Title: The Line Becomes a River Pdf Dispatches from the Border
Author: Francisco Cantu
Published Date: 2019-02-05
Page: 288
“A must-read for anyone who thinks “build a wall” is the answer to anything.” —Esquire"Fresh, urgent...A devastating narrative of the very real human effects of depersonalized policy." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)“Cantú’s rich prose and deep empathy make this an indispensable look at one of America’s most divisive issues.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred)“There is a line dividing what we know and do not know. Some see the world from one shore and some from the other. Cantú brings the two together to a spiritual whole. My gratitude for this work of the soul.” —Sandra Cisneros “A beautiful, fiercely honest, and nevertheless deeply empathetic look at those who police the border and the migrants who risk – and lose -- their lives crossing it. In a time of often ill-informed or downright deceitful political rhetoric, this book is an invaluable corrective.” —Phil Klay, author of Redeployment"Francisco Cantu’s story is a lyrical journey that helps bridge the jagged line that divides us from them. His empathy reminds us of our humanity -- our immigrant history -- at a critical time.” —Alfredo Corchado, journalist, author of Midnight in Mexico"Cantú’s story, and intelligent and humane perspective, should mortify anyone who ever thought building a wall might improve our lot. He advocates for clarity and compassion in place of xenophobia and uninformed rhetoric. His words are emotionally true and his literary sensibility uplifting.” –Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men "This book tells the hard poetry of the desert heart. If you think you know about immigration and the border, you will see there is much to learn. And you will be moved by its unexpected music." –Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil’s Highway Francisco Cantú was an agent for the United States Border Patrol from 2008 to 2012, working in the deserts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. A former Fulbright fellow, he is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a 2017 Whiting Award, and a 2018 Art for Justice fellowship. His writing and translations have been featured in The New York Times, Best American Essays, Harper's, and Guernica, as well as on This American Life. He lives in Tucson and coordinates the Southwest Field Studies in Writing Program at the University of Arizona.
WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN CURRENT INTEREST
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NONFICTION AWARD
The instant New York Times bestseller, "A must-read for anyone who thinks 'build a wall' is the answer to anything." --Esquire
For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Driven to understand the hard realities of the landscape he loves, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Plagued by a growing awareness of his complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the full extent of the violence it wreaks, on both sides of the line.
The Border Frontline Francisco Cantu has a very interesting story to tell. Descended from Mexican immigrants, his family and the traditions associated with extended kinship are a central prism through which his story unfolds. A story that encompasses the two sides of the border, the people who cross the border searching for the american dream, and the people whose job it is to apply the law in order to secure that border. As a Border Patrol agent he is in the front line of this saga, witnessing firsthand the desperation and determination of the migrants who risk everything for a better way of life. The exploitation that they suffer at the hands of the smugglers who view them as just an income stream, and the inhumanity of the judicial system that only recognizes them as illegal aliens, committing a federal offense.However, once they cross, the migrants are the epitome of the hard working immigrants making good in their adopted country, having to suffer the perennial stigma of being undocumented, with all the trials and tribulations that come with that condition.Cantu does not offer any policy solutions, rather he just tells the stories of the people that are players in this drama. This is the strength of the book.Easy read, empathetic tale of people caught up in an impersonal system. An honest report by someone with his boots on the ground I picked up this book because the subject is topical and my local news suggested it contained some politically controversial material. The only thing that makes this book controversial is the presently vocal anti-immigrant hysteria of the American political Right. If the book had come out two years ago, no one would be declaring it controversial.An autobiographical story told in first person and covering a roughly 10 year period from the author's college graduation with a political science degree through and beyond his four year stint in the U.S. border patrol serving the south western United States. The author, being of Mexican heritage and raised in the South West, was drawn to the international border between the U.S. and Mexico, joining the border patrol to, as he put it, bring the theory he studied down to earth.There are a few flash backs to his earlier life, and some history of the border region, the 1860s war with Mexico that added the South West territories, Texas, and the southern half of California to the U.S. map, and also the impact of the Mexican Revolution of 1911. Much of the emotional conflict is revealed through dreams he had while serving on the border and later as his life never let him forget what he experienced.This is the story of a compassionate man in an in-compassionate job. He relates incidences of drug seizures, but notes that most of what he had to do was capture and return to Mexico people who wanted nothing more than to do some honest work and in many cases reunite with wives and in particular children born in the U.S. and so citizens. Many of these people die trying. Unlike a generation back, when crossing the border was relatively easy whether for work or criminal activity, it is now much more difficult and only the criminals have the resources to assure themselves of making the trip alive. The rest take their chances and thousands do not make it. The cruelty of criminal groups escorting migrants is on full display. People who cannot keep up in the many miles long trek across stony and water-less desert are simply left behind to die. The border patrol itself is complicit in some of these deaths destroying water and food, meant to sustain these people, where ever they find it.After four years the author cannot take more and quits the border patrol. The remainder of the book relates a friendship he develops with an undocumented Mexican immigrant who becomes trapped in the system, torn from his wife and children simply because he returns to Mexico to be with his dying mother and bury her. From there, he cannot get back and every attempt to do so traps him deeper and deeper in a system that cares nothing for compassionate people.This book is not political. Cantu avoids even mentioning much of politics, but merely reports what he experiences of an indifferent system and those trapped by it. He is most surely not opposed to interdicting drugs and deporting real criminals, but the vast majority of the migrant people involved are neither drug runners or criminals, but only criminalized by their desire to work and share a life with their spouses and children. If you are a compassionate person the book might bring you to tears. It is an honest report of the impact of an impersonal system on the lives of thousands of individuals who want nothing more than a life for themselves and their families. The political is mostly notable for its absence as the author tries, likely in vain for these times, to personalize these stories. There is nothing more controversial about it than that.
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