Denise H. (Lazeeladee) -
Urrea has an almost evangelical zeal to communicate the sad lot of Mexico's "untouchable class," a border population abandoned by their country, at times by their own kin. This collection of repportage, like his Across the Wire, originates in Urrea's years helping California missionaries deliver food and medicine to orphanages and inhabitants of a moldering garbage dump near Tijuana. Here, people's lives are wholly delimited by this universe of decomposing waste. They mine their livelihood in hidden treasures?a can of food, cast-off clothing, scrap wood for a house. Passions fester and erupt; nobility and sacrifice coexist with greed, cruelty and rage. A dual government of armed toughs and community respect prevails. In 10 stark, intimate, riveting essays, Urrea passes no judgment, but attempts to show why his subjects risk all for the chance of something better across the border. Their privation provokes incomprehensible acts, incomprehensible unless one has been in their situation. Urrea has shared their lives and he emerges with strong opinions on those responsible for such misery, and fears of what it forebodes for the course of America's future. Well worth reading in our age of escalating xenophobia.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Carol F. (cactusflowerwomen) reviewed By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border on + 628 more book reviews
A quick read, but very disappointing. Perhaps I should have read his first book to have gotten more information about the orphanages, but this was written in 1995 and was too dated. I knew most of this
information, and didn't care about some of it. Though I was very interested to read about the dump trash pickers.
information, and didn't care about some of it. Though I was very interested to read about the dump trash pickers.
