Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists will find here a striking challenge to accepted explanations of the northward movement of migrants from Mexico into the United States. Alvarez investigates the life histories of pioneer migrants and their offspring, finding a human dimension to migration which centers on the family. Spanish, American, and English exploits paved the way for exchange between Baja and Alta California. Alvarez shows how cultural stability actually increased as migrants settled in new locations, bringing their common values and memories with them.

Robert R. Alvarez, Jr. is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State University.

"The greatest merit of this highly readable and engaging book is the humanization of the immigrant experience. It is filled with individual anecdotes of love, struggle and hope mirrored in that greater institution: la familia."—Jesus Salvador Trevino, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Alvarez's findings and his demonstration that binational linkages have played historically significant roles along the border is an important contribution to the field."—Richard Griswold del Castillo, Pacific Historical Review

"Producing a work that is both an anthropological case study and a narrative micro or regional history, the author has used new and unique primary sources to fashion a scholarly work that transcends the mundane boundaries of the academic disciplines."—David W. Walker, Hispanic American Historical Review