Border: Creative Nonfiction on Social Equity

Equity. Equanimity. Equation. Equipped. Equivalency. Equilibrium. Equality.
The EQ: Creative Nonfiction on Social Equity series showcases diverse voices, examines social issues from an array of viewpoints, offers nuanced social criticism, analyzes aspects of popular culture, and shares personal stories with universal and global resonance.

Border, the inaugural anthology in the series, underscores the idea of borders in both obvious and unexpected ways. Borders are commonly thought of as concrete, if arbitrary, and as geographical and physical spaces. But we construct and experience borders in other ways.

In this groundbreaking work, contributor Esm Weihun Wang reveals the limitations imposed by a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. Francisco Cant challenges popular notions of the U.S.-Mexico border to show the human tragedies created by political struggles. Sonali Deraniyagala reveals the jagged edges of grief when she faces the incomprehensible loss of her family in a natural disaster. Oscar Casares, Leslie Jamison, Ira Sukrungruang, David Sobel, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sandra Cisneros, and other writers share stories about boundaries between nations and cultures, in rural and urban spaces, and across the liminal spheres of identity, race, ethnicity, gender, and perception.
In poetry, a crown is a series of sonnets, each ending with a line that becomes the first line of the next poem in the series, each tangentially related and sequenced. Similarly Border is a crown of essays structured in just this way. It provides tangible reminders that we transcend thresholds, navigate between spaces, and live in margins and fringes. Life flourishes in these conflicted spaces, identity emerges, and changing circumstances change people themselves. Borders are everywhere, and understanding them means understanding each other.