Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border by Luis Alberto Urrea - Book Report/Review Example

The book is a tribute and a salute to the perseverance and hardship which these people undertake to sustain and conduct their livelihood behind the fascinating geographical terrain.Thesis Statement The essay intends to explore the main tone of the book, which is often treated as exposing documentation on the history and socio-economic paradigm of life across the fences. But in reality, this book is a testimony of thousands of human souls struggling every day for life and livelihood. The book is an acclamation for the relentless struggle these people undertake for their life and livelihood.

Theme A patch of land located just twenty miles from one of the world’s most sought-after places, San Diego. But the saddest part of the story lies in the fact that no one actually bothers to peep into this geographical terrain that captivates the saga of an age-old pang, deprivation, and poverty. Yet, life moves on at these refugee camps on the other side of the Mexican border and the book is that limited space where author Urrea is able to pay homage to the true spirit of human endeavor and struggle for existence.

To delineate deep into the thematic realm of the book, it is important to locate and comprehend the soul of the book. The real story inherent in the book is actually the theme celebrated of the book. Urrea was a native from San Diego and he spends his life in the areas around the Mexican border in and around Tijuana working for a Protestant aid group. He had that insight, a proper eye to transcend beyond the economically backward area to find the exact living condition of the human beings residing in these areas and pull out the exuberant spirit with which they relentlessly fight in their battle of existence.

The narrative of the book is candid and this is quite purposeful. Urrea never wanted to over-sensationalize the situations, and personal reminiscences mentioned in the book. He narrates every story in the book with reverence, compassion, and empathy. And in this procedure, Urrea successfully traces out the reason for the high rate of immigration to the United States from these areas. A cohesive empathy and insightful mind from the writer echoes after a close inspection across the area, “Poverty is personal: it smells and it shocks and it invades your space.

You come home dirty when you get close to the poor” ((Urrea, “Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border”, Pg 10). This is one of the most striking and pragmatic descriptions of poverty ever given in any book. It is a luscious image but true to its deepest core. The pang of deprivation and the helpless situation of the people narrated in the book, not only celebrate the theme of the book but also reflect the oddest environment in which life still gets its nourishment subjected to extreme tenacity.

The exploitation of the women by cops and the life at the dumps, where people are literally sustaining on a bed and a car battery that runs television as their only possession in the world, might be striking and astonishing. This fact might fall beyond the mundane sensibility of the human mind but is true. Mention of such exploitation also recalls the harassment that author had to face while his father expired in a car accident and the exploitation of the cop and the insurance agency in this regard.

The boom has a very interesting Prologue and a heart-melting Epilogue bearing the title “Christmas Story”. Apart from this, it contains ten chapters recalling and reminiscing true stories of hardship and identities that are almost forgotten and bizarre. The book ends with one of the most naked truths of life which says, “There is not much you can do, but you do what you can, and you dare to hope after all. Heartbreak and hope- business as usual in Tijuana” (Urrea, “Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border”, Pg - 190).

These lines sum up the total theme of the book which celebrates life as a shade of grey where no emotion or facet is recorded in the extreme spectrum, where life and its spirit never cease, and amid all the adversities, it moves on with a spirit and vanity.Conclusion More than a mundane text of socio-demography or socio-economy, the book, “Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border” by Luis Alberto Urrea, is a story of human tenacity and narrative of life that operate amid all odds of nature unidentified and far away from the reach of human attention, publicity, and searchlights.