Essay On Mexico Border

I read everything I can about the Mexico-America border. I'm slightly obsessed with it- partially due to the first trip I spent in Mexico, where we studied border issues in depth. It's not really fair to speak of Mexico without the context of the United States and/or the border, and honestly, it's not really fair to talk about the United States without talking about Mexico. A whole lot of us (me included) live in what used to be Mexico (now referred to by people in the Chicano Movement as "Aztlan"), which was surrendered/taken/stolen by the US after the Spanish/American war in 1848. (See this dramatic map). It's a whole lot of white/colonial/American privilege that most people in el norte don't even know about this. And much more recently, a whole lot of incredibly destructive policies have created a push/pull situation where Mexican are both enticed to the United States and forced to look elsewhere for their income. This isn't a history lesson, so I'm not going to discuss all of these factors, or the US policy's
On the other hand, the genius of "The Devil's Highway" is that you understand totally. The close-to-30 men who came through the desert (all of home who suffered, 14 (at least) who died), came because they wanted a better life, which the United States, via some shady men, promised them. Even the shady coyotes who led the men to their deaths were human- they come across as men who also wanted better lives, and only got into being coyotes as a business venture, not as prey animals picking the carcasses of the weak, innocent Mexican campesinos. Surprisingly, even the Border Patrol agents come across as human- they spring into action to rescue the dying men, and although have an inter-agency spat about what to call the incident, even come up with fixes to help avoid this in the