Summary: Part I

Part I of the memoir covers Francisco’s training at the Border Patrol Academy and his early time as a field operative after graduating. The training is physically demanding, and several of Francisco’s classmates wash out, but Francisco and his friend Morales eventually graduate. At Christmastime, Francisco’s mother visits him and asks him difficult questions about why he wants to join the Border Patrol. He tells her he wants to understand the border from firsthand experience rather than learning about it in a classroom. She expresses her misgivings, speaking from her experience working for the National Park Service that he is “stepping into a system, an institution with little regard for people.”

After graduation, Francisco and the others are sent for field training, where they begin patrolling under the guidance of an experienced supervisor, Cole. The work is difficult both physically and emotionally for Francisco, who wants to be a compassionate border agent but must also follow the rules that require him to arrest migrants who cross the border illegally. Francisco’s fluency in Spanish means that he has conversations with many of the migrants he apprehends. Some of them beg him to let them go while others treat him with friendliness, and at one point a pair of brothers from Oaxaca even share their homemade snacks with him and his partner, Morales. Francisco often phones his mother for moral support and to confide in her, although these phone calls become more infrequent as time passes. As he becomes more experienced, he starts to feel like he’s becoming “good” at his job, but he’s not sure what it means to be good at being a Border Patrol agent.

Interspersed with Francisco’s personal experiences are sections of scholarly research detailing the history of the US-Mexico border. The first such intermission is a summary of the discoveries of an Italian priest, Eusebio Kino (1645–1711), who was the first European to survey the border area of Baja California. Other intermissions explore the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), which settled the new border between the United States and Mexico after the Mexican-American War, along with subsequent negotiations in later decades. These passages also discuss the difficulties faced by the United States in creating and maintaining the physical markers that demarcated the border between the two countries. One section concerns the surveyors sent after the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, who found it difficult to supply their parties with water given the dry climate of the border region.

Francisco eventually begins patrolling on his own without supervision. He continues to try his best to treat migrants with as much kindness as his occupation allows. One night, Francisco is asked to translate for some young girls who have been apprehended at the border along with their mothers. The experience is too difficult, and he leaves when his shift ends despite his superior’s request that he stay to continue translating. He experiences another difficult shift when he has to call in his first dead body. All these incidents inspire bad dreams, which Francisco relates in brief sections between the longer passages detailing fieldwork and scholarly research. He also begins grinding his teeth out of stress. When Morales survives a motorcycle accident, Francisco cries and contemplates their mortality.

The most harrowing incident for Francisco, though, is his attempt to help a family of isolated Native Americans living along the border who have been disturbed by mysterious strangers. Francisco tries to learn who the intruders are, but in the process, he begins to suspect he’s become a target of the criminals. His growing anxiety causes him to be more careful, and during shooting practice he kills a small bird just to prove to himself he is capable of killing. In one of Part I’s final scenes, Francisco avoids speaking to his mother about his job or the stress he’s under.

Analysis: Part I

In Part I, Cantú interweaves different types of narrative in a way that will continue throughout the memoir. The main story of Francisco’s Border Patrol experiences gives way to glimpses into his increasingly disturbing dreams and research-based passages that shed light on the border’s history. Francisco’s mother respects but disagrees with his decision to join the Border Patrol; she tries to make him see that there are other, less dangerous ways to understand the border region. Initially, Francisco calls his mother often when he’s stressed or in need of advice, but as the job wears on him, he calls less frequently. Eventually, he refuses to even mention his work to her out of shame.

Francisco is shown to be more empathetic than most of his colleagues. His supervisor, Cole, is a foil to Francisco, showing a callous disregard for the man he ran over to earn his nickname “Black Death.” However, as he becomes more desensitized to violence and suffering, Francisco wonders whether a “good” Border Patrol agent must be a bad person. Many of Francisco’s attempts at compassion fail despite his good intentions. For example, he tries to help a family harassed by mysterious men, but he only heightens the danger by potentially making enemies of the intruders.

Francisco’s dreams are both a window into his imagination and a barometer of his worsening psychological condition. In them, he is often engaged in or victimized by violence despite remaining almost entirely (physically) unscathed in waking life. The scholarly research, meanwhile, lets the author step away from his own story and consider the border’s complex historical background. These sections show that the border is not a physical boundary but rather an arbitrary, difficult-to-define imaginary line. This perspective undercuts the determination with which the Border Patrol carries out its duties.