The Devil's Highway Analysis

‘Coyotes’ (Conover. T. 1987) was written in the hopes that it would help better understand the impact that illegal immigration had on the two societies, American and Mexican, and since Conover is an American citizen, and was at the

Urrea explores the “Devil’s Highway” through the lens of the cops and his vision, which are both gruesome and informative. The Border Patrol sectors are divided into two regions, Tucson and Yuma. These regions are called the “Devil’s Highway” due to the deaths of many illegal immigrants who attempted to cross the borders. Urrea describes one scene that illustrates the horrid deaths of the women and children who died while trying to cross the border. He writes, “All the agents seem to agree that the worst deaths are the young women and the children. Pregnant women with dying fetuses within them are not uncommon; young mothers have been found dead with infants attached to their breasts, still trying to nurse” (Urrea

Luis Alberto Urrea’s nonfiction novel reads more like a fictional adventure story than it does an account of events that actually transpired. The tragedy of this story is, of course, that it is not a story at all, but a retelling of the gruesome deaths of sixteen men in the Sonoran Desert. Urrea does not flippantly take the deaths of these men in vain for the entertainment value of his writing, but The Devil’s Highway does tread the line between fact and fiction. And, in true adventure novel form, it presents its audience with the ultimate villain: The Sonoran Desert, portrayed as both the setting and as a deep and complex character in its own right.

As I searched for a scholarly journal article on my heritage I found one called “Deaths in the Desert: The Human Rights Crisis on the U.S.-Mexico Border” David Androff & Kyoko Tavassoli (2012). With just the title alone it explains what the article is going to be about. Facts about the desert talked about in this article are that during the summer temperatures get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and in the winter falls below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (Androff & Tavassoli 2012). This is not safe for humans because there is a lack of sources like no water or food; this is what causes the deaths during the migrating process in the Sonoran desert. Immigrants knowing that they are going to pass through the desert still don’t think about food and water they do not leave prepared to cross the border,

But what is a real American? A piece of paper? If not that, than how far back do you have to be able to trace your lineage to claim the right to live in this country? Author Jason De Leon aims to answer questions like this in his book, 'The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail '. De Leon, an anthropologist and expert in the field, took it upon himself to study the paths of immigrants coming into America through the Sonoran desert region in southern Arizona over the course of the last decade.

The Devil’s Highway is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a national bestseller written by Luis Alberto Urrea. The novel is based on a true story and tragedy that occurred in May 2001. This tragedy is in regards to the Yuma-14, the largest documented group to attempt to cross the Mexican border into the southern region of Arizona. The novel presents the story of the Yuma-14, however, it is not just the story of their journey, but the greater issues regarding immigration.

In Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s novel, Desert Blood, religion is a dominant element throughout the unravelling of a mystery in the border towns of Juárez, Mexico and El Paso, United States. From specific characters to the general culture of the areas described, the pervasiveness of the influence of religion becomes prominent to the reader. The ways in which it is dispersed through the novel are complex and diverse; however, they all come together to give the reader a need of a dissociation of traditional theology from the modern woman. This is accomplished through Alba’s use of conflict between the modernistic Ivon’s beliefs and other traditional characters’, and through the reoccurring theme of acts of evil being close to symbols of religion. Two characters that embody the traditionalist side of religion are Ivon’s mother, Lydia, and Father Francis, a local priest.

Smuggling is also having a devastating environmental impact on the Sonoran Desert, where the O’odham have made their home for centuries. Thousands of vehicles – many stolen from Phoenix and Tucson – have been loaded with drugs and migrants and then driven across countless miles of the fragile desert that makes up most of the O’odham Reservation…more than 1,400 wrecked or abandoned vehicles were towed off the reservation in

Into the Beautiful north is an awesome novel that relates they story of Nayeli, a nineteen years old girl and her three friends that decided to migrate to the United States to hire seven men to defend their little town from some drug traffickers that arrived to their village. But going north was not an easy journey for Nayeli and her friends. They have so many trouble on their way to Tijuana. In this research paper there is a review of the scenes in the Tijuana garbage dump in chapter 12, where immigrants’ belongings were stolen and they have to face several dangerous situations.

