The Line Becomes a River Main Ideas

Migration

In The Line Becomes a River, everyone is constantly migrating from one circumstance to another. Not only do Mexican and other Latin American people migrate to the United States, but Francisco also migrates between careers and positions. In both cases the purpose is to seek a better life. For the migrants whom Francisco apprehends and rescues at the border, the aim is often to reach the United States and find good-paying jobs. Francisco, however, migrates not out of economic necessity but because of a desire for fulfillment. Migration, both literal and metaphorical, comes easy to him, whether when crossing into Mexico, moving jobs, or swimming across the Rio Grande. He joins the Border Patrol because he thinks his studies haven’t shown him the real border, and he leaves when he can no longer sustain the emotional strain of working in a dehumanizing institution.

On the other hand, migration can be difficult and even deadly for those without the benefit of legal status. When José returns to Mexico to take care of his mother, he likely understands he will have a difficult time returning. He does it anyway because he feels responsible for her care. Whereas Francisco migrates for his own edification, people like José migrate out of necessity.

Migrants in the memoir are mostly depicted sympathetically, and Francisco strives to represent their desires fairly. At one point he admits to José that the migrants he arrested were only “looking for a better life.” Migration is also represented as natural and inevitable. Francisco’s mother tells him about animals who migrate across the border region and have been doing it for eons, long before the border ever existed as a political concept.

Boundaries

Boundaries in The Line Becomes a River can be natural, physical obstructions like fences or rivers, or they can be figurative lines drawn on paper. The book’s title comes from the fact that the US-Mexico border is both.

Boundaries can also be the emotional barriers people place between themselves and others—as seen, for instance, in how Francisco and his Border Patrol partner Morales deal with migrants. Whereas Francisco tries to be friendly and personable, Morales is distant and gruff. Francisco does manage a few times to draw Morales out of his shell, such as when they share a meal with the brothers from Oaxaca. Francisco, however, eventually erects his own emotional boundaries when he stops sharing his problems with his mother. Arguably, he also creates a boundary between his conscious and his unconscious mind when he tries to ignore his nightmares; when he acknowledges them, this boundary dissolves.

Boundaries appear in many forms in the book. One of the book’s ironies is that, though created to enforce boundaries, the Border Patrol’s hierarchy is depicted as informal. Francisco’s bosses rarely assert their rank, and he often shows them telling jokes while on duty. However, the boundaries between law enforcement and lawbreakers are hard and distinct. José is kept behind soundproof glass when his sons come to visit him in prison, and his wife, Lupe, cannot visit at all due to her undocumented status. When Francisco considers the natural world, it is to show the artificiality of human boundaries: hawks and dragonflies do not care about lines drawn on paper. Swimming in the Rio Grande, he crosses the border several times without difficulty, underscoring the abstract nature of that boundary. Nonetheless, people like José and other migrants suffer and die because of that abstraction.

Systems, Institutions, and Authority

Systems of power are inescapable in The Line Becomes a River, corrupting the people whose lives they touch. When Francisco joins the Border Patrol, his mother warns him he’s “stepping into a system, an institution with little regard for people’s lives.” Francisco, however, believes it will be a valuable learning experience and thinks he might be able to improve the system from within. Later, his mother’s words are echoed by a public defender who remarks that Border Patrol agents “objectify” the migrants they apprehend. The dehumanizing effect of such a system is obvious both in the agents and in the apprehended migrants. Francisco’s supervisor, Cole, laughs while recalling a man he ran over by mistake. After being detained, José and the other migrants are shown as diminished: “something vital had gone missing in the days since [their] apprehension.”

Systems of violence and oppression affect both the perpetrators and the victims in The Line Becomes a River. When Francisco’s mother warns him against joining the Border Patrol, she speaks from experience as a National Park Service employee. Later she tells him a story about her failed attempt to rescue a squirrel she was ultimately forced to euthanize; despite her good intentions, she ended up enacting the violence inherent to her job. Francisco observes that although he tries to be a “good” Border Patrol agent, he still ends up arresting people and stopping them from attaining better lives. Leaving the Border Patrol does not erase his trauma and moral guilt, and Francisco tells his mother that he feels as if he’s “still part of this thing that crushes.” From the courtroom to Hayward’s meticulously shined boots, Cantú’s memoir represents authority as a performance that reinforces institutional power over individuals.