Latino Literature

The Devil’s Highway by Luis Urrea is not a novel that I would generally pick up for light reading. Urrea’s thorough research and documentarian style of writing make the horrifying elements of the story that much more realistic and emotionally impacting. The novel addresses the reality of the corruption, racism, and greed that divides people on either side of the Mexican/American border, as well as the existence of honorable people and their acts that bring people together. This range of ethical behavior forces the reader to reevaluate the idea of “us” and “them” by asking which matters more: cultural, political, and skin color differences, or moral differences in regard to human life.

From what I have heard regarding the reasoning that anti-immigration people have for supporting their views, many of them have fallen victim to the habit of de-humanizing the immigrants (especially in the Mexican/American border case). Rather than joining those who support their beliefs with reasonable political or economic reasoning, these people use their hatred of difference to justify actions that, if committed against an American, would be considered an atrocity. In The Devil’s Highway, Urrea writes that the border is patrolled by many groups, not just the Border Patrol. Of these, the American “vigilante” groups who take the law into their own hands are the most violent and unforgiving. However, this trait isn’t confined to Americans: the Coyotes refer to the walkers as pollo, or a chicken that has been cooked. Urrea spends almost the entire remainder of the book reestablishing the Mexican immigrant’s humanity in the eyes of the reader by emphasizing their universal human characteristics.

Geography is one of the borders that Urrea focuses on in the novel, specifically the desert that separates the United States from Mexico. Since the only way that the border can be crossed without proper documentation is through the desert, it has begun to be associated solely with illegal immigrants and is seen as the separating factor between the two nations. However, Urrea cites two other specific instances (of which I’m sure there are hundreds more) to support the idea that “not only Mexicans die in this desert” (Urrea 117). The first was an American couple who went camping in the desert with their dune buggy and didn’t take enough water, as well as a second couple who went hiking in the desert and never came back. Urrea ends the section with the simple but evocative statement: “In the desert, we are all illegal aliens” (Urrea 120).

One of the sections of the novel that I found the most mentally stimulating (and stomach-turning) contained the step-by-step description of the process of dying of hyperthermia (Urrea 120-129). At first, the gruesome detail of the passage felt unnecessary to me, but I believe that Urrea was emphasizing the universal nature of the human body’s limits. Although there could be some discrepancies based on the person’s prior health or preparation, there are borders and limits that the human body cannot come back from, no matter where it was born.

Urrea made an interesting point as to how the borders of identity and body intersect in instances such as that of the Yuma 14. He raised the question as to what creates identity, and if identity is lost when the body is no longer recognizable. The list of “John Does” and their meager belongings emphasized the fact that without the body’s context clues, the belongings give little to no insight into their identity. Without making a direct statement, Urrea makes the reader consider what would happen to us in a similar situation and what our belongings would say about us.

All of this effort put into recognizing the humanity of the immigrants in The Devil’s Highway effectively restructures the mental borders that separate people into groups. It prompts the reader to consider which factor is more important by which to identify themselves: national/political/cultural affiliation, or moral affiliation. In my opinion there are two clear groups established in the novel: not Mexicans vs. Americans, but those who respect human life vs. those who don’t. Urrea does an excellent job of dispelling some of the previous stereotypes about the “unfeeling” Border Patrol (who actually take their job to rescue the lost very seriously) and the “freedom-seeking Coyotes” (who actually lead groups for the payment they will receive and call their followers “cooked chickens”). This new arrangement of borders and boundaries provides a completely different way for the reader to develop their own understanding of “us” and “them”.

Bibliography:

Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil's Highway: A True Story. New York: Back Bay, 2005. Print.