"Chavez uses the songs of the borderlands to talk about immigration into the US and the culture that has sprung up around the border. He pulls in both history and current situations – and best of all, his own experiences as a Mexican academic and musician – to create a multidimensional, gorgeous book." — Alejandra Oliva, Remezcla
"Bold and engaging. . . . Teeming with moments of intimacy, and a genuine attention to humanity. . . . Courageous and timely. . . . Sounds of Crossing will be of interest not only to scholars across disciplines and musical genres, as it relates aurality and aesthetics to political and social life, but also to non-academic lovers of music. This is a book of humanity, and a book of stories." — Nandini Rupa Banerjee-Datta, Current Musicology
"Alex E. Chávez has made an important contribution in the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology, folklore, history, and immigration studies with his work, Sounds of Crossing. . . . A must read for those interested in the lives, experiences, and music of undocumented people in the United States." — José R. López Morín, Anthropos
"I am almost left at a loss for words, except: wow. Alex E. Chávez's writing is vivid, rich, and sensuous, and the command of voicing as he switches between perspectives and crosses theoretical, ethnographical, and analytical divides is effortless and constantly clarifying. One hears the sound of a major ethnographic voice emerging here. Sounds of Crossing is one of the best musical ethnographies I've read in years, and it will surely rank with the very best books in its category of this or any generation." — Aaron A. Fox, author of Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture
"In this masterful ethnography, Alex E. Chávez focuses on huapango arribeño, its performance, its circulation, and its consumption, to explore the everyday politics of Mexican migrant life in the United States. Evoking the border crossing of décimas and zapateados huapangueros, Chávez's beautiful writing continuously challenges the boundaries between storytelling, theory, and real life to offer a dispassionate glimpse into the emotional paradoxes that inform the making of Mexican American spaces and subjectivities in twenty-first-century America." — Alejandro L. Madrid, author of Nor-tec Rifa! Electronic Dance Music from Tijuana to the World