Farmers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas saw a rise of wetback labor in the 1930s and 40s. The wetback laborers were Mexicans who had crossed the Rio Grande and were in the United States illegally to work. Carrol Norquest, a farmer in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, employed wetbacks regularly. In this book, Mr. Norquest writes about the wetbacks he employed, about their families, and, in some cases, about incidents told to him by his neighbors. Most of the stories date from the period when wetback labor arose; they are true stories which tell about these people and their hopes, heartbreaks, customs, struggles with the border patrol, feelings, ambitions, envies, kindnesses, and plain meannesses. The dialogue used is a direct translation from the idiom of these people--the Tex-Mex of the border. (NQ)