Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Line Becomes a River, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Emotional Detachment
Natural Migration vs. Human Boundaries
The Value of a Human Life
Nature, Beauty, and Humanity
Institutional Violence
Summary
Analysis
Cantú discusses ideas from the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. At the end of his life, during the Cold War, Jung wrote that people had grown to project their own shadows—all the dark things about themselves that they repressed—onto “the other,” which in the context of the Cold War meant people on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Cantú implies that Jung’s arguments are applicable to the modern-day treatment of migrants in the United States. Every human contains darkness, he suggests, and in the present day in the United States, many people project their own darkness onto migrants, particularly those from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Cantú argues by implication that the U.S.’s inhumane treatment of migrants will not end until the American people recognize and learn to stop repressing their own inner darkness.
Themes
Jung added that the governments of modern nation states encourage this “othering” attitude, aiming to bolster their own power by atomizing their populations into an “us” and “them” mindset, and encouraging them not to reckon with the darkness in themselves and their own societies that lingered after World War II.
Again, Cantú implies that the dynamic Jung describes also applies in the present day in the U.S. and Mexico. Specifically, he argues that the human instinct to repress the shadow side of the psyche has been co-opted by the institutions of power in the United States—such as the government and its agencies, including Border Patrol—in order to sustain the existing power dynamic by uniting citizens around an external enemy.
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However, Jung wrote, shadow is universal to every individual and every society. In his view, the only route to wholeness involves reconciling one’s own light and dark sides. On the level of individual psychology, dreams can help with this, since they allow repressed feelings to be expressed. If you dream of a “savage bull, or a lion, or a wolf,” Jung wrote, the best response is to say to it: “Please, come and devour me.”
Thus far, this book has suggested that Border Patrol necessary leaves its members emotionally damaged, because they’re forced to repress the trauma they witness regularly in their work. Here, at the start of the book’s third and final section, Cantú implicitly states his intention to break this cycle for himself, by reconciling his shadow side, including the trauma he has repressed as a Border Patrol agent. The statement of intent is made yet more explicit by Jung’s example of a dream of a wolf, which echoes the wolf dreams Cantú has reported throughout the book.
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Cantú is at the coffee shop where he now works. He arrives each morning at 6:30 a.m. and carefully sets up the shop, ready for customers. The coffee shop is in a shared plaza, and Cantú describes some of the other workers he meets there, including a maintenance man from Oaxaca named José.
Cantú takes pride in his work, and his description of it reveals his relief to be outside of the institution of Border Patrol, with its oppressive restrictions and the violence it perpetrates against others and its own members.
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José and Cantú become friendly. José is considerate, asking Cantú about his life, including his mother and his graduate studies. In turn, he tells Cantú proudly about his wife and three sons.
Since human emotions are stirred by individual stories more than statistics, José’s story will illuminate the true scale of suffering inflicted by border enforcement in a way that the anonymous migrants Cantú met at work never could. By introducing him as a kind, generous, considerate man, Cantú begins the process of revealing the incalculable value of José’s life—and by extension all the other lives lost or destroyed by the U.S.–Mexico border.
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José knows that Cantú used to work in Border Patrol but rarely asks about it, and, suspecting from a certain gravity in his manner that José has had his own immigration problems, Cantú doesn’t ask José about his immigration status.
Cantú and José reveal their awareness of the violence of institutions like Border Patrol, preferring to interact simply as humans without any legal or institutional framework complicating their relationship.
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One day at the end of Cantú’s shift, José asks him why he left Border Patrol, guessing that the money must be better than what he earns at a coffee shop. Cantú is awkward, finally saying the work wasn’t right for him.
Cantú’s awkwardness suggests that he still hasn’t learned to accept and integrate all the complicated emotions he suppressed during his time in Border Patrol.
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Cantú adds that he’s studying writing now to try to understand what he’d seen on the border. Finally José understands the decision to leave, enigmatically saying he’s seen many things, too, and could write many books about them.
Cantú’s need to process his experiences in Border Patrol by writing suggests how much the institution altered him, destroying his youthful idealism and leaving him with many questions. Readers might consider that Cantú is rare and lucky as an example of an agent who left the patrol and found the time and space to process what he’d seen and done. Since most agents remain in border patrol, there’s an implicit suggestion that the institution is staffed by people struggling to understand their own experiences—which could negatively impact their treatment of migrants.
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José and Cantú often discuss the drug wars, violence, and chaos in Mexico. When the drug lord El Chapo Guzmán is arrested in 2014, José studies photos online, telling Cantú he doesn’t look like a drug lord; he doesn’t look that bad. Cantú tells him: “Violent people look like everyone else.”
Cantú’s response echoes the ideas he quoted from Jung at the start of this section: violence is not an unusual or exotic trait, but one lurking inside many humans. Though he sounds jaded, his response also implies that he is beginning to try to heal his own emotional detachment from the truth of violence, and thus to reintegrate his whole human experience.
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After this comment, José asks Cantú directly about his time in Border Patrol for the first time: did Cantú ever find drugs or arrest “narcos” (people in the drug trade)? Cantú says yes, but mostly he just arrested migrants, “people looking for a better life.”
