Anna Garcia was a 40 year old woman who mysteriously died on August of 2015. Anna Garcia died because of a stroke caused by diabetes. Evidence of a stroke include the lens of the right eye appearing cloudy, blood vessels in boths eyes are swollen, abnormal blood vessels present on left retina, vision most likely compromised, and mild ischemia in several regions of the brain. Evidence of this stroke being diabetic is many problems found in the autopsy are related to diabetes. These include high blood glucose, atherosclerosis, necrotic section on kidneys, low blood flow, ankles are swollen, mild peripheral vascular disease in left leg and inflamed red injection sites on left thigh.…
“These daughters of Juárez never had the opportunity to speak out. Their cries were brutally silenced. Now those voices ring out from these pages. Perhaps this time someone will listen.”…
The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, an award winning work of investigative journalism, is a multifaceted look on the issue Mexican migration and the factors involved; be it the border patrol, the United States and Mexican governments and their policies, and the Coyotes, a criminal organization known for human smuggling. Urrea’s text tells the story of a group of illegal Mexican immigrants known as the Welton 26, and their Coyote guide: Mendez, who cross the border and enter the perilous region known as the Devil’s Highway, a barren desert known for its inhospitable, often deadly, environment. In this text, the Welton 26, the border patrol, the courts, and the prosecutor's all seek someone to blame. But who is truly at fault for this?…
A young teen, Viviana “Andazola” Marquez, struggled most of her childhood to find a warm, cozy place to sleep each night. Marquez’s mother and father divorced when she was attending the third grade. After the divorce, she, her mother, her sister, her two younger brothers stayed many nights on different strangers’ kitchen floors. Throughout the majority of their life they did not know if the strangers would open their homes up to them; not knowing if they had a place to sleep was devastating. When she reached the age of thirteen, Marquez’s mother was arrested for disturbing the peace because she was not documented, she was moved to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At this time, this tragedy served as a breaking point for this family.…
When the man started his journey to come across to America, he was taken to an old, run down, dark house. When Hector arrived at the house another man (Miguel) was already there waiting to be hustled across the border. They would spend several days and nights together in the house not knowing what was to come next. They had to go with limited food and drink for days. Then one night the coyote came and took the two men to a warehouse, there at the warehouse were many men. Eventually all the men were loaded into a hole that had been cut out of the bottom of a truck. After all the men had been loaded into the hole it was welded back shut. After hours of riding in a closed, cramped space that smelled of urine and vomit, Hector was losing hope of ever making it out of the truck. Finally, the truck came to a stop, the hole was reopened, and the men were “hustled” out of the truck into a second warehouse (25). From the second warehouse all the men was took into a office where they was given an new identification card, the start of their new life as an “illegal American” (26). Hector went to South Carolina with Miguel the man he met in the old house, they waited on a bench for Miguel’s cousin Pablo to come and pick them up. Finally Pablo arrived and they started their journey to South Carolina where Pablo’s lives and works. The farmer that Pablo worked for also gave Miguel a job. Pablo’s boss called his neighbor to…
border is filled with violence and society should be aware of all the danger. This story reveals Troncoso’s experience of the insecurity and danger along the border. The drug violence has bloodstained money and power against the civilians living along the border. We can see that the violence along the border can even affect distant families that live in New York such as Troncoso’s not just the population living in the border. Troncoso, just as many other Mexican American families have felt the loss of their Mexican culture due to the insecurities across the border without being able to express their authentic Mexican culture to their future generations. The essential idea of freedom in a place filled with danger is unexplainable for the civilians living so close to Mexico and U.S. without being able to connect their cultures leaving behind their memories. Hope is the only word that keeps them alive in this world filled with corruption along the U.S. and Mexican…
I read the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez, a non- fiction novel about Rodriguez’s life as a child when he crosses the border of Mexico at the age of two with his family. As Rodriguez took me on a rollercoaster through his life, I experienced many upsetting emotions even to me such as; disgust as he describes the police, fear during gang wars, pride when he makes a difference in his community and sadness when he loses some of the people he loved.…
