Description: "A radical work of history that re-centers the American story around El Paso, Texas, gateway between north and south, center of indigenous power and resistance, locus of European colonization of North America, centuries-long hub of immigration, and underappreciated modern blueprint for a changing United States."--
Brief description:
Richard Parker (1964-2025) was an award-winning journalist and author who wrote about the American Southwest for the New York Times and other publications. In 2020 his commentary in the New York Times on the El Paso massacre was honored by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. In 2019 NBC News named him to "#NBCLatino20," its list of the most influential Latinos in America. Parker's first book, Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America, took a fresh look at the history of the Lone Star State to reconsider its present and future. Raised in El Paso, the son of an American father and a Mexican mother, he lived in Texas.
Review Quotes:
"Richard Parker's The Crossing is a grand tour of the Southwest, its people, culture, and history. The center of this sun-baked universe is El Paso, whose story Parker--who grew up there with roots in both Mexican and American cultures--is highly qualified to write." - S. C. Gwynne, author Empire of the Summer Moon
"Sparked by the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas, Richard Parker was moved to write a deeply moving epic of that city's story in deep time. Beginning with the region's origins in the indigenous world and the violent first contacts with Spanish conquistadors, Parker's eloquent mestizo saga takes the reader through centuries of empires and errors, chronicling waves of genocidal violence, mass deportations, discrimination, and exclusion, all met with extraordinary resilience and resistance by the victims. This indispensable book is an act of great compassion, revealing that far from being a fluke, the horrific event of 2019 was another episode in a long history of anti-Mexican estrangement and discord in the borderlands we're still seeking to leave behind." - John Phillip Santos, award-winning author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
"Sparked by the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Richard Parker was moved to write a deeply moving epic of that city's story in deep time. Parker's eloquent mestizo saga takes the reader through centuries of empires and errors, chronicling waves of genocidal violence, mass deportations, discrimination, and exclusion, all met with extraordinary resilience and resistance by the victims. This indispensable book is an act of great compassion, revealing that far from being a fluke, the horrific 2019 event was another episode in a long history of anti-Mexican estrangement and discord in the borderlands we're still seeking to leave behind." - John Phillip Santos, award-winning author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
"Explores El Paso through the lens of the origin story of America. . . . Ambitious. . . . In The Crossing, Parker takes a long chronological view, contending El Paso should be considered the source of the origin story of America. A multicultural America." - Albuquerque Journal
"'American history did not begin in the Northeast. It began in the Southwest, ' Parker asserts, in this sweeping history of El Paso, his home town. The account, which starts in the sixteenth century, is one of both endless conflict and cross-cultural accommodation. 'El Paso is where Native, Spanish, European, African, Jewish, and Arab cultures fought, bled, died, ' he writes, but it's also where they forged a 'vibrantly diverse' society that became a model for the country." - The New Yorker
"Forget Plymouth Rock--U.S. history starts in El Paso, Richard Parker argues convincingly in this compelling history. He makes an energetic case for the centrality of his hometown, a place with a history as rich and deep as the Rio Grande that flows through it. . . . Parker clearly shows there is much to be learned from the story of this important crossroads." - Carrie Gibson, author of El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America