The podcast that I listened to and choose to write about was called “And I walked in, stories from the border” by Ann Hepperman and Kara Oeheir. The piece was a window into the world of the Mexican border war. It starts out with feet on gravel and wind blowing. A white American man’s voice comes in with conversational sound and fades out as someone speaking Spanish fades in. The wind remains constant and you being to hear the translation of the Spanish man speaking. Then a walkie talkie noise fades in with scattering news reports of an incident that occurred at the border. It then goes back and  forth between a white man and spanish translation. Slowly a heartbeat noise comes in behind the speaking. The piece finishes with the white man saying “we play a game down here”.

this was an interesting piece and was very familiar to me. Having grown up in Southern California there was always news about the war on the border and continual efforts to tighten border control. I thought it was intereseting how the piece went back and forth between the white man’s voice and the spanish translations and accounts. It created a very dualistic feel, as if the piece’s purpose was to project a “us vs. them” feeling. The background noise of the feet running, deep breathing and slow heart beat sound added to the calmness yet still intense vibe. It was as if you were sitting there watching two different side try to persuade you. The mexican accounts were very sad and depressing because they were speaking about all the failed attempts to successfully cross the border where the White man’s account sounded like that of a general or public servant working for the border.