The Devil’s Highway: The U.S. - Mexico Border Crossing, Global Influences and Politics
The Devil’s Highway: The U.S. - Mexico Border Crossing, Global Influences and Politics

Summary/Abstract: Beginning with the 1846 Mexican-American War and expanding to the post-9/11 era, the U.S.-Mexico border has become the embodiment of crises, conflicts, and reconciliation. The border crossing has occupied the headlines with strict border control policies and high death tolls along the border. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for the nonfiction category in 2005, Luis A. Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway (2004) gives voice to marginalized Mexican border crossers in his personal-political border writing. This article poses a major question about Mexicans crossing the border: why do they embark on a fatal journey across the border? As a response, the article explores the historical, cultural, economic, and political repercussions of Mexican border crossing through The Devil’s Highway. Mexicans’ sense of displacement and search for a place in American society and economy relate their border crossing to the concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, keyed by Deleuze and Guattari. In addition to Arjun Appadurai’s intersectional global dynamics and John Tomlinson’s overwhelming mass media and communication networks, Mexican migrants’ broadened entrapment in a cycle of global deterritorialization and reterritorialization is noted. With the failure of border militarism and prevalent xenophobic responses, Urrea’s political narrative calls for collaboration between the United States and Mexico on diplomatic, legal, and humanitarian terms. Therefore, the analysis of Urrea’s pro-life narrative and his call for border policy reform provide a new dimension to the politics of border control, border and immigration studies, and human rights struggle along the border. As an interdisciplinary border narrative, The Devil’s Highway highlights the predominance of Mexican history, geopolitical and regional dynamics, and globalization in the experience of undocumented Mexican migrants.

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