4.25 stars. this is a pretty incredible piece of reporting and missive of compassion. yes, even compassion for the border patrol officers. the way he handles this story and the reason behind the tragedy is exceptional. he tells the story of border crossings in a more general way, but also using this awful tragedy as an impetus to both tell personal stories of those who cross, but also to give an overview of what that crossing is like, how much it costs (physically, emotionally, financially, psychologically), who is involved on all sides of the story (the person crossing, the person taking them, the person trying to ensure they can't do it). it truly shows the humanity in a way i haven't seen before. and his writing is amazing. (wow, that section on the stages of hyperthermia, just wow.)

i'm impressed by this in how he handled all of it and expanded my mind so much as i was reading. ( )

Digital audiobook read by the author.

From the book jacket: In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through a place called the Devil’s Highway. They entered a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it. For hundreds of years, men have tried to conquer this land, and the desert has stolen their souls and swallowed their blood. Along the Devil’s Highway, days are so hot that dead bodies naturally mummify almost immediately. And that May, twenty-six men went in. Twelve came back out.

My reactions:
This was a horrifying episode and Urrea’s reporting of it in this book earned a nomination for a Pulitzer. He handles the details of the journey with competing emotions: hope, outrage, compassion, frustration, despair. He is honest about what happened and fair when reporting both the positions of “The 26” and of the Border Patrol agents.

Urrea has spent time in this landscape, and he writes poetically about the colors of the desert at dawn, the flora and fauna, the beauty of this incredibly dangerous place. I could feel the searing heat (just writing about it now, I keep reaching for my water bottle), the grit in my socks, the pain of a cactus spine in my finger. The author’s detailed descriptions of the affects of such heat on the human body are clinically accurate … and horrifying to imagine going through.

I found these two video interviews with the author:
(short video about Devil’s Highway) https://billmoyers.com/content/luis-alberto-urreas-change-of-heart/
Longer expansive interview with Urrea about his background and his work: https://billmoyers.com/segment/luis-alberto-urreas-border-crossing-journeys/

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author. I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job of the narration. ( )

Reading this right after reading the Wager about a shipwreck really throws you into the extremes of the earth. Rather than being stranded on frozen rocky islands, these people are roasted alive in the deserts between the US and Mexico desperately trying to get to safety. Boarder patrol is such a paradoxical job, caring deeply about getting people out alive while trying to keep them away at the same time. There is a lot of casual racism and gallows humor on the job. This is harrowing and heartbreaking and really needs a solution. ( )

“Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names, couldn’t remember where they’d come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost… They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear. Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their scalps, old sweat because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their systems. They were beyond rational thought.” – Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway

In 2001, a group of twenty-six Mexican men crossed into the southern Arizona at a location called “The Devil’s Highway.” After a few days lost in desert in 100-degree heat, with water running out, their guide abandoned them. The account starts with hope and optimism and ends in suffering and death from hyperthermia.

Urrea covers the event from many perspectives. He gives background on the lives of the Mexican men, showing how they lived and what they hoped to achieve. He provides information about the human smuggling operation, explaining how the organization preys on their targets by minimizing the risks and offering “loans” at high rates of interest to fund the journey. He examines the role of the Border Patrol agents, who perform dangerous work in extreme conditions. “If it was the Border Patrol’s job to apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and the dying.”

Though he researches and documents this event as a journalist, Urrea has written a number of novels, and his style is that of a skilled storyteller. The author is a Mexican American with experience in living near the border. I found this book enlightening and recommend it to anyone that wants to gain more understanding of the many complexities of the U.S.-Mexico border situation.
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Constantly, throughout this book, this author refers to the people trying to cross the border as "illegals." And I think to myself, excuse me? We are all living on stolen land.
P.7:
"Today the ancient hohokam have vanished, like the anasazi, long gone in the North period their edgings and ruins still got the ground; unexplained radiating lines lead away from the center like ghost roads and the shape of a great star period not all of these paths are ancient period some of them lines have been made by The illegals, cutting across the waste to the bar lights of ajo, or cells, for the Mohawk rest area on i-8. Others are old beyond dating, and no one knows where they lead. footprints of long-dead cowboys are still there, wagon rats and meal scuffs period and beneath these, the prince of the phantom hohokam themselves."

