FAYETTEVILLE — His father was Mexican, his mother American, and for Luis Alberto Urrea, that mixed heritage made him a daily target for both Mexican and gringo gangs, their members all eager to beat up the young boy as he walked home from Catholic school.
Urrea today is a renowned author, professor at University of Illinois-Chicago and an engaging speaker who entertained hundreds during two days of appearances in Fayetteville Oct. 15-16. His appearances were part of One Book, One Community, a reading program including both the University of Arkansas and Gathering of the Groups at the Fayetteville Public Library. Both programs encouraged patrons to read Urrea’s “The Devil’s Highway.” The book, a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, is the story of 26 Mexican men who tried to cross the border into the Arizona desert. Twelve of them died in the brutal desert sands.
“The Devil’s Highway” may be Urrea’s best known work, but he’s written numerous others, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as poetry. His work has garnered numerous awards, including a Christopher Award for “Across the Wire,” Urrea’s first book. The Christophers were founded in 1945 by a Maryknoll priest, Father James Keller, and honor books, television, radio and film works that “celebrate the humanity of people in a positive way,” according to the group’s Web site.
But his Fayetteville appearance centered on “The Devil’s Highway” and he talked about his own background and about the dark business of the “coyotes,” those who smuggle desperate Hispanics across the border with false promises of an easy, prosperous new life and no concern for their safety.
His Mexican father was a federal judicial officer; his mother was an American with a somewhat Victorian style. They married and lived in Tijuana, and for Urrea, Spanish was his first language. He spent his days with his grandmother and other Mexican relatives while his mother commuted to work in San Diego.
The family eventually moved to the United States because young Luis suffered from ill health — tuberculosis, German measles, scarlet fever and at least two other illnesses.
“I was dying,” he said.
In America, he could get adequate medical care. Urrea described himself as “a white boy with a crew cut, going to Catholic school, … king of the nerds.” The Chicano gangs considered him white; the white gangs considered him Mexican — an easy target for both sides.
So young Luis spent his afternoons inside, reading and watching television, activities that helped him unknowingly prepare for his eventual writing career. Eventually, his parents’ marriage disintegrated, and they divided the house. In his father’s portion, Luis spoke Spanish and lived with a Mexican heritage. In his mother’s section, the language was English and manners were of a refined Victorian-like era.
“I feel like I was raised as two people,” Urrea said.
The first in his family to attend college, Urrea dropped out of academia for a decade after his undergraduate years and worked numerous jobs, including several assisting a missionary group who worked with the poor in Tijuana.
“It was that pastor who told me, ’You should write about (them.)’”
In “The Devil’s Highway,” Urrea writes of the brutal human trade that became so prevalent as Hispanics sought to improve their lives and those of their families by heading north.
Asked to which government — the United States or Mexico — he blamed for the plight of immigrants, Urrea declined to comment. But he noted that both governments have reportedly benefited from the northward treks of people wanting to better their own lives and those of their families.
The Mexican government long contended the U.S. didn’t shut down the illegal traffic, at least in part, because of their payments into the social security system, Urrea said. The accusation was that 8 percent to 10 percent of money paid into the system was by undocumented workers who would never claim benefits, he said.
But Mexican government promoted the “red carpet mandate,” directing its officials to make it “as easy as possible” for Hispanics to head north, he added. “Those guy honestly introduced people to the United States.”
The economic downturn came after “The Devil’s Highway” was published, but Urrea said the number of people heading north had slowed dramatically even before the business climate soured.
He told of asking what the border police how they fill their hours since the traffic has dropped. “Read your books,” was the reply. “The biggest danger to border patrol now is boredom.”
