Stephanie Elizondo Griest

A young Latina journalist recounts her four-year, twelve-nation tour of the Communist bloc during her education at the University of Texas, a period during which she volunteered at a Moscow children's shelter, edited propaganda for the Chinese communist party, worked as a belly dancer in Cuba, and more. Original.

My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana

Around the Bloc

100 Places Every Woman Should Go (Travelers' Tales)

My Life between the Borderlines

Mexican Enough

After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home--only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation's foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence, before Elizondo Griest moved to the New York / Canada borderlands. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, however, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between and the people who live there.

Dispatches from the U.s. Borderlands

All the Agents and Saints

Desperate to escape South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. So she headed to Russia looking for some excitement—commencing what would become a four-year, twelve-nation Communist bloc tour that shattered her preconceived notions of the “Evil Empire.” In Around the Bloc, Griest relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children’s shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the office of the Chinese Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who narrowly avoided radiation cleanup duties at Chernobyl, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists, and comes to difficult realizations about the meaning of democracy. is the absorbing story of a young journalist driven by a desire to witness the effects of Communism. Along the way, she learns the Russian mathematical equation for buying dinner-party vodka (one bottle per guest, plus an extra), stumbles upon Beijing’s underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elián González’s return to Cuba, and gains a new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left behind.

Growing up in a half-white, half-brown town and family in South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest struggled with her cultural identity. Upon turning thirty, she ventured to her mother's native Mexico to do some root-searching and stumbled upon a social movement that shook the nation to its core. Mexican Enough chronicles her adventures rumbling with luchadores (professional wrestlers), marching with rebel teachers in Oaxaca, investigating the murder of a prominent gay activist, and sneaking into a prison to meet with indigenous resistance fighters. She also visits families of the undocumented workers she befriended back home. Travel mates include a Polish thief, a Border Patrol agent, and a sultry dominatrix. Part memoir, part journalistic reportage, Mexican Enough illuminates how we cast off our identity in our youth, only to strive to find it again as adults -- and the lessons to be learned along the way.

With its breezy reviews and insightful advice, 100 Places Every Woman Should Go encourages women of any age to see the world — in a group, with a friend, or solo — and inspires them to create their own list of dreams. Based on her own explorations of many countries, states, and regions, and on interviews with travelers, award-winning author Stephanie Elizondo Griest highlights 100 special destinations and challenging activities — from diving for pearls in Bahrain to racing a camel, yak, or pony across Mongolia; to dancing with voodoo priestesses in Benin and urban cowboys in Texas; to taking a mud bath in a volcano off the coast of Colombia. Divided into such sections as “Places Where Women Made History,” “Places of Indulgence,” and “Places of Adventure,” this guidebook includes timely contact information, resources, and recommended reading. “Ten Tips For Wandering Women” features safety precautions plus pointers on haggling, packing, and staying parasite-free. Vivid portraits of free spirits like Frida Kahlo (“A tequila-slamming, dirty joke-telling smoker, this famous artist was bisexual and beautiful”) help travelers expand their experience.

100 Places Every Woman Should Go

Since publishing the original edition of A Woman's World in 1995, Travelers' Tales has been the recognized leader in women's travel literature. The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010 is the sixth book in an annual series that presents stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a woman's perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn't.

True Stories from Around the World

The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010

Since publishing the original edition of A Woman's World in 1995, Travelers' Tales has been the recognized leader in women's travel literature. The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010 is the sixth book in an annual series that presents stimulating, inspiring, and uplifting adventures from women who have traveled to the ends of the earth to discover new places, peoples, and facets of themselves. The common threads connecting these stories are a woman's perspective and fresh, compelling storytelling to make the reader laugh, weep, wish she were there, or be glad she wasn't. In The Best Women's Travel Writing 2010 readers will discover the hidden magic of Flamenco in Spain, walk the night and its terrors in Benin, have an excellent last day in Costa Rica, poke their way into the psyche of a security agent in Kabul, learn something new about death and Mexico in San Miguel de Allende, travel the darker side of the Hawaiian fantasy, draw a map of Argentinian tango, meet the best people in the world in Zimbabwe...and much more.

Stephanie Elizondo Griest

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