Cantú’s frank response reveals the way institutions perpetrate violence. From within the institution, Cantú couldn’t clearly articulate his objections to it; now, from outside, he can see clearly the moral problems with the work. By clouding their members’ judgment, institutions are able to keep perpetrating morally suspect actions indefinitely.
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Every morning, José shares his breakfast with Cantú. One day, he brings Oaxacan food that his wife cooked, and Cantú tells him of the time he arrested two men from Oaxaca and they gave him their food. José is very excited to hear about food from his home.
José’s kindness and affection for his homeland make him a likeable, rounded character and a clear reminder of people’s individual humanity and worth.
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Cantú tells José that they also shared their mezcal, and José grows serious, saying that he used to drink too much, but he’s been sober for 15 years now—since his first son was born. Cantú goes on to say that every day for two years, José came and shared his breakfast with him.
Again, Cantú includes details of José’s character that increase readers’ affinity for him, both by accentuating his individuality and by revealing his sense of responsibility and kindness. Ultimately, Cantú’s efforts to capture José’s character make readers more aware of how much is lost when José and people like him have their lives destroyed by the border.
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One day, Cantú asks José about where he’s from. José describes a peaceful village in the jungle, where the violence of the drug war hasn’t reached yet. Later that day, José shows Cantú the local church and his mother’s house on Google Earth, smiling fondly as he reminisces.
The picture José paints of a peaceful region is at odds with the American stereotype of Mexico as a solely dangerous place. José’s fondness for his hometown and the rich life he describes there amplify the sense of the value of his life—and the lives of every other Mexican migrant to the U.S.—and thus the sense of what is lost when migrants’ lives are destroyed or ended on the border.
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In an interlude from his account of José, Cantú describes his first trip to Mexico. He was too young to remember, but his mother took him after splitting up with his father, wanting Cantú to know the border and not fear it and wanting to show him and herself that she could trust people enough to travel safely as a single woman.
Like José’s reminiscences, this interlude reveals a more peaceful side of Mexico. In addition, the episode reveals Cantú’s mother facing her own repressed fears by traveling alone—which suggests the universality of the repressed fears that can lead to violence.
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Cantú describes how accepted his mother felt in the small town they visited, where the local mothers took her into their group, and archaeological workers at some local ruins allowed her and Cantú to walk through the site even though it was closed. The workers played cowboys and Indians with Cantú, and his mother said she felt completely calm and trusting of the place and the people.
The kindness Cantú and his mother found in Mexico serves to heighten readers’ awareness of the equal humanity of those who live on the other side of the U.S.–Mexico border, and by extension, to heighten their awareness of the value of the human lives that the border is destroying.
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One hot summer’s day, José doesn’t come to work. Cantú and Jose’s boss, Diane, tells Cantú that he went back to Oaxaca for two weeks to be with his dying mother. Diane says she understands completely: it was very important to her to be with her own mother when she died.
The book depicts José’s instinct to return to Mexico to be with his dying mother as an entirely natural and understandable one. As such, the manmade border that separates him from his family seems like an unnecessary hurdle.
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Two weeks later, Cantú asks Diane about José, and she tells him he’s having trouble re-entering the country. Diane suspects he is undocumented. Cantú seems distracted by the news, telling Diane that “getting back across isn’t what it used to be.”
Cantú again highlights that migration used to be simpler, and that the militarization of the border is in no way natural or inevitable. In this way, he calls into question the current regime of militarized border enforcement.
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Diane tells Cantú that the last she heard, José was at the border, trying to cross. Cantú immediately grows very worried, since it’s the middle of summer and too hot to cross safely. He closes his eyes and sees images of swollen bodies and blackened skin. He whispers “not José” to himself.
When he closes his eyes, Cantú experiences a flashback—a common symptom of trauma. This resurgence of his trauma indicates that though he has left Border Patrol, he remains emotionally damaged by his work. In addition, by mumbling “not José,” he highlights that José has become very important to him. This moment speaks to the idea that it’s impossible to fully grasp the value of a human life without an understanding of the person’s individuality, which is denied to the migrants who die anonymously on the border.
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Cantú calls José’s home and talks to his son, then his wife, Lupe. Lupe tells him José was arrested by Border Patrol trying to cross the border and has a court hearing later that day. She sounds exhausted.
As readers get to know José’s family, their sense of the value of his life is heightened yet further, making the tragedy of his impending fate more acute.
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Cantú calls Morales and asks about the court process for a friend. Morales makes fun of him, saying, “a few years out of the patrol and suddenly all your friends are mojados” (meaning “wets,” a slur for a Mexican living in the U.S.). It takes Cantú a while to think of a comeback.
Cantú cannot immediately think of a comeback because he is in the process of deinstitutionalization—that is, of extricating himself from the behaviors he adopted in order to survive his work, even though he found it morally objectionable, like using racist slurs.
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Cantú asks if the court process will be open to the public, and Morales says yes, that protestors often go along. He tells Cantú that José’s family will be safe to go though they might not be documented, and he explains where to sit in the courthouse so that José will see him, since they won’t be able to speak.
The information Morales provides is valuable to José’s family and would never be available to most migrants. This episode thus underscores the imbalance between the value Cantú places on José’s life and the way that most other migrants who pass through Border Patrol are treated like they’re anonymous and worthless.
