| Sumario: | This essay explores the connection between two men—one a Mississippi native and one a native of Xalapa, Mexico—whose lives intersected in the "borderland" space of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta in the early 2000s. This intimate connection is set against the background of persistent health inequities and inhumane official immigration policy within the state of Mississippi today. Viewing the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta region as a microcosm, the author examines the region's history of cultural confluence to highlight both the possibility and the collapse of what the writer Toni Morrison described in her essay "Home" as a "sharable world." Following a phrase from Édouard Glissant in Faulkner, Mississippi , the essay asks readers to consider what kind of "world-thought" emerges from our "commonplaces." Ultimately, however, the essay is a tribute to the titular man, Miguel Angel Vasquez, who passed away in 2014.
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