The Anglo Rancher Character Analysis

An enraged white man, “armed to the eyeballs,” who pursues and shoots after Makina and Chucho as they traverse the desert in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. It is unclear whether he is motivated by racism or personal gain—Chucho suggests he has a competing business as a coyote and wants to defend his territory against the competition. The anglo rancher and Chucho get in a brawl and wrestle over his gun while Makina runs ahead at Chucho’s insistence. Later, they both appear to get arrested by the police. While he unambiguously represents the violent xenophobia of many white Americans and the severe dangers migrants face while crossing the border, the anglo rancher also has an ambiguous relationship to justice and the law: he claims to be enforcing the law by preventing illegal migrants from entering the United States, but in fact Chucho calls the police on the rancher for illegally trying to take this law into his own hands and violently assaulting people he does not know. This conflict points to an enduring problem in American policy toward immigrants: undocumented people are treated as having no rights because they have no papers, and citizens and the government alike use immigrants’ “illegal” status to justify committing crimes against them.