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Cantú meets Lupe, her and José’s three sons, and their pastor outside the courtroom. In the courtroom, he recognizes the familiar old scent of bodies that have been toiling through the desert for days. Despite this scent, the courtroom is grand, like a cathedral, and the judge sits at the front in black robes, beneath the seal of the United States of America.
The disparity between the grand room and the disheveled migrants highlights the power imbalance between the institutions of border enforcement and the individual migrants.
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Cantú and José’s family sit, and the judge addresses all 40 of the defendants at once about their charges: two crimes, of which one charge will be dropped if they plead guilty to the other. The men strain to hear the judge, but he asks them to stand up if they understand, and they all stand.
By addressing all the migrants at once, and having them signal their comprehension as a group, the judge fails to afford them any individuality—thus also ruling out any chance of compassionate treatment.
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The judge discusses the possible penalties the men face. Cantú catches the eye of a Border Patrol agent, who glares at him like an enemy while the judge tells the migrants that their sentences are lenient this time, but if they’re caught trying to cross the border illegally again, they could serve years in prison.
Here, Cantú has an opportunity to be a third-party observer of the institution he used to work for. The Border Patrol agent’s glare reveals that those within the institution of Border Patrol feel that the world is hostile to them—a sure sign that they are aware, on some level, of the morally dubious nature of the work they do.
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The defendants go up to the judge five at a time, chained to one another and with their wrists bound. The judge rapidly asks each defendant the necessary questions, while court-appointed attorneys flit between their multiple clients.
Again, the mass treatment of the migrants and the sharing of court-appointed attorneys indicates the lack of value ascribed to each of their individual cases and individual lives.
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After questioning each defendant about their plea, the judge announces the sentence: 30 days imprisonment for each in the state detention center. One of the few women in the group says she’s pregnant, and the judge simply says he will add a note to her file.
The mass sentencing again suggests a lack of respect for the defendants’ lives. This impression is heightened by the lack of respect the judge pays even to a mother and unborn child.
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Watching the defendants, Cantú thinks about how he himself has arrested many people to send them here, and the people he arrested always looked different than these defendants: less diminished. He concludes that out in the desert, they still had some flicker of hope, or life, whereas here, in the grand courtroom, among foreign, suited men, that spark has been lost.
The loss of the spark in the defendants is evidence of institutional violence: the way in which the grinding machinery of border enforcement crushes the life and hope from them. In addition, Cantú’s reflection on the number of people he has sent here reminds readers that, while he was caught up in the institution of Border Patrol, he also saw people as anonymous rather than individuals.
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Though they can only see the defendants’ backs, José’s pastor and family see him in the lineup. Lupe is devastated and starts rocking. When José turns, Cantú sees how lost and hopeless he looks. When he sees his family, he is so shocked that he starts shaking.
José and his family’s powerful emotional responses are a reminder of all of the defendants’ humanity and the incalculable value of each of their lives.
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A week later, Cantú meets José’s court-appointed attorney, Walter, back at the courtroom. José is the only one of the 40 defendants to get a follow-up hearing—the rest went directly to prison. Walter has been thinking about José’s case—it’s a very common story, but it’s unusual for someone in José’s position to have so much support at the courthouse.
Again, José’s special treatment only serves to underscore how inhumanely the other migrants are treated, in being lumped together as an anonymous mass. This is especially true since the level of support José receives is essentially an accident of fate, resulting from his working with Cantú.
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José’s sons run down the courthouse hallway. Cantú brought them to the hearing, since Lupe is undocumented and can’t safely go to court. Walter says seeing them makes him think of his own son, and that no father should be kept from his family in this way.
Again, readers’ acquaintance with José’s sons heightens their sense of the value of José’s life, and thus of the scale of the tragedy of the U.S.–Mexico border, where parents like José are separated from their families daily.
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Cantú looks at the courthouse and realizes that he has little idea what happens here despite sending many migrants here over the years.
The book overwhelmingly suggests that, during his time in Border Patrol, Cantú functioned as a cog in a machine who did not see the other parts of the machine. Compartmentalizing people in this way, so that they don’t see the full picture they’re involved in, is one way in which institutions ensure their members will keep executing the mission, even if it’s harmful.
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Cantú asks Walter why he intervened in José’s case, and Walter says it’s because unlike most migrants, José has children in the United States, which gives him a claim to citizenship. He hopes to give José a chance to find a real immigration lawyer, which Cantú confirms his friends have done. Walter explains that José will have to serve his time in prison; then he’ll be free to launch a legal case for citizenship.
Cantú’s question highlights that most migrants’ cases are processed without any intervention on their behalf—they are treated as anonymous, rather than as individuals. The intervention on José’s behalf only highlights that the system of border enforcement does not value the individual lives of most people that pass through it.
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Not knowing Cantú used to work for Border Patrol, Walter says a lot of people in the immigration system, including Border Patrol, lose sight of people’s humanity. Cantú mentions that he’s friends with Morales, and Walter says he knows him from the courthouse and thinks he’s callous.
