Search results matching tags 'border' and 'Luis Alberto Urrea'

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

Legal Ease?: Breaking the Ice

Sarah Samson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:31:00 GMT

I heard on the news today that in a recent poll, most Americans didn't understand the terms of the Immigration Bill that went before Congress last week. That makes sense to me--so many of us have opinions about immigration, but few of us take the time to really learn and understand the issue in all its complexity.

Luis Alberto Urrea, the author of The Devil's Highway has started "Immigration Monday" on his blog--one day a week he'll explore the issue of immigration with his readers. Here's what he has to say:

"It's just a small acorn of an idea--let's see what happens. Maybe a scraggly tree will grow. I hope to post something about immigration/border issues here every week. Might be nothing--might be a book. I don't know. I have invited others to take part, so I hope to post essays, notes, letters, poems from other writers about the topic. For and against. I don't care what position people take, as long as they are informed. Lots of inflammation out there, but there's no information. Has anybody ever explained to you what "illegal immigration" means? By law? What law is being broken? What is the precise law: what does it say? Let's look into it. Are there any really informative new books about the subject? Let's see. Links to articles? Right here. Let's make a full-service immigration site. Just one day a week. The rest of the week, we can explore writing and soul and gardens and family together. But it might be amazing to see what we come up with. I don't mean the royal "we," either. I mean you and me. Send me somethin'." You can read more of his blog here: http://lavistaluisurrea.blogspot.com/

I think Mr. Urrea's idea is great--I'd like to do something similar on the Round Rock Reads! blog. I invite anyone to send me comments about their views on immigration, good articles, links, anything that will help us understand the issue better. I don't care what side you are on! In the meantime, I'll continue to write about articles, interviews, and websites that I see related to immigration and The Devil's Highway. Tomorrow I'm going to write about The Dustin Inman Society. Stay Tuned.

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!