Round Rock Reads! : The Devil's Highway

The author speaks

Sarah Samson — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 21:17:00 GMT

I got a response from Mr. Urrea this week answering the questions some of us had about his book, The Devil's Highway. I'll post his response here. The questions I asked him in my email were: Why did you write the book? And, are you in touch with any of the survivors?

Here is his response:

" ...As far as why the book was written: it was a request from New York. After Across the Wire, By the Lake of Sleeping Children, and Nobody's Son (about to be re-released with a beautiful new cover, by the way), I thought I was through with the border. I certainly had no plans to write another book about it.

However, Little, Brown contacted me and basically told me they thought I was the only writer who could tackle this tragedy and do it justice. They wanted a "Trojan horse." In other words, a men-in-peril adventure that snuck secrets and revelations about immigration and immigrants into Mainstream America. What a challenge!

I never knew I'd be doing that duty for the Border Patrol too. But, I think, that's what helped make the book valuable.

The survivors. This is an interesting situation. Only recently have they been released from their vows of silence by lawyers and Immigration officials. The various lawsuits and criminal trials are over.

Through my movie team (how tacky does that sound) we have all been in touch with the widows and the people who went back home to Veracruz. We actually have some footage of them at their homes talking about it. The small cadre of men that survived, led by Nahum, still resides in Phoenix, with immunity provided by the US Government. But they are afraid of exposure and leery of "fame." Nahum, in fact, was going to come to my last series of readings in Arizona, but declined at the last minute. Mendez, on the other hand, remains in prison under death threats to himself and his loved ones. He will not talk. His lawyer has taken him correspondence from me, and the movie guys have tried to get him to open up, but he won't even answer their letters.

Now, the law enforcement side and the consular side have been very much in touch with me over these years.

Honestly, I thought I'd report on it and then move on and it would all be forgotten. I had no idea there would be a strange little Devil's Highway industry. I'm glad I didn't know, or I would have been more timid in my writing. I wrote with the kind of rage and fatalism of someone who was sure nobody gave a damn and wouldn't pay attention anyway. Oops. When the Pulitzer thing happened, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

Luis

The Book

Sarah Samson — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:27:00 GMT

We had a great brown-bag discussion of The Devil's Highway last Saturday. Near the end of the event, we came up with a few questions for Mr. Urrea, the author, so I've been waiting to post until I heard back from him. Well, he hasn't responded yet, but I promise I will let you know when he does. This is what we decided to ask him:

Are you in touch with any of the survivors? How are they doing?
Why did you write The Devil's Highway?

Many of us attending the discussion shared with the group what a difficult read Devil's Highway was, painful to read about people suffering so much, going through the stages of heat exhaustion, and then many of them ultimately dying. It's grim. I appreciated that Urrea told the story as if he were a reporter, he did not over-emotionalize or over-identify with any one character, making the story more bearable for me to read. From the Border Patrol cop, to the immigrants from Veracruz, he gave us a picture of each individual; there were no "good" or "bad" guys, they were all people trying to do what they thought was the right thing for them to be doing.

One person at the discussion read an especially poignant quote from near the end of the book: (page 198, 199)

"Vargas watched as each coffin was carried from the plane to great tumult. One by one, they were laid inside the waiting hearses.....Later, she calculated that the dead men's flight alone had cost over sixty-eight thousand dollars.

'What if,' she asked, 'somebody had simply invested that amount in their villages to begin with?'

Something to think about.

Beginning our Journey

Sarah Samson — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 21:58:00 GMT

Since I finished reading the book, I realize I really don't know a lot about the issue of immigration. This weekend, I set out to educate myself. For this post, I'll start with listing some good websites, links and facts about immigration. For my next post, I'll get into some resources and articles that will help us understand the different positions on the immigration debate.

First I started with a pop quiz from the Census Bureau's website to find out how ignorant I really am. I did lousy--five questions and I didn't get one right on my first guess. My score was 225. How did you all do?

So now it's Sunday night, and I'm a little more educated about the statistics. Here are some things I found out: there are approximately 11.5 to 12 million undocumented people currently living in the U.S., according to the PEW Hispanic Center. Most of these immigrants are from Mexico (56 percent), 22 percent are from other parts of Latin America, and the rest are mostly from South and East Asia. Immigrants in the USA sent $40 billion to their relatives and friends in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2005, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). You can read some more basic immigration statistics here.

At the end of The Devil's Highway, Mr. Urrea suggests some non-fiction books for further reading: Dead in Their Tracks by John Annerino, Down by the River by Charles Bowden, Coyotes by Ted Conover, Border by Lila Downs, Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexican Border by Ken Ellingwood. Most of these books are available at the Round Rock Library. I'm definitely going to check one out!

Hit the Road: The Devil's Highway

Sarah Samson — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:20:00 GMT

In May 2001, 26 men crossed the Mexican border into the desert of Southern Arizona and only 12 made it out alive.

Round Rock Reads! has begun!

On May 31, Mayor Nyle Maxwell announced the winning book for Round Rock's first community-wide book club.

The book is entitled The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea. Pick up a copy at the Round Rock Public Library and read it during the month of June and join in the discussion.

We want to hear what you think!

In July, the library will host a panel discussion, a film documentary, and a book club discussion that will tie into the book and its themes.

I read The Devil's Highway in just a few days. The topic of human suffering is always tough. However, the struggle to endure hardship for the potential of a better life can be pretty inspiring. And, it's an issue that affects everyone. Whatever "side" you are on in the immigration debate, after reading this book, you can't help but care about these men and their plight. It's easy to forget sometimes that real people are involved in the news stories we hear on TV. This book offers a fresh perspective on a hot button issue.

During the next few weeks, I'll write posts about The Devil's Highway and I would love to hear your comments about the book. Did it inspire you? Did it make you think differently about the Immigration issue? How so?