Jorge Ramos. Atravesando Fronteras: Un Periodista En Busca De Su Lugar En El Mundo

Jessica Cabrera

Jorge Ramos. Atravesando Fronteras: Un Periodista en Busca de Su Lugar en el Mundo (No Borders: A Journalist's Search for Home). New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2002. 320 pp. Introduction prologue, acknowledgements, photographs. $13.95.

 

In his autobiography, Atravesando Fronteras: Un Periodista en Busca de Su Lugar en el Mundo, (No Borders: A Journalist's Searchfor Home).  Jorge Ramos recounts his personal life experiences; he acknowledges the opportunities the United States has offered him throughout twenty years after a crucial censorship obligated his flee from his beloved country, Mexico. Although the United States has offered him the opportunities he was not able to fulfill in Mexico, he does not feel at home. The quest for a place to call hometormentes Ramos believing such place may not exist. “Soy todavia, un periodista atravesando fronteras, un hombre frente al espejo, un inmigrante sin casa” (320). "I'm still a journalist crossing borders, a man in the mirror, a homeless immigrant"(writers’ translation). Ramos is an intellectual journalist who provides first hand anecdotes from experiences during his childhood  back in Mexico, hisemigration experience towards the United States, his elaborate interviews and travels, and most important he analyzes the Hispanization through journalist experiences in Univision. The book has thirteen chapters, is divided into four parts: Mi Casa(my house), La Experiencia Americana(The American experience), Atravesando Fronteras(Going Global), and El Eterno Regreso (The Eternal Return).The authoruses statistical data, personal testimonies, illustrations and primary sources to successfully describe his life experience.

Jorge Ramos recounts his personal life experiences in Mexico. The most significant event in life was realizing his mother was in default with her life. “Happiness” is always portrayed, happily ever after, however for Ramos’s mother “La felicidad’…esta en pequeñosmomentos; no es permanente (20). “Happiness…is within small moments; it is not permanent” (writers’ translation).  The only choice for Ramos’s mother at that time was marriage and contraceptive pills were not an option. It was not until his adulthood when Ramos was able to identify with his mother’s struggles. Another significant moment in Ramos’s life is realizing his father was not perfect since he wasnot a good soccer player. “Creo que marco mi primer distanciamiento con mi padre. En ese momento y con mucho dolor, fue que reconoci que no qeria ser como el ni copiar su vida” (24). I believe that framework, my first distancing with my father. Just then and with a lot of pain, that’s when I realized I did not want to be like him or copy his life” (writers’ translation). During Ramos’s childhoodhe divided his world in two people that knew how to play soccer and people that dint. Ramos father had been a super hero until he realized his father could not play soccer.  

Life for Ramos in Mexico was interrupted after a censorship forced him to leave for the United States to have freedom of speech. “Pero en ese entonces, no tenia ni idea de que las practicas de censura periodisticapracticadas por Televisa y por la mayoria de los medios de comunicacion en Mexico iban a ser mucho mas peligrosas para mi carrera que las explociones del volcan chichonal”(61). At that time, I had no idea that Televisa had practices of censorship just like most of the Medias of communications in Mexico; it was going to be more dangerous towards my career than the explosion of chiconal volcano”(writers’ translation). The imagery that Ramos provides a great effect since working for Televisa was more dangerous than a volcano explosion. Ramos gave Televisa his resignation letter as an alternative when he was asked to revise his news coverage. Ramos moral values and journalism ethics were more important than being employed. 

The United States offered Ramos what Mexico was not able to offer a...