Cantú gets an outsider’s perspective on the organization that changed him, and of which he was an integral part. The disparity between his own perspective on Border Patrol and Walter’s reveals one of the core dangers of institutionalization: that it twists individuals’ abilities to make clear judgments about the institutions of which they are a part.
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Walter says he once represented a Border Patrol agent who was framed for brutality by his colleagues for showing too much compassion to migrants. He says the agents he knows never “express any humanity,” and wonders aloud, “How do you come home to your kids at night when you spend your day treating other humans like dogs?”
Walter voices one of the book’s central arguments: that the institution of Border Patrol fails to give migrants the respect of full humanity. Unlike Cantú (who blames the institution of Border Patrol, rather than individual officers, for mistreatment), Walter doesn’t account for the trauma many Border Patrol agents suffer on the job, which locks them into cycles of pain and suffering.
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Along with José’s sons, Cantú again watches José at the courthouse, pleading guilty to illegal entry, which is the first step toward the process of applying for citizenship. The judge repeats the exact words used at the sentencing a week earlier.
The judge’s repetition again underscores the cookie-cutter nature of the treatment of migrants, and thus the fact that, in the eyes of the justice system, migrants are anonymous and interchangeable.
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Outside the courtroom, Walter tells Cantú that if José hadn’t gone home to see his dying mother, he might have been protected under President Obama’s new immigration laws, which grant provisional status to U.S. citizens as long as they don’t have a criminal record.
Walter’s comment highlights the arbitrariness of the U.S.–Mexico border and the laws that govern it. Ultimately, this arbitrariness undermines the validity of border enforcement, since, the book argues, there’s no natural or intrinsic logic to it.
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A U.S. marshal leaves the courtroom and approaches José’s sons. He gives Diego his marshal pin and says he’s sorry about his dad. Walter is surprised by the show of compassion.
This sign of compassion from one of the officials Walter recently accused of being heartless bolsters the thesis Cantú proposes over the course of the book: that for the most part, individuals are more compassionate and less culpable in cruelty than the institutions they serve.
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In an interlude, Cantú discusses his mother’s background. Her mother was Irish and German, and her father was Mexican but left when she was young. Her mother raised her to be ashamed of her Mexican identity and to think of it as lazy.
Cantú’s mother’s prejudices rely on generalizations—she lumps Mexican people into one anonymous group in order to reject them. This mirrors the “othering” dynamic Cantú describes in the rest of the book, in which U.S. culture lives with its mistreatment of Mexican migrants by denying their individuality. Here, readers see how the failure to appreciate people’s individuality harms interpersonal relationships and identities, too.
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Cantú’s mother had a single photograph of her father, in traditional Mexican dress. She romanticized him as a kind of ideal Mexican archetype: adventurous and strong. At 17, she drove to his home and met him, finding a man who never took any risks and lived just miles from his siblings. She was still ashamed to be Mexican, though now for different reasons.
Cantú’s mother indulges a different form of “othering” and generalization, in which she idealizes her father’s Mexican identity. Her shame when she finally meets him reveals that even this more positive form of generalization is harmful to other cultures, and that the only way to not do harm is to appreciate that people are individuals and not part of a monolith.
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However, later, as an adult and a park ranger, Cantú’s mother came to understand that loyalty to a place and to traditions—the kind of conservatism she’d rejected in her father—could be strengths, making people feel rooted and love the land.
Cantú’s mother is again associated with nature, which in turn is associated with emotional maturity. It was her love of the land that taught Cantú’s mother to love her heritage—suggesting that living in full humanity often begins with a love of nature.
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Cantú’s mother confessed to a friend her lifelong shame of being Mexican. The friend tells her it’s always this way: the second generation of migrants often rejects or feels distant from their parents’ culture, as they try to integrate into the new culture. In later life, they often feel a lack of something like authenticity. Cantú’s mother tells Cantú she wanted to make sure he only ever felt pride in his heritage.
The generational structure of migrant integration reminds readers that borders aren’t the only form of exclusion that migrants have to contend with. The structure of human society also often works to exclude. However, this exclusion is more permeable and less fatal than borders like the one between the U.S. and Mexico.
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Cantú goes to a meeting with José’s immigration lawyer, Elizabeth, as well as Lupe, their pastor, and Diane. Elizabeth says José’s situation isn’t rare, but it’s rare for someone in his position to have so much support.
Again, by noting how rare José's level of support is, Cantú underscores the anonymity and lack of individual value with which most migrants are treated in the justice system.
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Elizabeth tells the group that José’s case will be hard. He has no chance of being granted legal status, and because he was deported in 1996, his options are limited.
The immovable obstacles in José’s path emphasize that he has been absorbed into the impersonal institution of border enforcement, which is rigidly unconcerned with his personal needs and humanity.
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Elizabeth asks Lupe about José’s character and history, such as whether he has ever been in trouble with the law. Lupe says he used to drink but hasn't in 15 years.
In order to argue for José’s right to stay in the country, his legal team will have to supply personal details about him and essentially establish something that has been denied him throughout the immigration proceedings: the value of his individual human life.
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Elizabeth tells Lupe their first option is to try applying for asylum, which would require proof that he fears returning to Mexico. Lupe says of course he fears returning, because of the violence and corruption, but Elizabeth corrects her: ordinary fear isn’t enough. He would have to prove extraordinary, personal danger, such as death threats from cartels.
