A review of Luis Alberto Urrea's The Devil's Highway
America is a country with famous and even, one might call them, mythological borders, and most who live here now have either crossed over one to get here or is descended from someone who did not so very long ago. My father did. Or yours. Or your grandmother. Or your grandfather. Or both of them. Or a great grandparent. They sailed an ocean. They traversed a desert. Or someone from whom you are descended eons ago crossed the once-viable land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
And if, like many of us, you have grown so temporarily soft around the edges that you sometimes forget just how much a matter it is of life and death for so many people around the world -- but particularly those living south of the Rio Grande -- to cross over into this still vital land of plenty, a reading of poet Luis Alberto Urrea's powerful new nonfiction narrative "The Devil's Highway" will undoubtedly brace your soul and remind you that all of us, rich or poor, brown, white, black or yellow, whether from Veracruz or Gaza or Istanbul or Malibu or Oaxaca or Pacific Heights, are traveling through these parts for only a little while.
You can find the full review here
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