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Musical tales of humanity

Songwriter Eric Holland knows exactly what is most missing from today’s rancorous immigration debate: Empathy.

Statistics – the totals of corpses in the Arizona desert and the think-tank tallies of undocumented immigrants who breathe in our cities − has numbed our ability to imagine the furtive, hard lives of foreign workers.

Through the 10 songs of his new CD, Sin Fronteras II, or Without Borders II, this Carefree resident allows us to get inside the skin of immigrants to taste their spicy cooking (The Meal), love a manly Mexican (Mi Señor de Sonora), or experience the agony of roasting in the desert in a lonely death (Camino de Diablo).

"They (immigrants) don’t deserve not being sung about. With these songs I wanted to give a voice to those with a voz de silencio (silent voice)," Holland says. "When you put a story to a death, it becomes true."

The cuts on Sin Fronteras II can be categorized as modern-day border ballads, based on the irony that the U.S.-Mexico border has now crossed to Scottsdale, where Holland teaches an ESL class to youth and adults.

His song material sits in his classrooms, he says. "The stories come from my heart and my students." Like the 7th-grader whose grandfather has just died in Guanajuato, Mexico, and his plans to attend the funeral and risk his life crossing back illegally. "I wonder whether I’ll ever see him again."

Holland has taken his lyrics beyond lip service to the immigrant cause. He is donating half the CD proceeds to Humane Borders in Tucson.

"Am I going to make a difference?" Holland muses. "I don’t know. The White guy isn’t going to win. The Mexican isn’t going to win. It’s all about the economy and money. We need to look at the human issues at stake."

To find out where to buy Sin Fronteras II, visit www.erichollandaz.com or call (480) 488-5389.