Angelo's Towing contract to be tested by El Cajon
Michigan history looms in San Diego
Sheila Pell 11:30 a.m., Oct. 15
Luis Urrea
Born in Tijuana, Urrea is a Mexican-American novelist, poet, and essayist. He wrote feature stores for the Reader from 1990 through 1994.
Articles by Luis Urrea
Luis Urrea and the Reader
Tijuana dump, running of bulls in Tecate, Mexican slang, father and grandfather in TJ, glue-sniffers, TJ cops
Born in Tijuana, Urrea wrote feature stores for the Reader from 1990 through 1994. Urrea's collection of short stories, The Water Museum, was a finalist for the 2016 PEN-Faulkner Award and was named a best ...
Dalton's Luck: A San Diego Mystery
An unpublished novel about the Mexican border
The assassins spotted Dalton Lee in the Miami airport. Later after it was all over, he'd remember that moment when they locked eyes and he smiled like he smiled at everyone. Often he would doubt ...
Luis Urrea takes book tour media to Tijuana dump.
The vagaries of literary fame
Visiting the Tijuana dump is no different from visiting a friend at work. It is, after all, a factory. And the trash-pickers are busy — too busy to worry about lazy gringos wandering about.
Underprivileged Tijuanan brothers learn about grief the hard way
Death sometimes unites them
Nobody knew what happened to the boys’ parents. Not even the boys — Chacho, Elijio, Carlos, and Jorge — could explain what had happened to them. As is so often the case in Tijuana, one ...
My grandfather hoped to establish a commune in Tijuana
The tortilleria was the world’s jolliest sweat-lodge
They’d give tortillas to us plain — good enough! Or they’d roll a few drops of lemon juice in one, or a pinch of salt, or both. I ate a couple of these mini-tacos while I waited.
Logan Heights comes to me in Colorado and Wyoming
Homeboy on the range
Mexicans out here lie low. I know a Chicana poet who teaches at the University of Colorado, and every semester or so, some genius in a truck calls her a “greaser” or an “Injun.”
Tijuana cops don't get no respect
Hard to avoid mordida on $50 a week
He flicked on the siren. It whooped satisfactorily, sounding like a television show. "Muevete, pendelo" muttered to the cars that blocked his way as he maneuvered the Rio de Tijuana thoroughfare. I glanced at the ...
Glue-sniffing urchins in old Tijuana
Wanna sniff, hombre?
His name is Andres. He awakens with the sun. He lies in bed as long as he feels like it, picking the crust of glue off his upper lip. It’s white and vague as milk ...
Reader writers write about first day of school
La Mesa, East San Diego, Minneapolis, Logan Heights
Mr. Van Winkle asked the Student Council Reps, to indicate to the classes that if they can convince him through sound logical arguments that they should ride skateboards to school that he will reconsider his position.