P.35:
"Of course, the illegals have always been called names other than human -- wetback, taco bender. (A Mexican worker said: 'if I am a wet back because I crossed the river to get here, what are you, who crossed an entire ocean?'). In politically correct times, 'illegal alien' was deemed gauche, so 'undocumented worker' came into favor. Now, however, the term preferred by the Arizona press is 'undocumented entrant.' As if the United States were a militarized beauty pageant."

I looked up this on Google maps. it's a very small lot that he's talking about, and right next to it is a building called casa de los ninos. I found nothing to indicate that it was haunted.
P.13:
"A young Tucson man stops at a table in a Mexican restaurant and addresses the gathered eaters. He has overheard their conversation about the desert. He pulls up a chair and launches into his tale.
he is a warlock in training, studying with one of the many shamans plying their trade in the area. He smiles and confesses that a certain aspect of Tucson is bothering him. That empty dirt lot? Over on the corner of 4th and speedway? Like, a couple blocks from the Yokohama Rice bowl?
the master has shown him that the lot has always been vacant, empty since the 1600s. Nobody has ever dared build upon it, and the houses around the lot are plagued by ghosts and poltergeists. But they're not really ghosts. Dude, they're demons. It's one of the seven open Gates of hell. A magus can sit in his pickup and summon the beast while eating a teriyaki bowl and diet coke.
Thus, the small narrative is also about tucson, the civilized part of desolation, a city with its own secrets and holes. A desert can be a scrape of land or a small gravel lot. You can imagine the spirit of the empty places. The place is named for the devil himself."

P.79-80:
"all along the line, the tireless border patrol drives, flies, walks. They hit the trails on small ATVs like weekend dune buggy enthusiasts. The heroic BORSTAR rescuers hunt for people in trouble. The secretive BORTAC SWAT troops (called 'the hunter killers' by one cactus Cop) go on their covert missions. a legendary unit of Customs flits in and out of the Night like ghosts, the 'Shadow wolves,' native American trackers who hunt down drug runners. added to the mix is the DEA, Often belittled by local cops: 'DEA means Don't Expect Anything.' BLM cops. And at at each border crossing are the Border Guards (not, the border patrol wants you to know, what they do)– INS agents.
there are also big angry white men in jeeps, two separate groups of 'citizen' border Watchers working the Western desert outside of tucson. And the human rights groups are also wandering around, hoping to save dying walkers and placing water jugs on the trail. then there are the prospectors, drug smugglers, journalists, scientists, FBI, Park rangers, Park service cops, BLM agents, military police, ranchers, indians, outlaw biker gangs. scattered here and there are small groups of militias and 'Patriot militias,' their trailers pulled into secure configurations, upside down American flags and black mia/pow flags and the occasional jolly Roger fluttering in the wind.
with so many hunters trying to catch jesus, it's a wonder he managed to get lost."

One of the walkers (border crossers) who died. The United States used to be a nicer country to live in; we didn't used to have whole blocks of unhoused people living in tents, cardboard boxes. When You observe the living conditions and poverty that they came from, you understand why they were so desperate to try to earn more money in El Norte:
P.147:
"Rafael Temich Gonzalez was a quiet 28-year-old corn farmer from Apixtla. he looked severe, almost Aztec or Maya in his features. But he had an easy smile and was quick to laugh. He had good manners, and he talked with his hands: when asked a question he didn't know the answer to, he put his hand before his mouth, palm out, and shrugged, 'I don't know.'
Rafael lived in a thatch-roofed home on a dirt road. you had to be careful in these grass and palm frond houses – scorpions and killer banana spiders could fall out of the fronds. Huge tropical roaches and beetles fell on you in your sleep like warm rain in some of the infested homes. small lizards – cachorras – ran the walls, licking up the mosquitoes and slower bugs.
in this hut, Rafael took care of an extended family. along with his wife and one-year-old daughter, he supported his mother, two sisters, and their four daughters. all of them slept together in the house."

