i'm maria hinojosa. this is one on one. john francis, welcome to our program. >> thank you, maria. >> hinojosa: good to have you here. so you are the author of the book planetwalker: 17 years of silence, 22 years of walking. >> yes, i am. >> hinojosa: and so it really was. people, i'm sure they're like, "really? he stopped talking for 17 years?" >> right, i did, actually. >> hinojosa: and you walked for 22. >> for 22 years, without motorized vehicles, yeah. >> hinojosa: and throughout all of that, an essential part is your friend here, the banjo. >> my friend the banjo. >> hinojosa: does banjo have a name? >> well, it's american princess. american princess. it's an old banjo. it's over 100 years old, and was built in philadelphia. >> hinojosa: so the banjo became a central part of you as a persona in these years where you were walking and you were not talking. >> yeah, it did. >> hinojosa: but let's go back for... and you play it normally. >> i do, all the time. so you might hear it as we're talking. >> hinojosa: it's an ex

>> hinojosa: who can you trust? >> how many people, you know, will be happy to take you and have you killed, or have you disappear? but, you know, i want to stress that what we go through as foreign correspondents, american foreign correspondents, is nothing compared to what our mexican colleagues go through. i mean, they're stuck there. they have to live that, you know, day by day. we have the luxury of coming in, parachuting in, and leaving. i'm not saying it's not difficult, but, i mean, it is, i think, a big, big difference in terms of security, personal security. >> hinojosa: so why do you keep doing it, alfredo? i mean, you're at the level in your career where you could say to your editors, "you know what? base me in who knows where, but not mexico city." >> i've asked that question myself, you know, i think for the past 300-something, 60 days. i don't really have a clear answer. i mean, i do have... feel a huge responsibility. and i think as a foreign correspondent there's no way that you can overlook this st

>> hinojosa: he was born on the u.s./mexico border and crossing borders has been the overarching theme of his writing and of his life-- poet, novelist, and best-selling author, luis alberto urrea. i'm maria hinojosa, this is one on one. luis alberto urrea, welcome to the program. a lot to people know you because you're a best-selling author. you wrote across the wire. you wrote the amazing book the devil's highway-- extraordinary. your newest book, into the beautiful north, which we'll get to in a minute. but a lot of people also know you because you're the mexicano who breaks all the molds. >> ah, yeah. >> hinojosa: you are not the mexicano who looks like all the other mexicanos that they think they know. >> yeah, yeah. i... in louisiana, somebody told me i was a "bubba-looking mexican." >> hinojosa: bubba? >> yeah, "the bubba-looking mexican." >> hinojosa: ( laughing ) and you can... you even got that southern training twang there. you can... >> well, you know, it's having lived in the south, i guess. i'm fascinated by

i like that. >> hinojosa: you mean in missoula. >> in montana. >> hinojosa: in missoula, montana. >> i love that about it, right? but not everyone is so stimulated by that. and for poor people living on the margins of nature, you know, they have real livelihoods and real needs. now, here's the good news-- what we find out is that for poor people, nature is frankly even more important than it is for the rich and well off. >> hinojosa: because? >> because if the river dries out, they don't have an alternate source for getting water. if the forest does not have trees anymore, they do not have an alternate source for heating their homes. you know, there are 149 million people in the pacific rim who feed on fish. that is their primary source of protein. if the fish go off from the reef, if there's a massive dieoff of coral, bleaching happens, and they lose their potency to have... you know, to produce fish, those people will starve. so what i have found is when i've traveled into rural areas, they're not calling it conservation. they don't use that word. but nature is incredibly important