The Bookstores of the US–Mexico Border

Abstract

The Bookstores of the US–Mexico Border J. L. Powers (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution IT ISN'T EASY TO GET TO REDFORD, TEXAS. There's only one road in or out, a two-lane highway that runs along the US–Mexico border from Presidio to Lajitas before it veers north and ends in Terlingua. You probably haven't heard of these communities. That's because, for most people, there honestly aren't a lot of reasons to visit. As of 2020, Redford is a small community of twenty-three people, down from ninety-three people in 2010. There is no store, no gas station, no school, no nothing. Redford "thrived" in the past only because border crossings by raft across the Rio Grande river were unregulated, so the American town and the Mexican town across the river were like one community. Like many of these small border villages, it has essentially died in the wake of policies that stopped these historically engrained—though technically illegal and unsanctioned—back-and-forth travels and cross-border trade. American and Mexican communities required one intertwined economy to provide key items—gasoline or groceries, for example—and now that they are cut off from each other, each community is choking from its lack of access to essentials. Maybe books aren't "essential" like gas or groceries, but they are the lifeblood of the mind. And I wanted to visit Redford because I had heard about Lucia Madrid, a woman of indomitable energy whose lending library, launched in the Madrid General Store in 1979, grew to include fifteen thousand books and operated until her death in 2006. In Redford's crumbling adobes and in the deteriorating storefront that has long since been shuttered and abandoned, I found little left of her dedication to the love of books and ideas. But I did find her spirit in the bookstores scattered along the 1,951-mile US–Mexico border, many [End Page 5] of them small and curated by booksellers with singular tastes but catering to their unique communities. Because all border communities, just like Redford, deal with isolation: whether physical isolation since they are difficult to reach, or political and social isolation because they aren't seen as financial or cultural epicenters. Rather than viewing their isolation as a problem, booksellers along the border see this as an opportunity. "There are tangible and intangible borders in the world, and books can bridge those gaps," says Sarah Cuadra, owner of the Storybook Garden in Weslaco, Texas. "There will always be conflict, but the more we seek to understand, the better." "The beauty of being isolated is that regardless of our political or social beliefs, we all need each other," says Julie Green, book buyer for Front Street Books in Alpine, Texas. Recently, my dad and I visited as many of these bookstores as possible to find out how people in each of these places are making the sacrifice to ensure books are accessible in peripheral places long forgotten by the so-called "center." LIBÉLULA San Diego, California Jesi Gutierrez, co-owner and creative director, describes Libélula's collection as books that represent the "Chicanx experience, books in Spanish, Spanglish, as well as stories of migration, and of the living on severed lands, from both sides of the line. We are also happy to carry as many books as we can get on the local movement and area we are located in, Barrio Logan, which is one of Mexican American, Indigenous, and Chicanx activism." As a queer-owned bookstore, they also focus on books that represent the bipoc queerfolk experience. Gutierrez suggests that bookstores are responsible to their communities. As such, Libélula offers "rich connections" and a "safe place for some who may not have it otherwise." Click for larger view View full resolution LIBELULA BOOKS AND COMPANY, PHOTO BY JESI GUTIERREZ BISBEE BOOKS AND MUSIC Bisbee, Arizona This small bookstore carries general books and a wide selection of titles related to Bisbee's mining past, Arizona history, the border, and, surprisingly, the paranormal. "It is theorized that the mining and the minerals and crystals in the area make it a...