Again, the rigid legal requirements placed on José and his family underscore how impersonal the institution of border enforcement is. It’s unconcerned with his humanity and wellbeing and only concerns itself with whether its own rigid requirements are met.
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The second option, Elizabeth says, is to ask for deferred deportation under President Obama’s executive actions, though the fact José has been legally removed from the country more than once will make this difficult. Elizabeth repeats that the best-case scenario will simply be for José to return to living in the shadows with no work permit.
José prides himself on being a hard worker. The lack of legal options for a hard worker and devoted father to keep working again points to the mechanical treatment migrants receive from border enforcement, which here reveals itself to be unconcerned with individuals or their potential to contribute to society.
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Elizabeth tells Lupe she will need documentation proving how long José has been living in the U.S. (30 years), documentation about their sons, and letters from people who know José, attesting to his good character and to how hard his deportation would be for his family. She will also need half the $4,000 fee upfront, of which Diane offers to pay half. The pastor says the church will help pay the rest.
The request for personal information again emphasizes that José’s only hope is to distinguish himself from the anonymous masses of migrants deported every day. As such, the legal system itself shows that in order to truly appreciate the value of a human life, people need some sense of an individual’s story—which agencies like Border Patrol typically deny them.
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Elizabeth says if the case fails, José will be deported with a five-year ban on re-entry. And if he tries to enter again, there will be more jail time and longer re-entry bans each time he’s caught. Finally, Elizabeth gives Lupe José’s prison details, though Lupe won’t be able to visit herself because she’s undocumented.
The re-entry bans Elizabeth mentions would effectively keep José from his family—just as the rules on prison visitation keep him from his wife. If the value of a human life is in its human ties and the love it holds, here, the migratory system denies the value of José’s life by keeping him separate from his loved ones.
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One morning before dawn, Cantú drives through the trailer park where José’s family lives. He picks up José’s oldest son, Diego, and they go to the prison where José is being held. Though they arrive at the time posted on the website, the guard on duty tells them they’re two hours early.
The confusion over visiting hours is another example of an institution following its own internal logic and regulations to the detriment of the individuals humans whose lives it affects.
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Cantú and Diego go to a local diner to wait, but when they return at 9 a.m., the specified time, visitation has been canceled because of a riot in the prison.
Again, the episode highlights the ways institutions keep people separate—not just through regulations but also through the internal drama they create, which keeps people on the inside isolated from those on the outside.
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Cantú meets Lupe after working a shift at the coffee shop and helps her sort through a huge bag of the documents Elizabeth requested. Sorting through the extensive paperwork, Cantú pieces together a picture of José’s life since he arrived in the U.S. 30 years ago.
As more details of José’s life in the U.S. emerge, the tragedy of his situation becomes more apparent. Thus Cantú emphasizes that story is an essential component of empathy, and that the anonymity with which most migrants are treated makes it easy to dehumanize and devalue them.
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As Cantú and Lupe leave the plaza, a woman greets Lupe and reveals that Cantú used to be in Border Patrol. Lupe is surprised. The woman says Cantú is helping now to make up for his previous work, and Cantú wonders if he really is trying to pay a reparation. He wonders what true “redemption” would look like.
Cantú’s question about what redemption would look like suggests that redemption might not be possible. There’s an implication that no matter how many good deeds he does now, Cantú’s time in the institution of Border Patrol changed him—even despite his youthful optimism that he would emerge unscathed.
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Cantú knocks on José’s family’s door in the morning again. He collects Diego and José Junior to visit their father in prison and drives to the facility with them again.
Cantú’s growing closeness with José’s family makes José an ever richer and fuller character, underscoring the value of his life, which the border threatens to destroy.
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After passing through various security checks, Cantú, Diego, and José Junior are taken to sit in a waiting room, where two women are already waiting, exchanging banal small talk. Cantú passes the time by looking at the posters in the room, many of them highlighting staff members of the Corrections Corporation of America. He considers what he has in common with these people, including the ways their work damages the spirit.
The sterile waiting-room environment—and the security checks required to access it—are dehumanizing, serving as a reminder that the institution of law enforcement is not concerned with individual humanity. In this context, the posters of staff members are jarring, revealing the human face of an inhuman institution. It’s only now that he’s left Border Patrol that Cantú can see clearly that he, too, was forced to play this role for an inhuman institution.
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After passing through even more bureaucracy, they arrive at the building where José is being held. José Junior says he doesn’t know if he can handle talking to his dad in jail, but they press on.
José Junior’s emotional struggle is a reminder that in weighing the value of a migrant’s life, society must also account for the lives and wellbeing of their loved ones, including young children.
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At the doorway to the visiting room, they’re told they have 45 minutes to talk, through a phone on the wall. The guard sharing this information speaks only to Cantú and the two women visiting their loved ones; he doesn’t look at the boys once.
The impersonal treatment that José’s sons receive, the 45-minute time cap, and the phone they must speak through are all distancing, dehumanizing factors. They underscore that these human relationships are now mediated and institutionalized by the inhuman structure of law enforcement.
