Officer Arnold Davis, also known as Arnie, is a black Border Patrol agent working on loan in San Diego. He's worked for the government for the last twenty-seven years, and he finds the changes happening within Border Patrol unsavory. Namely, he thinks that the Border Patrol’s focus on terrorists is overblown, especially on the Mexican-American border. To combat this, he thinks often about his desire to retire to Colorado. When he meets Nayeli, he doesn't believe her story about the quest, but he finds it entertaining and buys her snacks. Later, when he encounters her on a bus on her way back from Illinois, Arnie realizes that she was telling the truth. His intense frustration with the government and his sense of security in his job leads him to smuggle Nayeli and Tacho back to San Diego so that they can finish their mission, even though doing so poses a substantial professional risk for him.
Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie) Quotes in Into the Beautiful North
The Into the Beautiful North quotes below are all either spoken by Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie) or refer to Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie). For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Little, Brown and Company edition of Into the Beautiful North published in 2010.
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Chapter 16
Quotes
Nayeli looked at the migra agents through the iron mesh. Big men. Happy, bright-faced men. Shiny and crisp. Green uniforms. Short hair. Mustaches.
What made them different from her?
She could not tell.
Related Characters:
Nayeli, Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie)
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie) Character Timeline in Into the Beautiful North
The timeline below shows where the character Officer Arnold Davis (Arnie) appears in Into the Beautiful North. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 16
...tells him his skin is beautiful. Agent Smith walks by and calls the black man Arnie. Arnie ushers Nayeli out of the pen to process her.
(full context)
Chapter 17
Agent Arnold Davis has been working for the government for twenty-seven years, and he's just about ready to...
(full context)
Arnie ushers Nayeli out of the holding pen and seats her at a desk. When he...
(full context)
Chapter 36
Arnie is back in Calexico after his stint in San Diego, checking cars at a tourist...
(full context)
Arnie shows Nayeli and Tacho into the back of his truck and tells his coworker that...
(full context)
Finally, Arnie decides that Tacho and Nayeli aren't lying about their quest. He sighs, knowing that Tacho...
(full context)