Luis Alberto Urrea's 2009 novel Into the Beautiful North is a comedy against the background of the cruel forces which drive rural Mexicans to migrate to the United States despite the risks they face on the journey, the hostility they encounter, the dangers government immigration enforcement officers pose and the relatively modest rewards the migrants obtain in exchange for enduring these risks as well as the long, hard hours they work and the bitter loneliness of exile.The story itself is a combination of the movies The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven and Homer’s The Odyssey. The first part of the novel introduces us to the protagonist Nayeli, a high school graduate from the fictional fishing town of Tres Camarones in Sinaloa (or maybe Nayarit, nobody knows) Province in Mexico. And while Tres Camarones had resisted most forms of modernization, it became subject to forces beyond the control of its residents:
And then, the peso dropped in value. Suddenly, there was no work. All the shrimp were shipped north, tortillas became too expensive to eat, and people started to go hungry. We told you change was bad, the old timers croaked. Nobody had heard of the term immigration. Migration, to them, was when the tuna and the whales cruised up the coast, or when Guacamaya parrots flew up from the south. So the men started to go to el norte. … The modern era had somehow passed Tres Camarones by, but this new storm had found a way to siphon its men away, out of their beds and into the next century, into a land far away. P. 4
We meet the engaging characters of Tres Camarones: Tacho is a gay man and owner of a local restaurant with a computer which connects to the Internet. Nayeli, Yoloxochitl and Verónica are the last of their group of friends remaining in Tres Camarones. Verónica has gone “goth” after her parents died, and, while she continues to socialize with her classmates, she no longer participates in Nayeli’s and Yoloxochitl’s back-and-forth jabs and banter. They are all in the shadow of Irma Garcia Cervantes, the soon-to- be elected Municipal President of Tres Camarones and former bowling champion who had invested her winnings wisely.
Their popular culture is dominated by the local cinema and the movies the proprietor, the long-time mayor whom Irma defeated to gain her position, manages to bring in.
Two crises converge on the residents of Tres Camarones: At the annual crab hunting party, Nayeli notices for the first time in her life that she doesn’t know any pregnant woman in Tres Camarones. Also, narcos had come to Tacho’s café to sell marijuana to American surfers staying nearby, and they had abused him.
After watching The Magnificent Seven and debating whether Steve McQueen or Yul Brenner was more heroic, Nayeli hits upon a solution to both crises: Yoloxochitl, Verónica and she will cross into the Untied States, recruit 7 Mexican fighters, former police and soldiers, to come to Tres Camarones and defend it from the narcos.
“Dances,” Nayeli whispered. “Boyfriends. Husbands. Babies. Police – law and order. No bandidos.” (p. 56)
Mayor Irma approves the plan and provides financial support, primarily because she is hoping they will locate a romantic flame of her youth. Nayeli also has a secret agenda: Her father, a former police officer, abandoned her and her mother, and his last postcard came from Kankanee, Illinois, and Nayeli wants to retrieve him.
Their journey is of course filled with surprises and hardships and obstacles. But no more spoilers. You have to read it yourself.
Below are some passages which I found poignant and questions which I thought were important to consider:
Yoloxochitl's Nahuatl Name and What Happens to Your Name When You Migrate
Her parents had been infected with folklore mania, a real danger among liberal Mexicans with college educations. Her father had made it through one year of university, and thus well-connected to his Toltec past, he and Yoloxochitl’s mother had decided to christen their offspring with Nahuatl names. … Unfortunately for her older brother, they had named him Tlaloc. Young Tlaloc didn’t enjoy being known as the Rain God – every time he went to pee, his friends made relentless jokes—so he changed his name to Lalo before he went north with his father to become nameless. (p. 20)
Why Are Some of the Mexican Immigrants in the United States Portrayed as Passive?
Nayeli and Atómiko defeat the white supremacists who attack the migrant camp outside of San Diego. P. 251-55
Mexican-Americans Abuse Them for Speaking Spanish and Entering USA Without Authorization. Why Doesn't the River Slow Down for This?
Mexican-American proprietors of a Mexican restaurant in Colorado in which Nayeli and Tacho dine forbid them to speak Spanish & eject them when, in response to their question how they came, Nayeli tells them, “We … came .. across.” (italics in original) Nayeli and Tacho flee from the restaurant and try to recover inside their vehicle. The author ends the description of this traumatic event by noting that the Green River which flowed east of town “never slowed.” Pp. 278-81
Does Acknowledging 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Open the Door to Acceptance? And Why is Tacho More Assertive?
After this incident, at the next stop, “Nayeli, caught up in patriotic guilt, bought a silver plastic rendering of the twin towers and mounted it on the dashboard. She attached an American flag decal to the windshield. Tacho bought a T-shirt with a picture of armed Apache warriors on it. It said: HOMELAND SECURITY SINCE 1492.” Pp.281-2
How Do Anglo-Americans' Beliefs About Different Peoples of the World Impact Their Ideas About Immigration?
During Nayeli and Tacho’s trip from San Diego to Kankakee, Illinois, one group they encounter think they are Pakistani and another store clerk thinks they are Iraqi.
Is Water Water Everywhere?
“[Nayeli] washed her underpants with the tiny soap bar under the steaming cascade of American water. It was different, she had noticed. Mexican water was weaker and had a distinct primordial scent. American water didn’t feel, well, it didn’t feel as watery to her as Mexican water.” P. 311
What is the Border?
"So this is the border," [Tacho] said. "I don't get it." p. 107
There were so many Americans in Tijuana that [Nayeli] didn't understand what the border was supposed to be. People in the holding pens had told her that it was the same in el otro lado, that there were so many Mexicans milling around San Ysidro and Chula Vista that it looked like Mazatlán. There were more Mexicans in Los Angeles than there were in Culiacán. She spun in a circle and saw nothing but barbed wire and guards. The whole border was the same dirt scrub dust stinking desert blankness. With helicopters. p. 170
What Is It That Americans Have?
Big, hearty Americanos in madras shorts and straw hats and baseball caps and bowling shirts jostled them and marched on, laughing like they always laughed, owning the earth and secure in their mastery. Nayeli wanted what they had, but she did not know what that was. No cares at all. Nothing slowed the Americans, nothing made them silent. Americans did not cower. When cholos insulted them, they walked through the clouds of anger and hatred as if deaf, as if they didn't have time to hear such foolishness, and, if they did hear it, they raised a middle finger or laughed or said something tart and marched, marched, marched into the laughing world. pp. 169-70
It’s actually a tragedy. But the people laugh in the face of their pain.
— Cindy and Luis Urrea (@Urrealism) August 18, 2020
