What an amazing book. I was impressed with this book, the largest reason being is that it opened my eyes to the border “war” going on. Surprisingly, the two factions are not America versus Mexican Illegal Immigrants, as most imagine, but more of the local enforcement (both American and Mexican Border Patrol, nearby Police localities, ect.) versus the “Coyotes “, organized crime that charges the immigrants to cross, only to be mistreat and sometimes outright abandon their charges, leaving them to often death in the desert. The Immigrants are the ones caught up between them, just because the Coyotes see an opening that people are willing to pay for and the BP trying to stop them.
What also intrigues me is that there is no uniform “Bad Guy.” One by the end begins to feel for all the pre-determined “Bad Guys”, whether that is the Immigrants, Border Patrol, Coyotes, or Governments. In the end, at least for me, the characters that are consistently the antagonists become the Coyotes, but at least one feels for some of them, and the politics and/or corruption in both governments, which is in some cases bad on both sides.
Lastly, one starts to actually understand why one would make the choices that the poor make. One example in the book was that politicos often have the idea that if the poor would stop having more children, then there would be more food/jobs/ect. However, they do not understand that the children are an investment to the future. When so many die young from various “environmental” pressures, the few that grow up become the insurance to the parents so that they can be taken care of when they are unable to work. To not have children would endanger your their own life, because few would then care if they became sick or injured, and also another source of income when well.
I would definitely recommend this book, so that it at least would dispel the myths surrounding the Border.
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