PROVIDENCE – On the eve of PVDFest, the pedestrian traffic along Westminster Street in downtown is crowded with shoppers, diners, and panhandlers. ConvergenceRI is on his way to a reading at Symposium Books, featuring author Ieva Jusionyte from her new book, Exit Wounds, a compelling journey into the netherworld of gun smuggling and violence across the border in Mexico.

Jusionyte, an associate professor of Anthropology at Brown University, who trained as a EMT and a medic, was taught to look for the “exit wounds” when treating gunshot victims along the U.S. border with Mexico.

As she pointed out during her reading, there are only two legal gun shops in all of Mexico. The rest of the guns used in the many violent encounters are smuggled in from the U.S. As much as what has happened at the border between the United States and Mexico has become a prominent part of the political debate within American presidential politics, few have the kind of expertise that Jusionyte brings to the table.

In Providence, there has been a wave of gun violence; one of the most recent shootings claimed the life of a seven-year-old child who was sitting in the backseat of car, resulting in outrage in the community.

The audience of about 25 who had gathered for Jusionyte’s reading asked probing questions about the nature of the gun violence in Mexico and its perpetrators – often young men and women who have become the soldiers in the violent struggle between rival organized criminals – and pawns in the battle for control of the economic enterprise attached to guns, money, and drugs.

In her signed copy of her book from a reading at the Watson Institute on April 23, Jusionyte wrote: “For a world with fewer bullets and wounds.”

For all the political charges thrown back and forth between rival Presidential candidates and their surrogates, the insights spoken by Jusionyte about what is actually occurring on the border between the U.S. and Mexico appears to lack an audience. Would Jusionyte be willing to sit down and talk with R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha about gun violence and gun smuggling? She said she would welcome the opportunity

Some 48 hours after her reading, a battle took place on Westminster Street outside the storefront of Symposium Books. It was a battle of the bands, featuring the “Extraordinary Rendition Band” and the 88^th Army Band – RI Army National Guards’s Coyote Brass, captured by WPRO’s Steve Klamkin. [See link to video below.]

it may be a leap, but the way that the two bands interact, exchanging musical arguments, provides a way forward on how to reach resolution of conflict. Our ability to listen to each other, allowing conflicting voices to be heard, offers a hopeful way forward. The stories that Jusionyte shared about "exit wounds" offers a way to understand the conflict around borders and boundaries and not get sucked into the undertow of misinformation and disinformation.