Published in LiP Magazine
[http://www.lipmagazine.org]

THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY
by Luis Alberto Urrea

review by Kari Lydersen
12.05.04

THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY IS A STRIP OF DEADLY DESERT along the US-Mexico border in a region where, on average, at least one migrant has died every day of the past few years. For the thousands of immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, and even sometimes Asia and Africa who cross the border here, it really is like hell on earth: an endless swath of jagged mountains and blazing stretches of sand, teeming with Border Patrol agents, corrupt police officers, brutal smugglers, scorpions and rattlesnakes, all under a relentlessly cruel sun.

After reading acclaimed author Luis Alberto Urrea's The Devil's Highway, you'll feel like you have personally walked through this hell.

Urrea is perhaps best known as a poet and novelist, but here he turns his gifts to a more journalistic endeavor, recounting in excruciating detail the deaths of 14 migrants out of a group of 26 over Memorial Day weekend 2001. Much has been written about the border in general and the deaths of migrants specifically, but Urrea manages to bring the tragic situation to life in a way few others have: "Walkers see demons, see God, see dead relatives and crystal cities. They vomit blood. The only clear thought in your mind now is: I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty..." His meticulous research-based on scores of interviews and hours spent with survivors of the ill-fated journey, family members of the dead, Border Patrol agents, police officers, coroners, doctors, border activists and more-takes readers on the doomed migrants' journey. You feel their hope as the group sets out, led by Rooster Boy, a young coyote (human smuggler) with a punk-rock haircut. You share their motivations: to earn enough money to build a house or open a store or simply feed a wife and children. You feel the foreboding as things start to go wrong, as the more experienced coyotes ditch the trip, as Rooster Boy tries to fake his way through. You feel the terror and despair as the group walks in circles, lost in the desert, turning on each other and losing their minds along the way. You see the dying drop and melt in the unforgiving heat:

He went on all fours, and sometimes he went on his knees like a religious penitent. The world of sin and grace spun in flaming disks around his head. He fell. He rose. He lay. He crawled. He tried to rise. He sat down.... The coma came up from the ground and covered him. "Celia? I'll get up in just a minute." Sleep.

And you see the senseless tragedy of the border realities as society scrambles to pick up the pieces, assign blame, comfort the families and the survivors and ultimately stumble on along the same path that created this horror in the first place.

Though it would be easy to blame Rooster Boy for the deaths-he was earning money off the migrants, refusing to admit when he was lost, refusing to turn back while there was still time, maybe even abandoning them under the guise of looking for help-Urrea puts him in the context of the forces both driving and criminalizing immigration. In the end, he's a youth who wanted a different life and realized he could make more money smuggling people than making roof tiles, who got in over his head and didn't know what to do. ("I really am sorry from the bottom of my heart for what happened and it honestly wasn't my intention to lead those people to their deaths," Rooster Boy, whose real name is Jesus Lopez Ramos, wrote in a letter to the judge who would sentence him to prison. "My intention was to help them cross the border.")

Many blame the Border Patrol for violence and death in the border regions: for failing to do a better job of finding desperate migrants, for focusing on enforcement more than aid, for committing violence against migrants themselves. As he does with Rooster Boy, Urrea treats them with nuance, describing some Border Patrol agents and local police who were sympathetic to the migrants, and deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the senseless tragedy of their deaths.

There's nothing polemical about The Devil's Highway, but it says perfectly, with only a smattering of facts and figures, what more analytical progressive tomes struggle to do. Urrea exposes the complete failure and hypocrisy of US immigration and border policy-a policy that tacitly encourages thousands of migrants to come into the country as domestic, agricultural, industrial and other workers, but forces them to walk a gauntlet of death to get here, thus keeping the ones who make it subservient and fearful lest they get deported and have to make the expensive, treacherous trek again.

As throughout much of the book, Urrea's last passage describing the men's saga juxtaposes the heartbreakingly minute details of lives and deaths with the larger political and emotional significance of their saga:

The dead men were loose now. Their feet bobbled when the carts bumped into each other as they were lined up, like they were tapping their feet, or waking up. Most of their eyes were open. Small sounds escaped from a couple of the bodies as gases moved through them. Almost sighs. Rustling in their bags. If you listened, you could hear them whispering. We're going home.

[ L i P ]

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE TO A FRIEND. CLICK HERE.

Reproduction of material from any LiP pages without written permission is strictly prohibited | Copyright 2002 LiPmagazine.org | info@lipmagazine.org