Preview

Analysis Of The Devil's Highway By Luis Alberto Urrea

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
251 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of The Devil's Highway By Luis Alberto Urrea
The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, an award winning work of investigative journalism, is a multifaceted look on the issue Mexican migration and the factors involved; be it the border patrol, the United States and Mexican governments and their policies, and the Coyotes, a criminal organization known for human smuggling. Urrea’s text tells the story of a group of illegal Mexican immigrants known as the Welton 26, and their Coyote guide: Mendez, who cross the border and enter the perilous region known as the Devil’s Highway, a barren desert known for its inhospitable, often deadly, environment. In this text, the Welton 26, the border patrol, the courts, and the prosecutor's all seek someone to blame. But who is truly at fault for this?
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Iguana Tree Summary
    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Iguana Tree Summary

    When the man started his journey to come across to America, he was taken to an old, run down, dark house. When Hector arrived at the house another man (Miguel) was already there waiting to be hustled across the border. They would spend several days and nights together in the house not knowing what was to come next. They had to go with limited food and drink for days. Then one night the coyote came and took the two men to a warehouse, there at the warehouse were many men. Eventually all the men were loaded into a hole that had been cut out of the bottom of a truck. After all the men had been loaded into the hole it was welded back shut. After hours of riding in a closed, cramped space that smelled of urine and vomit, Hector was losing hope of ever making it out of the truck. Finally, the truck came to a stop, the hole was reopened, and the men were “hustled” out of the truck into a second warehouse (25). From the second warehouse all the men was took into a office where they was given an new identification card, the start of their new life as an “illegal American” (26). Hector went to South Carolina with Miguel the man he met in the old house, they waited on a bench for Miguel’s cousin Pablo to come and pick them up. Finally Pablo arrived and they started their journey to South Carolina where Pablo’s lives and works. The farmer that Pablo worked for also gave Miguel a job. Pablo’s boss called his neighbor to…

    • 828 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Closer Look: Violent Rhetoric and Arizona Politics
    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Closer Look: Violent Rhetoric and Arizona Politics

    Cited: Garcia, Ann. "Fact Sheet: Setting the Record Straight on Border Crime." American Progress. N.P., 14 June 2010. Web.…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Devil's Highway Analysis
    • 2083 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The Devil's Highway Analysis

    The novel begins by providing historical context on immigration and the Devil’s Highway. The book states that the first documented death in the area occurred in 1541. The part of the border that the Yuma-14 was…

    • 2083 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Devil's Highway Essay Example
    • 1383 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Devil's Highway Essay Example

    Alberto Urrea is guiding us trough the tragic story of 26 people on their quest for better life. The main concern of this book is, obviously, more than just that. Their quest is a story within the story of a larger proportion, complexity and importance, the border policy. In his book, Urrea is presenting all the pieces of the puzzle that create the big picture, from bottom to the top, and therefor making it more complex. He is talking about governments, Border patrol, criminals ,and people that are trying to cross the border. The emphasis is on the last ones in the chain, the walkers, as they are a direct victims of the story. The group of people in the story is no different than any other group that tried to cross border before, nor the group that is trying to cross the border tonight as I write this. Big difference is the outcome of their journey, and the influence it had on the attempt to change border policy issues. Death of these people just opened the eyes to remaining few people unaware of the current issues and stupidity of border policy.…

    • 1383 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Bare Life And Space In The Devil's Highway
    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Bare Life And Space In The Devil's Highway

    Throughout The Devil’s Highway, bodies of men and women fell numerous times trying to cross into the United States. Once the United States increased patrol of the border, they controlled the geography. Immigrants had to find another way and sometimes it resulted in death.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Arturto Banuelas Analysis
    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Arturto Banuelas Analysis

    Like Fr. Deck, Msgr. Arturto Bañuelas tends to focus on practical theology and real issues that affect Latinos and Hispanics in the United States; and of course, no discussion of these issues would be complete without touching on immigration reform. Bañuelas’ experience with immigration is a personal one. He grew up in the El Paso-Juárez communities on the U.S.-Mexican border and saw the massive disparity between the cities firsthand; the situation, as he himself was described it, was that “For the past 15 years, El Paso has been ranked as the second safest city in the nation [The United States], while, just across the border, Ciudad Juárez ranks the second most dangerous city in the world.” (The Lies Are Killing Us: The Need for Immigration…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Devil's Highway, By Luis Alberto Urrea
    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Devil's Highway, By Luis Alberto Urrea

    Growing up, I enjoyed family bookshelves which were just as stocked with cookbooks as they were with serial killer encyclopedias. Even before I could fully read all its components, I absorbed information from my mom’s collection, scrutinizing crime scene photos I shouldn’t have and piecing cakes together from the fragments of recipes I could understand. In my parents’ eyes, my reading preferences were on par with flipping through a Magic Treehouse book: as long as I learned and remained relatively un-traumatized, they encouraged me to learn about the world through diverse, oftentimes conflicting, dimensions of storytelling. This approach forged the reader I am today and fostered my love for the duality of written worlds.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles
    • 1925 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles

    Marquez, B. (Spring 2001). “Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900-1945.” The International Migration Review. Vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 331-332.…

