Social Justice in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region

The U.S.-Mexico Border Region is among the poorest geographical areas in the United States. The region has been long characterized by dual development, poor infrastructure, weak schools, health disparities and low-wage employment. More recently, the region has been affected by the violence associated with a drug and crime war in Mexico. The premise of this book is that the U.S.-Mexico Border Region is subject to systematic oppression and that the so-called social pathologies that we see in the region are by-products of social and economic injustice in the form of labor exploitation, environmental racism, immigration militarism, institutional sexism and discrimination, health inequities, a political economy based on low-wage labor, and the globalization of labor and capital. The chapters address a variety of examples of injustice in the areas of environment, health disparity, migration unemployment, citizenship, women and gender violence, mental health, and drug violence. The book proposes a pathway to development.

Mark Lusk is professor of social work and associate dean of health sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso. A Latin Americanist and international development specialist, he has worked and lived throughout Latin America and other regions of the developing world. He was Fulbright Scholar in Peru and a decade later in Brazil. Kathleen Staudt is professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso. A well-known scholar on border studies, Kathy has written and edited 16 books on the US Mexico border, women’s rights and violence against women. Eva Moya is assistant professor of social work at the University of Texas at El Paso. She has worked extensively in research on border health disparities and infectious disease.