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Cantú watches José talk to his sons, smiling and tilting his head, but he can’t hear anything he says behind the glass. Cantú also notices other mundane details, like the guard heating up his lunch in a microwave and snippets of the other visitors’ conversations.
The image of José talking so close but remaining silent highlights the power of manmade boundaries. Though the boundary between José and Cantú is only made of glass, it separates them entirely, just as the U.S.–Mexico border separates people.
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After talking to his sons, José asks to speak to Cantú. The scene ends with them greeting each other warmly over the phone device, and Cantú calls José his brother.
This moving moment of intimacy between the two friends increases the reader’s investment in José’s plight, thus further demonstrating the importance of story, background, and human ties in appreciating the value of a given individual’s life.
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While Cantú is at work one day, Lupe drops off a bundle of letters—testimonies to José’s character from members of his community. She seems nervous around Cantú since learning he used to be in Border Patrol.
The testimonies to José’s upstanding character provide a fuller picture of him and his life—something most migrants don’t get when they come up against Border Patrol.
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After his shift, Cantú drives to the lawyer Elizabeth’s office, and sits in the parking lot reading the letters. In letter after letter, friends, family members, and members of José’s church community describe him as a family man, a religious man, a hard worker, and someone who always has a smile on his face.
The testimonials widen the reader’s perspective on José, giving a sense of a man who is valuable to his community and family in countless ways. As such, the immigration system’s treatment of his as valueless seems even more senseless.
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Lupe’s letter describes José as a devoted husband and father and says they want the best for their sons, which is to live in the U.S., where the boys have lived their whole lives.
In emphasizing how the U.S. is her sons’ home and José shouldn’t be kept from them, Lupe speaks to the idea that borders are at times cruel and arbitrary constructions that needlessly keep people separated from one another.
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José’s sons write letters directly to their father, expressing how much they love and miss him. His eldest son Diego writes of his father’s hard work for the family and how much they rely on him, and he pledges to score goals in José’s honor at his soccer matches.
Again, this evidence of the deep love for José underscores the value of his life, which has been denied by the impersonal immigration system in which he finds himself trapped.
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Cantú is driving home from a shift at the coffee shop when Diego texts him to say his father’s case has been unsuccessful and he will be deported. The lawyer, Elizabeth, confirms, and notes that the authorities will not explain why the case was rejected. Elizabeth adds that José’s case had more supporting evidence than any other she has ever seen.
The imbalance between the effort that went into creating José’s case and its curt dismissal further emphasizes the impersonality of border enforcement. Because these institutions operate on a large-scale and mechanical level, they are incapable of properly valuing the human lives that pass through them.
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In the evening, Lupe asks Cantú to call the lawyer so that José can visit their son, who has broken him arm, in hospital before he’s deported. Cantú has to explain that it’s too late—José is already on the way to the border.
The brutal mechanism of border enforcement splinters José’s family much like his son’s splintered arm.
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Later that night, Cantú walks his neighborhood and calls his mother. She senses he is being evasive, like when he was in Border Patrol, and says she can’t face their relationship changing again.
Cantú’s manner has changed because he is suffering emotionally, just like he did in Border Patrol. This conversation reveals that his work in Border Patrol caused him to shut down emotionally, harming his ability to relate to people with full humanity, whether they were migrants or his closest family members.
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At last, Cantú opens up, telling her that his friend has been deported. He feels like he can’t breathe. He tells her he feels he’s been circling a giant for years, and he’s only now looking up to see the true size of “the thing that crushes.”
The emotional power of Cantú’s response suggests that he’s now processing emotions long suppressed during his time in Border Patrol—a process of stepping back into his full humanity that was impossible while he was required to act as a border agent. In addition, the image of the giant reveals that he’s only now allowing himself to consciously reckon with the super-human scale and power of the institution of which he was a part.
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Sometime later, Cantú speaks to Lupe on the phone. She tells him José is staying on the border, preparing to cross again. Cantú wants to tell her he shouldn’t try, but he knows José has no other options.
José’s repeated attempts to cross begin to seem increasingly futile. His lack of alternative options emphasizes the impersonal, larger-than-human violence of the institution of Border Patrol, in whose workings José is now jammed.
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A week later, they speak again. Lupe tells Cantú an uncle took the two eldest sons to visit José, and that José is planning to cross that weekend.
Again, José’s repeated attempts to cross emphasize that he is powerless, stuck in the machinations of an institution that’s much larger than him.
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Days later, Lupe tells Cantú that José was due to cross, but she hasn't heard from him in days. A few days after this, she tells him his group was chased by Border Patrol, but José escaped and is back in Mexico, recovering.
Again, José’s increasingly desperate attempts to cross reveal how trapped he is in the institution of border enforcement. The chase he escapes from highlights the personal danger he faces every time he tries to circumvent the system and return to his family.
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Cantú dreams that he is at the coffee bar when he sees José wandering aimlessly. He goes to him and sees that his face is dark and old. He tells Cantú he’s been in the desert.
Once again, Cantú’s emotional pain and trauma bubbles up in a dream—he can’t escape the deep impact José has had on him.
