Barrio Libre

The city of Nogales straddles the border between Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. On the Mexican side, a group of marginalized youth calling themselves Barrio Libre (Free 'Hood) employs violence, theft, and bribery to survive, often preying on undocumented migrants using the city's sewer system to cross the border. In this book, Gilberto Rosas draws on his in-depth ethnographic research among the Barrio Libre to understand how the gang operates, why its members have embraced criminality, and the role that neoliberalism and security policies on both sides of the border have played in the youth's descent into Barrio Libre. Rosas argues that although these youth participate in the victimization of others, they should not be demonized. They are complexly and adversely situated. Many are migrants driven to Nogales by the effects of NAFTA. Shadowing the youths through the spaces they inhabit and control, he shows how the militarization of the border actually destabilized the region and led Barrio Libre to turn to even more violent activities like drug trafficking. By focusing this population and their thickening delinquency, Rosas asserts the importance of capitalism and criminality in shaping of perceptions and realities of race, sovereignty, and resistance along the U.S./Mexico border.