Border Correspondent is the first major collection of the journalism of Ruben Salazar. Although there has long been a vigorous Spanish-language press in the United States, Salazar was the first journalist of Mexican American background to cross over into mainstream English-language print media with his reporting for the Los Angeles Times during the 1960s.

Salazar was also the first significant foreign correspondent of Mexican descent, and in 1969 he became the first Mexican American columnist for a major newspaper. Mario Garcia's introduction to this collection provides a biographical sketch of Salazar as well as a thoughtful evaluation of his significance to American journalism and to the history of the Mexican American community in California.