Risking it all in the hope of a better life

A seriously compelling read, one of those you can barely stand to have to put the book down to attend to life. The quality of the storytelling is what makes this novel so unput-down-able, as well as its characters whom one comes to root for so deeply. It also has a plotline which is swift moving, tensed and suspenseful, and extremely realistic and credible. 

The novel begins in Acapulco, Mexico, with a mass shooting of the protagonist’s family at a quinceanera BBQ, a family celebration for Lydia’s 15 year old niece, whom she is also godmother to. Lydia, owner of a bookshop (by the lovely name Palabras y Paginas) is married to a famous journalist, who writes exposes of cartels and cartel jefes. In the cartel’s retaliation for the consequences of one such article, Lydia loses 16 family members in a matter of minutes, when they are all shot and killed. Lydia who hides in the bathroom with 8 year old son, Luca, are the only survivors. 

The story is of how Lydia and Luca flee for their lives, trying to escape while knowing the Los Jardineros cartel have pronounced a death sentence on them. They travel to the borders of their own country, Mexico, joining many other migrants from Honduras, Guatemala, etc. all attempting to cross the Mexico-US border, all headed el norte. The story tells of their travels (mostly on board La Bestia, the cargo train, which migrants board even while its moving, or jumping onto it from overpasses, risking life and limb), and all the travails and risks and harms the migrants sustain. There are also details of safehouses, Casa del Migrantes, where migrants can find food, shelter, and rest while they refuel themselves for the next leg of the gruelling journeys. There are unscrupulous people who prey on the migrants, but there are also many ordinary people who help them, giving them refuge, food packets, blessings, water, medical aid, entirely out of compassion.  

In one of the Casa del Migrantes in Celaya, a padre who helps migrants, gave them a pep talk. He tells them if it is possible to turn back, of they can return home safely, to do so.

This path is only for people who have no choice, no other option, only violence and misery behind you. And your journey will grow even more treacherous from here. Everything is working against you, to thwart you. Some of you will fall from trains. Many will be maimed or injured. Many will die. Many, many of you will be kidnapped, tortured, trafficked, or ransomed. Some will be lucky enough to survive all of that and make it as far as Estados Unidos only to experience the privilege of dying alone in a desert beneath the sun, abandoned by a corrupt coyote, or shot by a narco who doesn’t like the look of you. Every single one of you will be robbed. Every one. If you make to el norte, you will arrive penniless, that’s a guarantee. Look round you. Go ahead- – look at each other. Only one in three will make it to your destination alive.

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Then there are La Migras, some of them state agencies, some vigilantes, some from cartels (who have cross-border arrangements amongst themselves), who also at gun point, grab the migrants, take their money, abuse and rape them, kill them with impunity. Lydia pays 11,000 USD to a coyote (who has a good track record for getting rate of survival when people smuggling) for herself and her son to cross the border. The crossing is fraught with danger and difficulty of course, and yet, there are migrants who have done this many times, letting themselves be deported back home, spending a bit of time with family, then returning el norte to make money, taking those risks of border crossing over and over again. This novel illustrates vividly the hardships many undergo out of necessity, to become migrants, risking literally everything – family, health, livelihoods, survival – to make these migrations, and repeatedly too. It breaks the heart to read all the many stories of the characters Lydia and Luca meet en route, all with their own stories and backgrounds which prompted them into such risky ventures, but all ordinary people, who are forced into extraordinary deeds to survive. And if the padre is right, only one in three will survive the ordeal of migrating. An eye-opening novel.  

There is a note at the end about the author, who declares she has a “dog in the fight”, in the sense although she herself is a US citizen, she fell in love with a migrant, and the couple lived for years with the fear of his deportation and separation from each other. She explains candidly how she was not sure she ought to be the one telling this story, afraid her privilege may make her blind to certain truths, a nonmigrant and a non-Mexican herself;

“I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it.”

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She is also concerned depiction of violence may feed into the stereotypes of Mexico. But she is told that as many voices as possible should tell this story, and she felt she had the capacity to be a bridge. Cummins says she is more interested in victims than perpetrators, in those who suffer inconceivable hardship and triumph over extraordinary trauma. Most of all, she seemed to want the reader to individuate, to remember those migrants on the news are people, regular people. She was also frustrated by the depiction of Latino migrants in public discourse,

“At worst, we perceive them as an invading mob of resource-draining brown mass, clamouring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings. People with the agency to make their own decisions,  people who can contribute to their own bright futures, and to ours, as so many generations of oft-reviled immigrants have done before them”

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So there is little doubt as to where the author’s sympathies lie. But the story is so well told here that it would be a joy for any reader, wherever their sympathies may lie.