THROUGH FENCES, graphic novel in the Latinographix series via Mad Creek Books

THROUGH FENCES (Latinographix series)
FREDERICK LUIS ALDAMA (illus. Oscar Garza)
Mad Creek Books
$17.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Through Fences follows the ups and downs of Latino kids and young adults in the US–Mexico borderlands:

San Ysidro, Calexico, McAllen, and back and forth across the border. A young girl’s journey north goes wrong, and now she is in a forbidding new place, away from her parents and brother, where she doesn’t understand what the adults in green are saying even as she tries to obey their rules.

Rocky, one of the few white kids in town, stands by and watches as Miguel is jumped by two of his friends. Maggie and her parents are separated at the border in a tragic accident.

Alberto’s son doesn’t understand his Mexican father’s hatred for “illegals” or his work as a border patrol agent. Alicia is a TikTok influencer who doesn’t want to grow up to be a hospital cleaning lady like her mother, but COVID complicates things. Whatever their challenges, the kids, teens, tweens, and adults in these pages are just trying to survive their everyday lives.

Vibrantly illustrated by Oscar Garza, each of these short stories brings a different perspective on the perils of living on the border while brown.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The stories told here are tough. They're honest, they're emotionally charged, and they do not pander to or play out for the gaze of oh-so-sensitive/delicate fleur wypipo who whine every time anyone tells them the unvarnished truth about what the system their privilege enables them to ignore actually does in their collective name and to their collective benefit.

I don't recommend this for under-fifteens. I do think it's a good idea to give the book to your comic-loving teen nibling/grand boy.

These are indicative of the visual idiom of the entire book. It's intense and kinetic art, it's intense storytelling, and it can't be lightly glossed over or cynically dismissed easily. Young white men in particular could use a dose of this reality. Apart from urging you to get the work in front of all the teenaged white lads you can find, I'm out of polite words to say.