The Role Of Desolation In The Devil's Highway

Through the use of pathos, schemes, and tropes, Rodriquez offers his conflicting feelings about California and Mexico. By contrasting Mexico and California with these styles of writing, he sets up

In the reading land of open graves by De Leon, discusses the dangers that millions of Mexican and central Americans face when trying to get into the United States undocumented. These people include people who have the dream of living in America and creating a new life where they can support their families. Also for those who have been deported back to Mexico being separated from their families and are in hopes of being reunited with their loved ones. These people face a hard battle ahead of them because they have to travel through the Sonoran desert of Arizona that is one of the largest deserts in North America. And have to deal with not only fighting the harsh desert elements, while only caring as many supplies as they can. They also have to deal with the structural violence that goes under looked that thousands of Mexicans have to face while migrating to the United States.

The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea traces the journeys of twenty-six men traveling across the border through one of the most treacherous deserts known to man “The Devil’s Highway.” The author’s purpose was to let the world be aware of the events going on all around, with the simple modes of persuasion (pathos, ethos, and logos) Urrea makes you consider what worlds, political and economic, have we created that push humans into impossible journeys? What borders have we imposed, both geopolitical and cultural, that separate human beings so completely?

Have you ever wonder why they built borders? Or who built them? Or who prevents and controls illegals from crossing, and what they do to accomplish them from crossing? In the book, The Devils Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea defines the effects the desert has to offer for the immigrant’s entrance. The Devils High Way is a measureless desert past Mexico and Sonora, which is one of the most isolated and driest deserts in the U.S. This is a desert which few

Eaton presents both settings as hostile and daunting. The desert is depicted as being a dangerous prison from which escape is impossible as described as “Dry, thorny bushes formed a natural, almost impenetrable wall of spinifex.” (Pg.145) and Port Barren as described as “A hot, dusty, dry hole with flies.” (Pg.17) by Jamie. The reader is positioned to sympathize with Jamie’s predicament of being stuck in this unfriendly environment. Jamie’s relationship with the setting by the end as he is accepted by the locals and earns a sense of belonging. As a short extract from the story represents: “I meant to ask you, what do you reckon I am? Neither mate. You’re local.” (Pg.

In his essay Bajadas, Francisco Cantu explores the physical and emotional landscapes that shift during his time as a United States border control agent. He candidly writes about his experiences, using imagery to describe the physical landscape of New Mexico in a way that mirrors his own emotional landscape and answers the question that he grapples with most. Cantu writes, “There are days when I feel I am becoming good at what I do. And then I wonder, what does it mean to be good at this? I wonder sometimes how I might explain certain things…” (7). This important question is what drives Bajadas; it is what compels Cantu to write so vulnerably. Through a journal-like structure, Cantu details what his job requires of him and the way he treats

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso 1880-1920 analyzes and discusses the Mexican immigrants to El Paso, Texas. The most western city of the vast state of Texas, a city in the edge of the Chihuahuan desert; a place too far away from many regions of the United States, but as Mario García explains a very important city during the development of the western United States. He begins explaining how El Paso’s proximity to different railroads coming from México and the United States converged there, which allowed El Paso to become an “instant city”, as mining, smelting, and ranching came to region. (García 2)

Gloria Anzaldúa writes of a Utopic frame of mind, the borderlands created in and lived in by the new mestiza. She describes the preexisting natures of the Anglos, Mexicanos, and Chicanos as seen around the southwest U.S. / Mexican border, indicative of the nations at large. She also probes the borders of language, sexuality, psychology and spirituality. Anzaldúa presents this information in various identifiable ways including the autobiography, historical/informative essay, and poetry. What is unique to Anzaldúa is her ability to weave a ‘perfect’ kind of compromised state of mind that melds together the preexisting cultures while simultaneously formulating a fusion of genres that stretches previously

At the beginning of his essay, Theroux is at the crossing point between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico. He tells of a soldier guarding the entrance who gave a slightly defensive answer when our author asked why he hasn’t visited Nogales, Mexico himself when it’s

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is arguably the most important novel of the Mexican Revolution because of how it profoundly captures the atmosphere and intricacies of the occasion. Although the immediate subject of the novel is Demetrio Macias - a peasant supporter of the Mexican Revolution -, one of its extensive themes is the ambivalence surrounding the revolution in reality as seen from a broader perspective. Although often poetically revered as a ‘beautiful’ revolution, scenes throughout the novel paint the lack of overall benevolence even among the protagonist revolutionaries during the tumultuous days of the revolution. This paper will analyze certain brash characteristics of the venerated revolution as represented by Azuela’s

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

As a new and mysterious world awaits to be discovered, daring conquistadors leave their home country of Spain in a journey of exploration. Two men by the name of Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca set sail to thwart the untrustworthy Cortez who, behind the backs of Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca, sailed to the New World with half of Narvaez’s crew in search of treasures. However, the journey would prove to be treacherous as the conquistadors would have to encounter hostile Native Americans and strange terrain they have never seen before. Throughout the expedition, future encounters between the Native Americans and conquistadors were heavily influenced by the personalities of the individuals and past experiences the Native Americans faced.

Mariano Azuela’s The Underdogs, is about a brotherhood of the Mexican people taking a journey with only one thing on their mind; revenge against Huerta and the Federales. In this story, we as the reader are confronted with characters, such as Demetrio Macias, who is destined to lead his people into the depths of retaining an incorrupt lifestyle and hopes to find peace from the effect of war. Although Demetrio is seen as one of the main characters in the novel, we are also briefly engaged in the other revolutionary forces under Pancho Villa, Carranza, Obregon, and by peasants under Zapata. These appositional forces gain strength against the Huerta government as well. The Underdogs almost symbolizes a Robin Hood story, in which, Demetrio and

Battles in the Desert, written by Jose Emilio Pacheco, tells a story about how a young man named Carlos encounter social and political changes. Carlos narrates his own experiences during his childhood when social and political problems are happening. The time period is during the regime of the government of Miguel Aleman. Carlos’ experiences demonstrate the changes of his own personal life, and the impact of the American culture on Mexico. I believe Carlos is reflecting his personal childhood lived at México, and also the unwilling changes of his personality. How Carlos enjoys a moment that is never happening again, and how Carlos feels about his society.