Summary

Leslie crosses the border into Mexico to attend at literary gathering in Tijuana and Mexicali. She has heard that conditions in Tijuana have become better in recent years but she knows that variations and fluctuations are often glossed over in American conversations about Mexico. Leslie sees tourism as a short-cut to empathy. As she notes the lack of tourists in Tijuana she thinks about the city's recent violent past. She then makes the two-hour drive to Mexicali, observing that the prospect and aftermath of violence are omnipresent.

In Mexicali, Leslie meets various Mexican writers and poets and learns about the narco wars from them. Calexico, California is just on the other side of a fence and Leslie reflects on how the border is porous for some and not for others. Leslie visits Calexico with two non-American conference attendees and for the first time...