A closer look at the fronterizos who cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day

Published: Friday, January 6, 2023 - 12:04pm
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Most of the conversation around the border in the news is about walls and policies, asylum seekers coming from distant lands, and cartels sneaking drugs north. But there's another group of border crossers: the ones who do it everyday. 

They’re known as fronterizos. They live in the borderlands and cross regularly — for work, for shopping, or, as was true for our next guest, for school. 

But as she documents in her Ph.D. research, that kind of constant exposure to the militarization that has taken over the border leaves a mark on people. It did on her. 

Lauren Gilger spoke with Estefania Castañeda Pérez, Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department at UCLA, about her research about border crossers.

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