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Cantú runs into Diane, who asks him to take some gift certificates to Lupe and her sons for Christmas. When Cantú takes the gift, Lupe doesn’t want to accept it. While Cantú is with Lupe, she tells him José has been caught by Border Patrol again and bused to far away in Mexico. She adds that there has been some trouble with coyotes—the human traffickers who bring people across the border. Men came to Lupe’s door demanding $1,000 to get José out of a safe house, and she gave it to them, but when she spoke to José later, he said he had never been in a safe house.
Lupe and José’s family are descending ever farther into two powerful institutions, each violent in its own way. The legal institution of U.S. border enforcement will continue to separate José from his family in ever more severe ways—an act of emotional violence. In desperation, they turn instead to the alternative institution of illegal human trafficking, whose violence is more overt. José’s case illustrates how the emotional violence of the legal institution creates and feeds the much more violent illegal institution that aims to circumvent it.
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Lupe adds that when José confronted the men who had smuggled him, they threatened to kill him if they saw him again. Now, he’s back near the border, but he’s scared to go out much in case he runs into the men.
The violent institutions in which José is trapped increasingly limit his freedom. Now, in addition to being banned from entering the U.S., his movements in Mexico are circumscribed by the cartels and human traffickers there. This is one function of institutional violence: to squeeze the freedom from daily life.
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Cantú asks Lupe if José is planning to cross again, and she says yes, but he wants to wait until he meets someone he trusts. Cantú wishes he had the courage to smuggle José through the desert himself and bring him all the way home.
The great value Cantú places on José’s life is evident in the disparity between his treatment of the migrants he found in the desert while working as an agent and his desire to carry Cantú through the desert himself. The comparison underscores the book’s argument that to truly value a life, people need to know its story and individuality.
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That Christmas, Cantú stays with his mother. On Christmas Eve, as they stay up talking and drinking eggnog, she says he seems distant again, and he tells her he’s hurting over José and his part in the machine that crushes people like him.
On the Christmas Eves when Cantú was working for Border Patrol, his conversations with his mother often became frosty because his work had caused him to shut down emotionally. His emotional openness here reveals that, at least for him, it’s only possible to sustain a fully open, close human relationship after leaving an institution as damaging as Border Patrol.
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Cantú’s mother tells him it’s fine to feel sad about José, but Cantú says José is just one person, and this happens to millions of people. Cantú’s mother agrees, but adds that it’s fine to feel sad over José because this sadness, and the particulars of José’s story, are what make those millions of others real for Cantú.
The impossibility of fully valuing the countless lives lost on the border is a key theme of this book. Here, Cantú’s mother highlights the importance of individuality, implying that it’s impossible to truly honor an anonymous life, and thus that empathy and story are as important as statistics in reckoning the human cost of border enforcement.
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Cantú’s mother tells him a story about her first job, which was at a desert museum. As an animal lover, she tried to rescue a ground squirrel due to be fed to the snakes, but it ended up slowly dying in her care, and she had to kill it in order to end its suffering. She says the point is that humans learn violence by watching it, and then it enters them, becoming part of who they are.
This story of an attempt to care for nature that ended in violence mirrors Cantú’s good-faith attempt to learn about the border, which ended with his embroilment in a violent institution. Cantú’s mother implies that this is a common, maybe universal pattern: that all humans are involved in some institution that teaches them violence, even if only the broad institution of society. The story is given extra weight by Cantú’s mother’s deep love of nature, which marks her out as a voice of wisdom in the book.
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Cantú’s mother tells Cantú that he won’t be able to rid himself easily of the violence he’s absorbed into himself, and so instead he’ll have to find some meaningful purpose for it.
Cantú’s mother argues that the violence institutions instill cannot be unlearned, and thus that institutional violence is an even more complex problem than it might seem, at first glance. The solution she proposes draws on the theme of trauma and emotional detachment: to recover from institutional violence, she argues, an individual must accept themselves fully, including any suppressed violence or trauma.
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Cantú tells his mother about his dream of José returning, and she tells him maybe he needs to go to José and listen to his story.
By encouraging Cantú to listen to his dream, Cantú’s mother implicitly argues for the validity and value of the subconscious. Cantú’s openness to his mother in this moment is a sign that the trauma and emotional detachment he suffered during his time in Border Patrol will now have a chance to heal.
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A new section begins, now in José’s voice. He says that where he’s staying now, you have to be very careful what you say and do, because the local narcos (people involved in the drug trade) run the place.
The rigidity of the narcos’ territory suggests that it’s not just governments that erect damaging manmade boundaries.
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José says he has thought of bringing Lupe and his sons to live in Mexico, but the boys don’t want to move, and as a good father he knows he could never bring his boys there. He says young children play murder games in a local school playground. He doesn’t want his children to absorb violence in this way.
José’s observations reveal another way in which institutional violence can terrorize people: Mexico’s illegal institutions, such as cartels, have enshrined a culture of violence beyond their own ranks and in the wider population.
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It’s all too easy for young people to fall into the drug trade in Mexico, too, José adds. The country is full of young people with potential who have ended up in the drug trade, and a government simply can’t care for its people when the country is controlled by the mafia. For these reasons, he says, he will never bring his sons to live in this country.
Again, José highlights the institutional failings that have damaged his country. Here, he highlights the violence inflicted on a nation when a legal institution fails and is replaced by an illicit one. The contrast between the individual young people with potential and the machinery of the drug trade suggests how difficult it is for an individual to withstand or resist the reach of such a powerful institution.