    • 1925 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Devil's Highway: A Narrative Analysis
    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Devil's Highway: A Narrative Analysis

    He stated, “it is lived through a palpable sense of deportability- the possibility, which is to say, the possibility of being removed from the space of the US nation-state” (Dowling & Inda 2013, p.44). Revisions to the immigration law have caused Mexican migrants to receive illegal status, which in turn caused police departments to interrogate these migrants because of forces within the administration believing they are not allowed here legally (Dowling & Inda 2013, p.44). Compared to De Genova perception of illegality, Urrea strains more away from defining illegality and the issues it may cause but says they are individuals who pay Coyotes a set amount of money for them to move between borders by finding appropriate refuge in safe houses before they can make it to the United…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Devil's Highway Analysis
    • 1815 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The Devil's Highway Analysis

    In The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, the Mexican illegal immigrants are automatically portrayed as villains once they cross the border. When it comes to immigration, the United States government focuses on border control due to the abundance of illegal immigrants who enter and reside in the United States.Many think that Mexicans who cross the border illegally choose their suffering and pain. However, as demonstrated in the true story, many tragic factors such as the Mexican Government, the United States Government, and the Coyotes and gangsters contribute to the illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States.…

    • 1815 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Do Illegal Immigrants Pay Coyotes?
    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Why Do Illegal Immigrants Pay Coyotes?

    Everyday many illegal immigrants come to this country. According to the article Cargo, “700,000 new illegals enter and stay each year” (www.cairco.org). Many wonder how is that they come. Well the answer is that many immigrants pay coyotes to come to the U.S. They come in train, by boat, cars, semi-trucks, cross the desert, swim the rivers, and rent a green card/U.S. passport. “For undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. in South Texas, the multiday trek is the most perilous leg of a journey that starts with a payment (often $5,000 to $10,000, according to authorities) to coyotes in their home countries, who stash their clients at squalid border safe houses and shepherd them across the Rio Grande aboard inflatable rafts”(Altman). Smugglers or like illegal immigrants call them, coyotes are people that are trained to help you cross…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dangers Of Traveling In Chiapas
    • 224 Words
    • 1 Page

    Dangers Of Traveling In Chiapas

    Chiapas is Mexico’s southernmost state and is known as “the beast” because of the dangers such as needing to follow the rules of not riding buses, not riding trains alone, and never trusting anyone. Chiapas is also dangerous because the trains that the illegal immigrants travel on often maim or seriously injure them, and there are many bandits hiding in the woods. Enrique learned that when traveling in Chiapas, he must not ride buses because they pass through many immigration checkpoints, riding on trains is safest when there is fog so that the immigration police won’t notice him, and don’t trust anyone because most residents of Chiapas despise the immigrants. Although the trains have advantages to other methods of traveling, they are also…

    • 224 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Arizona Immigration Law Thesis
    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Arizona Immigration Law Thesis

    As many people may know, the United States of America is the home of the brave and land of the free. For the past hundred years immigrants have come from the gulfs and the shores of the United States looking for a new life. Many of these immigrants come from impoverished countries, with little or no money, with the dreams and desires of escaping their dire circumstances. Willing to leave everything they’ve known for a better life in America. Recently a new immigration law SB1070 (section 287g) was passed in the state of Arizona that directs police officers to…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Drugs In Chicago
    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Drugs In Chicago

    This article addresses Joaquin Guzman, a Mexican drug lord, and his affiliation with the state of the city of Chicago. Guzman has created an empire with “near-monopoly control” that is virtually untouchable by the law enforcers of the United States (Lippert, Cattan, and Parker 4). Even through all of the countless efforts from individuals who have worked with Guzman to help the United States get to him, he still remains in power over the streets of Chicago. Guzman possesses the power to have his officials in Chicago to facilitate his business and is able to control his men without crossing the border. He is noted as a “logistical genius” who exhibits the talent to have succeeded equally in legitimate business (Lippert, Cattan, and Parker 6). Guzman, as a leader, has instilled a fear into the people that he controls. He will, without hesitation, harm the families of the employees that cross him and his business, and will inevitably punish the responsible individual. Chicago has now been introduced to a leader of cartel drugs and is experiencing the consequences. His drugs have had countless effects on the city and has notably segregated the crime rates in the south and north side. Chicago’s street gangs and street violence has taken the lives of innocent civilians of all ages and is a palpable problem in Chicago. The territory wars and killings caused by these drugs have plagued the streets there have been efforts to end this problem. These efforts have been successful on certain occasions but can’t stop the process as a whole. Guzman has created an untouchable business that has altered the lifestyle of people in Chicago. Accounts of children dying and elementary school students being impacted by shootings have occurred because of…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Border Patrol
    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Border Patrol

    High speed desert chases are a common sight for agents on the ground. Most of the time, upon the pursuit’s end, human cargo is all that is found and, often, their smugglers are pursued after abandoning them. The cargo, however, is what is important. Not all illegals are willing illegals—meaning that some are forced, by threat of their families being harmed, into weapon, drug, or sex-trafficking. Therefore, Border Patrol agents are not just doing their job for the good of our country, but also for the good of those who are crossing over.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More