Re:sound #82: The Borders Show

This hour: an isolated village experiences rapid cultural change, a "border blaster" transmits totally unregulated radio programs from Mexico into the U.S., and a tiny frog causes trouble.

Long Way Down
by James Spring (Stories From the Heart of the Land, 2007)
For centuries, dozens of Tarahumara villages were quite isolated from the rest of the world, tucked in the hills of the Sierra Madre in Mexico. But when logging roads were built to carry old growth pine trees down to be processed, modernization traveled up into the Indian villages. James Spring rode his motorcycle to the Sierra Madre to see how the villages, the agriculture, and the economy were changing.

The X Factor
by Jamie York (On the Media, 2007)
Back in the 1930s, when the Federal Communications Commission was just beginning to monitor and regulate radio stations in the U.S., "border blasters" came along and ruined their plans. These superpowered radio transmitters were located across the border in Mexico, broadcasting at millions of watts and blowing the doors off the neat, compartmentalized grid that was being etched out by the FCC.

Ah, Coqui!
by Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister (Stories From the Heart of the Land, 2007)
The coqui tree frog is so beloved in Puerto Rico that they've made it their national symbol. But when it showed up in Hawaii, multiplying with abandon and enjoying a lush life with no natural predators -- well, let's just say its chances of becoming a state symbol are dismal.

This episode of Re:sound was produced by Roman Mars.