As a ninth-generation Bordercana, Toni and her family are a mestizo mix of Native American and Mexican American heritage. They never left the Border. Growing up, she was never made to think of the Border—this in-between space—as two different spaces. In this multi-generational nonfiction story, Toni retells her abuelos’ love story to her young daughters while sharing the history of the area and its Latinx people. In La Union, the town where her family lives and where their family has always lived, the adobe dwellings are made from la tierra. The same earth is a womb for fallen ancestors—the Apaches who once roamed the area, the Spaniards who came before 1821, the Mexicans who came after, and the Mexican Americans and Bordercanx who inhabit the area today. From start to finish, this story is the embodiment of a Mexican American, double hybridized population. It is among the many stories of people still thriving and not forgotten along the US-Mexico. Border.