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In the United States, José says, the system is organized and not corrupt, so that people can get an education and not die in hunger. This is why he teaches his children to respect authority.
Though José praises the orderliness of American institutions, his words contain a painful irony: the institutions he praises are responsible for excluding him. This is a reminder of the core problem with institutions: they encourage people to act against their own instincts and interests.
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José tells his story of working at a Chipotle, working his way up the ranks from maintenance worker to main cook, and befriending the local policemen who ate there.
José’s story is, in many ways, the story of the American dream: a man who worked his way up from the bottom to lead a good life. José presents the story as evidence that U.S. culture values individual lives by encouraging such advancement—and yet there’s an irony in the fact that the U.S. is now refusing to allow this hardworking man to re-enter and continue to lead his valuable life.
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Diego wants to switch classes because he thinks his teacher is racist, José says, but José told him he has to keep working hard to become someone in life, and that he can’t give up because he thinks someone is against him.
José’s attitude suggests that he has internalized the U.S.’s institutional racism, taking personal responsibility for the violent way in which U.S. society excludes and suppresses racial and other minorities.
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José shares his deep belief that families should be together. He says that he met many other people in jail who, like him, got stuck across the border after visiting a dying family member. He’s seen people get depressed or sick after being separated from their families, like his and Lupe’s family has been.
Within a family, there is an incalculable value to each individual’s life—hence how family separation can make people sick and depressed. By being willing to separate families, the U.S. government shows its comparative disregard for the value of human lives.
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José says politicians in the U.S. believe that deporting a parent will make the whole family return to Mexico, but in fact, the most devoted parents would not bring their families to Mexico because it’s too dangerous, and so they will instead keep trying to get back to their family in the U.S. He says “the U.S. is making criminals out of those who could become its very best citizens.”
José’s comments reveal the way institutions such as border enforcement follow their own rules rather than observing and working with the logic of migrants’ situations. This creates a form of violence, in which both individuals and nations are damaged and made poorer by rules that are not grounded in the logic or reality.
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José says he owes a lot to the U.S. and is grateful to it, but he must keep trying to cross the border out of love for his family. He feels that the government is tearing his family apart.
José’s comments highlight the disconnect between institutional rules, such as migration bans, and family love. As long as an institution like Border Patrol fails to account for the human instinct to love, he suggests, its task of enforcing migration will be impossible, and it will condemn people to lawlessness.
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José says he loves his mother and had no choice but to be with her while she was dying, and that it’s barbaric that he’s being punished because he loved his mother.
Again, José highlights the inherent violence of institutions when they fail to account for the human instinct and need to love.
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José talks about how much harder it is to cross the border now than it used to be. He says he has considered running drugs for a cartel, because it’s cheaper than paying human traffickers. The risks of doing this are very high, though: he could be arrested as a drug trafficker and ruin any chance of getting legal status in the U.S., while also setting a cartel against him.
The incredibly high stakes of the decisions José is now being forced to consider reveal how few options the system has left him. The rigid impersonality of the system is one form of violence inflicted by the institution of border enforcement, since it forces people like José into dangerous acts.
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José says that in some places, the only way to get someone to guide you across the border is to carry drugs for them, because the cartels also control human trafficking. He says there are many mass graves in the desert: the bodies of people who refused to carry drugs.
José now describes a more explicit example of institutional disregard for the value of a human life: the mass deaths that the cartels inflict. Combined with callous treatment from Border Patrol, the cartels’ behavior creates a scenario of inescapable violence for migrants looking to build a better life north of the border.
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José says that he met a man in jail who crossed in a group that started with 85 people and gradually dwindled. A girl of five years old died, and her mother died a few hours later. When they were collected in trucks, two migrants fell off a truck that was chased by police and were never heard of again.
The trickling deaths and disappearances of these migrants illustrate on a detailed, individual level the trickling loss of life that plays out constantly on the border. It’s a human-scale representation of the lack of respect for the value of human life that is rife among the various institutions that rule the region.
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The same man told José he was taken to a drop house, which was raided by police. The smugglers were arrested and the migrants were processed for deportation. The man told the arresting agents about the girl and the mother who died in the desert, and they found the bodies, which were already decomposing. The man told José that though he was a peaceful family man, if he ever met the human traffickers, he would kill them.
By going to retrieve the bodies from the desert, the agents showed some respect for the value of the girl and her mother’s lives. However, they are employed by the system that forced them into their deadly circumstances, thus revealing that even when individuals are capable of empathy and respect, these qualities can’t be held by an institution.
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José tells Cantú that though he risks his life every time, he has no choice but to keep trying to cross. He says he dreams that he’s with his family, but then he wakes up and remembers he’s in Mexico. He says he would—and will—do anything to rejoin his family, and he will keep trying to cross until he makes it.
Again, José traces the disconnect between institutional rule, such as that imposed by Border Patrol, and the human capacity and need for love. Earlier in the book, readers saw Cantú’s spirit being crushed by the institution of Border Patrol; here, however, readers see the inverse scenario: a love strong enough to withstand whatever restrictions institutions place in its way.
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