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Author : K. Jill Fleuriet
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9783030635589
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (355 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.-Mexico Border by : K. Jill Fleuriet

Download or read book Rhetoric and Reality on the U.S.-Mexico Border written by K. Jill Fleuriet and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stemming from four years of ethnographic research, media analysis of over 750 national news articles published in the 2010s, and decades of the author's professional and personal immersion in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, Rhetoric and Reality illuminates a place at the heart of our national conversation: the U.S.-Mexico border. K. Jill Fleuriet contrasts the rhetoric of national political and media discourse with that of local border leaders in economics, health care, politics, education, law enforcement, philanthropy, and activism. As she deconstructs the common narrative of a border in need of external intervention to control corruption, poverty, sickness, and violence, Fleuriet engagingly illustrates the range of regional organizing, local development strategies, and community responses in the borderlands that ultimately situate the Rio Grande Valley as the "true North" of the U.S. national compass-where the Valley goes, the rest of the country soon will follow. Rhetoric and Reality asks us to question our own assumptions, especially about those areas that drive national decisions about resource allocation, economic development and national security. "Rhetoric and Reality is an important ethnographic study of the deeply misunderstood, increasingly vilified, Rio Grande Valley located on the Texas-Mexico border. Fleuriet presents a balanced counter-narrative that that shows the region as one of growth, innovation, complexity, and rich with meaning. Rhetoric and Reality is an excellent example of place-based, reflexive scholarship appropriate for use in courses on border theory, applied anthropology, and research methods. Written clearly and crisply with a wide readership in mind, Rhetoric and Reality is mandatory reading for those wanting to better understand the US-Mexico border region and the people who live there." --Margaret A. Graham, Professor and Chair, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA "This is an important book, as it describes life in the Rio Grande Valley rather than 'on the border.' The notion of 'the border' as an open range in need of external help is challenged, as the author illustrates the wide range of leadership and programmatic change occurring in the Rio Grande Valley." --Roberto R. Alvarez, Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego, USA.