“Oh? Are we here illegally? Oh! This is, you say, the United States?? Right here? No, we did not know that. Praise God. We were taking a walk, Allabu Akbar.”
Bad guys had cornered the market on trying to look casual and “innocent.” Mexicans, when not giving up, when not running like maniacs, often got wide-eyed, like a two-year-old stealing cookies. I didn’t do nothin’! I was just out here looking around! The more innocent thy acted, the more nervously slouchy and devil-may-care or childlike in their sinlessness, the more kinky the whole scene was, and the cop wpuld start finering his sidearm. (Urrea 16)
I chose this passage in particular because Urrea did a good job creating an image while I was reading. I was laughing to myself because I was playing the conversation in my head. Comparing the illegal immigrants to little kids stealing cookies was a good simile to use. There was another part in the book that caught my attention, it was at the very beginning of chapter one, the first page and a half. Urrea caught my attention immediately. His use of imagery, he was very descriptive I could form a picture in my head. “They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked.” (Urrea 3) I knew Urrea was writing about natives of Mexico crossing the border to the United States, but this part made me think of an African American slave from back then. The way he described them made me think of a slave working out in the hot weather. Urrea wrote this book, The Devil’s Highway, to tell the truth about the U.S border patrol. He is a Mexican- American and was talking about how he had family that was chased away by the border patrol, so he take it personally when it comes to them. Urrea was also talking about how one of his best friends is a member of border patrol,