The award-winning author returns to his roots in the Southwest, driving the highways of New Mexico and Texas, and writing about the changing landscape and a thriving and diverse border culture.

"In his distinctive and spirited way, Ray Gonzalez - the well-known essayist, poet, fiction writer, and anthologist - reflects on the American Southwest. It is a place that tugs at him, from its arid desert landscapes to its polyglot cities - part Mexican, part Anglo, part something in-between." "Rooted in the desert sand and in the hanks of the Rio Grande, the muddy river that forms the border between nations, these essays are by turns lyrical, mournful,...

A collection of short stories tells about both the mystery and the reality of the El Paso border country.

Adopting the turtle as a metaphor for the Native American origins of border culture, the prominent American poet interweaves lyrical poetry, prose poems, short fiction, and nonfiction commentary to forge a new Chicano manifesto, a cultural memoir that traces both his personal journey and the communal journey that Mexican Americans have traveled throughout the century.