P.166:
" 'when we got sick,' Jose Bautista says, 'there was no shade. so I crawled up to hide in the rocks. one of the boys went crazy and started jumping up and down. He started screaming, "mama! Mama! I don't want to die!" He ran up to a big cactus and started smashing his face against it. I don't know what his name was.'
Nahum and his companions were hiding in the trees.
A voice carried on the still air, crying, 'mother, save me!'
Mario Gonzalez Manzano and his brother isidro, far ahead on their attempt to find rescue, watched their brother Walk away, In search of escape.
'somebody said the freeway was right there, right over the hills,' he said. 'they lied.'
Isidro and Mario were in luck: they found some prickly pears – tuna in spanish. 'we ate the tunas to stay alive,' Mario says.
the liquid in the cactus fruit spared him. He would only see dead bodies when he got to a border patrol truck and saw them stacked inside.
the sign of the Dead could be ghastly and haunting. one of the men tore off his shirt and tried to bury himself. the Hither and thither he left all around him showed violent kicking and arm flailing, as if he were swimming. he managed to get the top half of his torso buried in the ground, where he either smothered or passed out. The relentless heat baked him, literally cooking him in the ground. his face bloated and came loose from the bones, tender as barbecued pork.
RayMundo Jr collapsed in his father's arms. RayMundo senior held him as he died. Shook him, cried over him. He called for help, but the only thing that might have helped his son was water."

Vargas, Mexican consul in Calexico, accompanied the dead bodies on the plane back to Veracruz. On arrival, the governor had staged a media show:
P.199:
"She asked to see the families. The Mexicans led her into a passenger lounge inside the main building. the government had arranged for a photogenic young woman to step forward for the cameras. Vargas was bemused. The grieving families were kept back while the young woman recited a prepared document. Every moment of the arrival had been stage managed.
Tired, disgusted, Vargas withDrew to a hotel. but she couldn't sleep. She wandered the room, lay on the bed, paced. finally she gave up and called for a taxi. she found a last minute flight back to the United states.
Later, she calculated that the dead men's flight alone had cost over $68,000.
'what if,' she asked, 'somebody had simply invested that amount in their villages to begin with?' "

The coyote who had led the border crossers through the desert, got lost, but wouldn't admit it to his followers, decided he would admit nothing.
P.199:
The survivors began their ping pong journey through the system. Mendez [Jesus' alias], mute and surly in the eyes of the cops, went to jail in phoenix. he was parked in a 6x9 cell. hoots and curses, clangs and stench, industrial paint, steel, cement, slippers, jail suits, gang-bangers, bad food, noise, light bulbs in iron cages. You crapped near your bunk and slept in your own smell. He watched black men, exotic creatures. Listened to the babbling of Ingles. Radios.
Gerald williams, his defender, came to see him and started trying to construct a defense. Williams, a veteran of the public defender system, was a dapper African american. This no doubt was of great interest to mendez. but Mendez was still playing it all close to the vest. when the consular agents of the Mexican government arrived to interview him, he was unwilling to give them information. he stonewalled their questions. his only enthusiasm was when he asked them to contact his mother in guadalajara."

Good Samaritans leave small way stations throughout the desert, Stocking them with jugs of water and canned food.
P.214:
"in arizona, critics are more direct. immigration protests have a homegrown cowboy feel to them. toxic materials appear in jugs that look like drinking water. humane borders' water stations are vandalized, the 300 gallon tanks broken open so they run dry. Small groups of Mexicans are found tied and shot in the head."

The author has a Latino last name, but throughout the book, he shows no sense of being a fellow Latino. As mentioned before, he continues to call the border crossers "illegals."



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