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By the Lake of Sleeping Children is one of the books that people who loved American Dirt and those who fear migrants and want a border wall should read. It shows the reality of the lives of the poor along the border with the US. It is also very difficult for me to write coherently about but I'm deliberately not looking at other reviews. I want the thoughts to be my own. It is a good book and one I recommend. A list of other books on the subject that I have read and recommend is at the end.
The author is the son of a Mexican father and an American mother and grew up in Tijuana. After college he spent a decade working along the border trying to take care of the poor, the people in "a dirt-floored shack with no heat, to water, no electricity, no furniture, no plumbing, no appliances, no bed, no blankets, no rugs, no stove", no healthcare. He knows the people who make their living as garbage pickers in the giant trash dump in Tijuana —El Dompe — and he knows the children consigned to orphanages.
Urrea has an easy, almost conversational, story telling style of writing that I like very much. He has a dry but engaging and very effective of describing people, events, and locations. His descriptions of bouncy, cheerful, and clean Anglo church groups who are shocked by the reality of what they encounter has a wry humor to it.
The author explains that he hasn't written a sociological or political text which I had sort of expected. It isn't objective and is a view of a particular subset of people. Instead it is a series of stories, each one of which could stand alone. Two chapters in particular are hard to take. "A Lake of Sleeping Children" is set among the garbage pickers of El Dompe and explains the title of the book. It is just too horrible to relate and I'm not going to try. I will say that what I read was a genuine "Oh, My God" moment. "The Bald Monkey and Other Atrocities" looks at animal cruelty and one the author suggests should be skipped by animal lovers. I agree. Urrea explains why giving a dog to these poor Mexicans is a very bad idea however well intentioned."Words in Collision" is actually a fun read and looks at cursing and shows why Anglos shouldn't casually throw in a profanity they might have read or heard and think cute. One tourist learned the hard way why the "shave and a haircut two bits" cor horn beep can be taken as an insult and get you punched. "Day in the Life" is a a nonfiction novella and his "Norman Mailer Project". It is a slice of the lives of three families and perhaps my favorite chapter along with the one on cursing. The Norman Mailer comparison is apt (Mailer was know for creative nonfiction") but I also thought of Studs Terkel and John Steinbeck.
Urrea also writes about the value that the Mexican migrants bring to the US and how, audience appeasing diatribes aside, most politicians are well aware of the disaster of keeping Mexican migrants out of the US would be. It reminds of an internet meme that goes something like "If migrants are here to live off our welfare, why is ICE always raiding workplaces?". Mexicans, says the author, are very hard workers. Georgia discovered to its detriment to "Be careful what you wish for, you might get more than you bargained for". The Revisionist History podcast has an episode titled "General Chapman's Last Stand" (season 3, episode 5) which examines what happened when a military man was put in charge of immigration policies. It suggests that perhaps things were better with open borders because seasonal workers would enter the US, work, then return home. With closed borders, returning is likely not possible or practical.
My road to reading By the Lake of Sleeping Children started with Jeanine Cummins' American Dirt (My review here). I am not a fan of that book for reasons that have nothing to do with the author's race. I don't think it is well written and it is a sanitized version of the migrant experience suitable for Anglo book clubs. After reading it, I turned to books by Latinx authors to find out about life on the border and on the migrant trail. Below is a list of books I've read so far. Reading these books is reading the real thing and not an anemic imitation.
Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border by Luis Urrea. A look at the life of refugees living on the Mexican side of the border.
The Devil's Highway: A True Story by Luis Urrea. The story of an ill-fated border crossing. The author graphically shows what it is like to die of thirst.
The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos by Oscar Marteniz. The author traveled the migrant trail several times researching this book.
Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario. The author retraced Enrique's journey twice from his home village to the US. Like Martinez, Nazario rode the top of The Beast to the border. It is a very touching story that not only shows the dangers on the migrant trail but what happens after.
Crossing Over: A Mexican Family of the Migrant Trail by Ruben Martinez. The author explore the lives of Mexican's in their home village and working in the US.
Keywords: El Dompe, Mexico, Tijuana, poverty in Mexico
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