Juan Gonzalez, described by the Village Voice as "the most radical person in the above-it-all world of New York daily journalism," is a reporter who takes as his beat the streets and projects of America's inner cities and the barrios across its southern borders. In these passionate and vivid despatches, he reports from the frontline of a social crisis which stretches from New York to Los Angeles, across the Rio Grande to Mexico's maquiladoras, through to Haiti, Honduras and Cuba.

Written not just about the ghetto, but from it, Gonzalez's stories portray workers on strike, refugees on the run, owners on the make and a journalist on the case. Together they bring us face to face with "human beings whose tragedies illuminate the landscape of a forgotten America."