The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 265

Book Reviews

Continent with the Fifth Cavalry, first published in 1883, and uses
government documents which are quoted with seemingly endless cita-
tions for "gallant conduct." Simpson is rather narrowly focused on
military history, and this book will be a conventional, convenient ref-
erence for military historians.
Unfortunately the book was written in a pedestrian fashion, replete
with redundancies and excessive lists of names; nor was the book well
edited, proofread, indexed, or illustrated. One is embarrassed for in-
stance to find a generations-past approach to Juan Nepomuceno Cor-
tina, whose name is not spelled correctly (neither is Matamoros at first,
nor Monterrey), as on pages 121, 136, 137, 140 n, 141. The author's
limited outlook is suggested further by his misstatement that most post-
Civil War western forts were palisaded (p. 63). And we are amused to
read that the hair on (then Major) George H. Thomas's chest was so
thick as to help deflect two Indian arrows (p. 151).
The National Archives JOHN PORTER BLOOM
The Long Road North: The Story of a Mexican Worker's Perilous
Crossing into the United States. By John Davidson. (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1979. Pp. 189. Foreword.
$8.95.)
In 1971, Julian Samora published his pathbreaking study entitled
Los Mojados: The Wetback Story. The importance of his work was
that it was the first study to focus exclusively upon the phenomenon of
illegal immigration from Mexico. Other works had mentioned the
topic but none had made it the singular focus. Since 1971, of course, il-
legal immigration has become a topic of national consequence and de-
bate. Thus, any book on the subject is timely.
One of the highlights of Samora's work was the fact that he allowed
one of his graduate students to become a participant observer. The stu-
dent actually went to Mexico and made his way back into the United
States using the illegal routes. Davidson's book, The Long Road North,
is based upon a similar experience. Davidson traveled with a Mexican
worker in the United States who had to return to Mexico because of a
sick parent. Together they then sought to reenter the United States.
The book describes their efforts to evade capture by the Border Patrol,
as well as to avoid death from snakes, spiders, thirst, hunger, and heat,
and to minimize the harm inflicted on them by other men and women

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