¿On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone,¿ Sergio Troncoso writes in this riveting collection of sixteen personal essays in which he seeks to connect the humanity of his Mexican family to people he meets on the East Coast, including his wife¿s Jewish kin. Raised in a home steps from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, Troncoso crossed what seemed an even more imposing border when he left home to attend Harvard College. Initially, ¿outsider status¿ was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but he puts pen to paper just as much for the future. In his three-part essay entitled ¿Letter to My Young Sons,¿ he documents the terror of his wife¿s breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her surgery and treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood and the impact his wife¿s Jewish heritage on his Mexican-American identity. Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Mexican-American identity. Challenging assumptions about literature these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America.