Juan Villalobos wrote a novel based on Mexican poverty, politics, and socio-economic class. This goes to follow to say how Mexico government deceives all its people and why Villalobos chose to write a comedic novel based on Mexico being a surrealist country. No one can’t argue that there isn’t a shortage of surrealism in the world Villalobos presents in Quesadillas. The climax of the novel is based on a dream vision of featuring cattle, flying tortillas, and alien invasion. The climax is important because this is where Villalobos input of his comedy comes into play but things are very real and serious even though he laughs at it.

Speaking of Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border, the first thing appears in many people’s mind is a horizontal line with US on the upper side and Mexico on the lower, as depicted in maps. However, in reality, a border serves more than just to separate states. In many occasions, it witnesses and bridges social networks that stretch across border. These two functions seem to contradict each other but in fact they exactly reflect the complex nature of borders, or, more realistically, borderlands, a term coined to uproot in people the misleading image of a line. In her book Borderlands, the author Gloria Anzaldua, as a descendent of Indians and Mexicans living close to the America-Mexico border in Southern Texas, defies such dualistic and simplistic thinking about the border/double-sided or multi-sided dilemma, suggesting a new “mestiza consciousness”, a tolerance of ambiguity and a way of creating new personal culture from her accounting with all three cultures, as opposed to adopting only one of them without independent thinking and confronting against the rest. This new way of thinking stems from the reality of borderlands but instead of stopping there the author expands its application to establishing both cultural and sexual identities.

Around 7pm that night, Miguel and the other individuals from different countries passed the border of Mexico walking through the mountains. “It was raining strong that night my clothes were soaked and it was difficult to walk into so much mud and bushes around. I was super cold and half way my feet hurt, but I had to continue walking.” Miguel and the other people walked about twelve hours to arrive to their destination at a bus stop in Mexico. Finally, Miguel and the others arrived to the bus led by the human trafficker of Mexico. A trailer truck was crossing by and moved to the side of the road. Miguel and the others were put inside on the back of the trailer truck. “Everyone was seated in rows very tightly. Men were put all the way to the back then women with their kids on the front of the trailer truck. We were not allowed to move, eat, or make noise. If you need to go to the restroom it

Many stories teach the viewer about other cultures or our own and show different values such as bravery, skill or mateship, in texts such as the Highway Man or Guo Nian. Values and attitudes date back a long time ago and teach us about people’s cultures. One text that teaches the viewer about values is the Highway Man by Alfred Noyes. The story the Highway Man teaches us about values such as loyalty when it says: “Warned him with her death” when Bess, the landlord’s daughter dies and warns her love, the Highway Man. This shows that in the 1800’s England, loyalty was important to the people.

He recycles, he hikes, and he writes a column for Wide Open Spaces called “Pilgrim at Topanga Creek,” in which he details his adventures and even advocates for change. His advocacy grows closer to home, however, as the prevalence of both coyotes and Mexican immigrants overwhelms him and the rest of the inhabitants of Arroyo Blanco Estates. Originally very liberal, Delaney’s morals are transformed dramatically by the end of the novel, shifting from idealistic liberalism to gritty conservatism. In The Tortilla Curtain, the coyotes are a symbol for immigrants and white fragility, jumping their fences and stealing their “handouts.” They represent the caricature with which Arroyo Blanco residents associate immigrants: violent, unpredictable, and wild, tricksters who roam the earth and find resources where there are none. As the novel progresses, Delaney’s antipathy against coyotes corresponds to his waning sympathy for Mexican

Phoenix, an American outcast who searched for freedom through the homeless filled streets of a crumbling USA, before the series of unthinkable events that brought the apocalypse...and now wanders through the badlands and deserts of the Southwest, guided through