ciudad ju?rez (mexico)

Four months ago Sara Zapata's best friend, Linda, disappeared from the streets of Ju?rez, and ever since Sara has been using her job as a reporter to draw attention to the girls who have been kidnapped by the criminals who control the city, but now she and her family are being threatened. Meanwhile her younger brother, Emiliano, is being lured into the narcotics business by the promise of big money, and soon the only way for both of them to escape is to risk the dangerous trek across the desert to the United States border.

Fifteen-year-old Georgia learns a great deal about herself and her troubled best friend Riley when they become part of a group of suburban Pennsylvania teenagers that go to Anapra, a squatters village in the border town of Juarez, Mexico, to undertake a community construction project.

Presents a comprehensive history of the Mexican Revolution of 1911 and the cities of El Paso and Juarez, and contains essays and archival photographs about Pancho Villa and other revolutionaries of the time.

Traces a season in the Mexican border city where in spite of brutal violence its citizens are held together by a shared love for its soccer team, and addresses local drug and human trafficking issues and the city's high murder rate.