After facing personal hardships and struggles to retain his family’s ranch, John Grady feels his dream of becoming a rancher is not achievable in Texas. He decides to leave his past behind and cross the border into Mexico with an optimistic mindset. Before leaving Texas, he looks back and the narrator describes, “Would have known that there was something missing for the world to be right or he right in it and would have set forth to wander wherever it was needed for as long as it took until he came upon one and he would have known that that was what he sought and it would have been” (McCarthy 23). John Grady’s decision to go to Mexico is definitive and based on personal conviction. He believes that he must leave and make a better life for himself. He also assures his friend Rawlins that he is making the right choice for himself, telling him, “What the hell reason you got for stayin? You think somebody’s goin to die and leave you somethin?” (McCarthy 27). John Grady has a reason to move on from his past life and makes a personal choice to venture to Mexico. He doesn’t want to wait any longer and wants to pursue his dream to make the most out of his life. Even after facing obstacles with a young boy named Blevins, conflicts with the Mexican rancher Don Hector, and brutal prison…
At around 10 years of age my family and I were coming out of a store when we heard an individual yell out, “Go back to Mexico, America houses no aliens!” At that moment, I felt as if this wouldn’t be the last time I would hear these words echo through my life, and I was right.…
With my heart beating out of my chest, the only thing I could think of was that I did not want to die in Mexico. It was a warm sunny day as we started our ATV adventure outside of the comforts and security of the resort walls. There were 6 of us and we planned to take turns driving. When it was our turn, we could go anywhere we could get the machine. The rental guy was nice enough to loan us his personal iPod, as the machine had a stereo. The iPod was filled with Mexican music of all sorts. How fitting, we realized. What would a Mexican adventure be without the music?…
The year I turned six, my mom decided to migrate to Mexico. However, she was not able bring my one year old sister along. While my little sister stayed with my grandparents, my mom and I flied out to Mexico. I still remember the feeling in my stomach the moment I stepped out of that airport. I was an ocean away from my hometown. My first day of school was chaos. Everyone in the school was speaking in Spanish. I did not understand the customs and mannerisms. It was difficult to not feel as an outcast. The most complicated part was expressing my feelings, and my needs to the teachers. I lived in Mexico, Tijuana for six years, after becoming adapted to the environment, my mom came home one day and told me that we are moving to the United States.…
“You may be in america but you are Mexican. You are a Mexican girl you need to learn to clean,cook,and take care of your future kids and husband or else what use are you to him.” I can't remember the first time my father told me this but i will never forget the first time i truly comprehended what it meant. I was seven years old and my teacher told me i could be anything i wanted to be a lawyer a doctor anything. I was ecstatic i had so many options but after coming home and sharing the news with my father he told me what he believed to be the truth i was a mexican girl and my future was already decided. From that moment on i had two choices. the first the life my father believed i should have. I could marry young and stay at home cooking…
“I glanced around and saw no familiar faces. Handcuffs strangled my wrist. I am being transported to a place that I know I won't survive. Danger surrounds me. My intense fear is enough to consume me into the nothingness.ーNothingness is starting to feel familiar because on the way here that's what I’ve been told I am, nothing. I still do not know how this happened. One minute I was living my dream and the next minute they want to get rid of me for something I can not control. Everything is bunched up in my brain and I can't tell what year it is. Can you help? Is it 1993 or 2017?” ー These are the thoughts that might linger through the minds of those that are being deported. History took on a different form and made its way into our current reality.…
Still Dying I was dying, that much was clear. My breathing was laboured, My vision was growing fuzzy, And all I could think was,…
It was a simple beginning to a beautiful day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The dry morning air brought a wealth of warmth to my tired skin. "Today is a day of opportunity," I thought. I would hopefully be entering the work force after a long battle with unemployment. I was excited because my days were filled with nothing but boredom and my mind was occupied with nothing but despair. Hopefully, today would be the day that I left my past behind me.…