The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border
Ratings23
Average rating3.9
Francisco Cantú was raised by his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, in the scrublands of the Southwest. After college, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners are posted to remote regions of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, where they learn to track other humans down drug routes and smuggling corridors under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Cantú tries not to think where the stories go from there. Plagued by nightmares, he abandons the Patrol after 4 years for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and gets arrested upon his return, Cantú must know the whole story.
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I read this book as part of a history class on North American borders. Francisco Cantú offers no solutions to address the current issues at the border. However, through José’s story at the end, the book suggests that the threat of deportation and increased border security fails to stop unauthorized immigration. Instead, these measures only endanger lives, as people resort to more dangerous routes to cross.
This memoir devotes the first two-thirds to Cantú’s trauma from working as a border security agent, revealed through his dreams. The final third focuses on the deportation of an undocumented immigrant, José, who has lived and worked in the U.S. for decades and has a wife and three children. The book concludes with a poignant portrayal of José’s determination through his voice. Despite being deported repeatedly, José promised to continue attempting to return as long as his family remained on the other side.
This book could interest you if you want direct insight from a former border security agent. However, if you are looking for answers, skip it.
Some notes:
1. Cantú learns that one cannot change an institution. The institution changes you.
2. The difference between observation and participation is a line that becomes a river.
3. Individuation: creating a dialogue between the conscious and the repressed, unconscious mind. On dealing with our inner shadows and repressed thoughts, Cantú shares Carl Jung's idea that "we have to expose ourselves to the animal impulses of the unconscious without identifying with them and without 'running away’” (165). Do not try to split off what happens in the unconscious (dreams, automatic behaviors like Freudian slips, intuition, etc); the best stance would be: “Please, come and devour me” (165).
4. Cantú shares another of Jung’s ideas: realize that I and the rest of humankind stand in humanity’s collective black shadow and accept that reality.
This is absolutely a must read memoir. Cantu covers a lot of ground and beautifully balances the harsh statistics of America's border control policies with the human cost that is so often left out of the coverage. A heartbreaking but necessary read.
There isn't much news here in this memoir of a former border patrol officer, but the story is highly relevant to current events. It's well written and timely.
