The Devils Highway - Luis Alberto Urrea [93]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of several widely acclaimed and prizewinning books. His nonfiction works include The Devil’s Highway, a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction; Across the Wire, winner of the Christopher Award; and By the Lake of Sleeping Children. His celebrated fiction includes the novels The Hummingbird’s Daughter and In Search of Snow, as well as the collection Six Kinds of Sky, which won the 2002 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award, Editor’s Choice for Fiction. Urrea is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award, an American Book Award, a Western States Book Award, and a Colorado Book Award, and he has been inducted into the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry. He teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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THE DEVIL’S HIGHWAY
A TRUE STORY
BY LUIS ALBERTO URREA
A conversation with Luis Alberto Urrea
Why is the story you tell in The Devil’s Highway important beyond the border regions of the United States?
The simplest answer to that question is to say that, at the time, this tragedy was the most notorious border incident and the largest Border Patrol manhunt. It captured the imagination of the world press and it led to many potential border reforms. These reforms were sidetracked after September 11, 2001. However, on a deeper level, I think the border question is one that will never go away.
The book is important to me because it attempts to reveal the many layers of complicity in the border chaos. Americans are being fed a bill of goods: Mexicans are invading our country. The facts are more complex and the players are many. Writing The Devil’s Highway seemed like a chance to show Americans the face of the undocumented. But it also was a chance to introduce Americans to the Border Patrol agent—a law enforcement officer who is disrespected, insulted, and demeaned by both the right and the left. Finally, it was a chance to reveal the complexities of the international crime syndicates that are now selling human flesh as if it were bags of marijuana.
The Border Patrol agent who first stumbled across the lost walkers is identified only as Mike F. in your book. Why is his identity concealed?
Mike F. is truly the hero of this story. When I began interviewing Border Patrol agents, they closed ranks on the subject of this particular agent. I believe they were trying to protect his privacy. Since the book has come out, however, I have been in contact with him. He is now with Canine Corps and his name is Dave Phagan. I was able to cobble together a sketchy version of his experience through the testimony of his brother officers. But Phagan’s story is much more amazing, complex, and shocking than what I could capture in the book. I hope to find a way to tell his complete story in the near future.
Coming to this story as a Mexican American, did you feel you brought any bias to how you researched or wrote The Devil’s Highway? And do you feel that your perspective changed at all during the writing process?
Yes. My missionary background made me deeply sympathetic to the undocumented. My Mexican-American background made me feel antagonistic toward the Border Patrol.
I found that my sympathy for the undocumented deepened the more I looked into their struggle. That doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the sense of alarm Americans feel over the porous border. I share a deep sense of dismay after watching what’s happening there. And, of course, the greatest surprise for me was in discovering the humanity in the Border Patrol agents I got to know. My perspective has continued to evolve since the book has been published, since I regularly hear from Border