From the Bookshelf of The Roundtable…

The Devil's Highway: A True Story

Luis Alberto Urrea

Start date: June 1, 2017

Finish date: June 30, 2017

Discussion: Nonfiction Group Read

Why we're reading this: Winner of our June 2017 nonfiction poll.
[close] Winner of our June 2017 nonfiction poll.

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Nonfiction Group Read

August - Savage Harvest
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What Members Thought

Jun 04, 2017 El rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-a-blink, 21st-centurylit, cultural-studies-and-other, library-borrow

We all know that in our current political climate, there are very strong feelings by people on every side when it comes to the issue of immigration and refugees. There has long been talk about a wall being built between the United States and Mexico, to prevent people from crossing the border and, y'know, "taking our jobs" or whatever. I'm not interested in having a political debate with anyone about this topic, but a wall is fucking stupid.

In any case.

In 2001, 26 men attempted to cross the borde We all know that in our current political climate, there are very strong feelings by people on every side when it comes to the issue of immigration and refugees. There has long been talk about a wall being built between the United States and Mexico, to prevent people from crossing the border and, y'know, "taking our jobs" or whatever. I'm not interested in having a political debate with anyone about this topic, but a wall is fucking stupid.

In any case.

In 2001, 26 men attempted to cross the border from Mexico into Southern Arizona which is, if you look at a map, ALL DESERT. They paid money to be guided through this part of the desert which is known as the Devil's Highway. Of the 26 men who went in, only 12 survived.

Luis Alberto Urrea did a decent job getting into the minds of the people on every side of this issue, from the ones taking the money from those who wished to make the journey, to the journeymen themselves, to the Border Patrol workers who fear the Devil's Highway for knowing just how deadly and unforgiving a terrain it can be.

As a white woman living in the US 16 years after these events, I find it heartbreaking that people have to go to such great lengths to go somewhere in order to make a better life for themselves and their family. I come from a very privileged background and cannot imagine, and so because of this privilege comes a lot of idealism about how things should never have to be this complicated for anyone. The sad thing is, of course, that while this particular event took place in 2001, it's not an entirely isolated situation. People die all of the time trying to cross borders, whether they are North American or not, and it always seems to be senseless AF.

In this particular case, I'm frustrated because all of the events these men encountered could have been avoided. The men who chose to be guided were misinformed and therefore were not prepared to spend any significant amount of time in a desert setting - many of the deaths could have been prevented had they been properly informed on the right clothes to wear, the right provisions to bring, the right expectation of how long the journey would take, instead of just being told that they were "almost there".

I was able to read this book in one day. It's a quick read, even though it's not always an easy read as Urrea wanted to humanize each of the different men who made the trek to the best of his ability. This is, sadly, still a timely topic (more so, actually, in some ways) than when it was originally published. I don't know if reading this book would change anyone's feelings about immigration, but I think it's worth reading and understanding all of the facts. ...more

26 likes · Like · see review

Jun 27, 2016 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 21st-century, audiobooks, non-fiction, favorites, american

The border between the U.S. and Mexico is a mythical, brutal place. A no-man's land that men often cross through, or die in. In May 2014, two dozen men entered "the Devil's Highway", a stretch of desert between Sonora in Mexico and Yuma, Arizona in America. Fourteen of these men did not come out alive.

This is not an uncommon fate for "undocumented entrants"; hundreds of migrants die every year trying to gain entry to America. (1,954 people died crossing the border between 1998 and 2004*. Heat st ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Jun 23, 2017 Wendy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, american-west, 2017

Having lived in Tucson and participated in the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, this book hit uncomfortably close to home. While these days SARA mostly evacuates lost hikers who run out of water in the summer heat, they used to participate in border "body pickups" and I heard plenty of disturbing stories from some of the veteran members. Having been on calls where lost hikers nearly succumbed to the heat after a few hours in the Catalinas' blazing summer heat, the level of suffering the Yuma ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Jun 04, 2017 Sera rated it really liked it

Shelves: library, non-fiction

A non-fictional account of Mexican men who died trying to cross the US border in Yuma, Arizona. The author tells us why these men were trying to come to the US, the mechanism that they were using to get there, and most importantly, how they likely died.

I didn't know anything about this subject matter, and this book may seem like a strange place to start, but it actually provided a great context to what was happening along the Arizona-Mexican border in the early 2000s. The book provides much inf ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 02, 2017 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, libraryrealbook

Why does Mexico martyrize the men and women of it's country who die trying to escape it's borders looking for a better life?

It really struck me that the cost of burying the fallen, of sending them back to Mexico could have been put to such better purposes if it had been invested before these men took their fateful journey.

I listened to this on audio, and then read it in paperback to make sure I know what I'm doing with audio. It was an interesting experiment.

I think the descriptions of dying o ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 09, 2017 Heather(Gibby) rated it really liked it

This is a book about a specific group of people, but told within the complicated multileveled bureaucracy of illegal immigration. The author is able to tell the story without vilifying any of the players (except the top dogs who are the ones profiting without any risk).
Some of the numbers presented are staggering, hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings every year. I also was very intrigued about the reasoning behind why USA does not grant citizenship to long term, productive citizens who ar ...more

1 like · Like · see review