Book Corner

We welcome your reviews of books that

• were published within the past two years
• do not advocate for a political party or politician
• do address issues supported by the League, and
• intrigued you enough that you want to share them.

Please submit your review at any time to Margan and Thad Zajdowicz (Margan.Zajdowicz [at] gmail.com).

The Line Becomes a River
Dispatches from the Border

By Francisco Cantú

He grew up learning about the desert from his mother, a park ranger near El Paso, Texas. He studied foreign policy and government in college while memories of the desert lived in his heart. After graduation, he joined the Border Patrol to understand the issues facing the immigrants who crossed the desert during all seasons of the year, all too often dying in the attempt.

Cantú relates his experiences at the Border Patrol Academy as he learns necessary skills: tracking the lightest traces across the desert floor, firearms training, physical fitness, and first aid. He then puts on the Border Patrol uniform and starts work, conversing with colleagues and getting to know his boss. He finds abandoned stashes of narcotics, usually after the drug runners have fled. Heaps of personal possessions are left behind as the exhausted and frightened immigrants trek across the open country, country populated by poisonous snakes and plants as well as hostile animals and humans. Soon his first-aid skills are tested by men and women left behind by coyotes guiding groups that must move as fast as they can. He hears stories from the people he meets and from his mother and her friends:

“The rancher explained how he used to get calls from men who said they wanted to buy land to ranch on. They would buy up property but they wouldn’t ranch it, he said, they knew nothing about ranching. They wanted the land so that they could hunt people along the border. They moved in and welcomed other men to join them, men with assault rifles and night-vision goggles and bullet-proof vests. He told my mother that he hated dealing with these men. He hated them, but he understood them.” (pp. 89–90)

In time, Francisco is promoted to intelligence officer and reports for work in an air-conditioned office with banks of computers. He is haunted by sights he has seen, stories that he has heard. He reads research studies about the damage to those who deal with the brutality of life in a place like Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a lawless city ruled by narcotics dealers and other criminals.

Finally, Francisco decides this life is not for him. He leaves the Border Patrol to return to university studies and finds a job at a campus coffee shop. He befriends people who don’t know his past career. He looks forward every day to sharing food with José, the caretaker of the grounds around his coffee shop. José, who came to the United States from Oaxaca as a child, has lived in the neighborhood for thirty-five years but still enjoys looking at his mother’s house in Mexico on his phone, courtesy of Google Earth.

One day José does not arrive for coffee. Days pass before Francisco and Donna, who runs the store across the street, learn that José has been arrested by the Border Patrol as he tried to return to Texas from Oaxaca, where his mother has just died. As his final mission on the border, Francisco meets José’s family—his wife Lupe and his three sons—and searches for a way to reunite the family.

This short but vivid memoir of life as a Border Patrol officer shook me to my core. Buy or borrow this book. You won’t regret reading it.

—Elsa Pendleton, Co-chair, Immigration Committee