Ann Jaramillo
La Línea
Roaring Brook Press, 2006.

Ages 12-16

In her book La Línea, Ann Jaramillo describes in spare, Spanish-peppered prose the harrowing journey of Miguel and his sister Elena as they travel illegally from their drought-stricken Mexican village to California to reunite with their parents. Threats of la migra (border patrol), starvation, and unrelenting desert heat do nothing to reverse their determination to press forward.  Thankfully, a decent coyote (smuggler), an experienced companion, and locals throwing food at a passing train mitigate a harsh trip by providing a chance at survival. La línea, however, is no fairy tale: some in the story - raped, robbed, deported, or pulled under the wheels of the mata gente (the “people killer” locomotive) - end their travels in hostile gangs or unloved, begging on the  streets.

Coming into the tale, students might wonder why anyone would take the risk, let alone make the repeated efforts of Javi, Miguel’s elderly El Salvadorian friend, who ultimately does not survive. La línea - that perilous border between Mexico and the U.S. - possesses the brutal force of an antagonist: and yet, once crossed, it evaporates, inspiring an equally deflating stab of ambiguity, incredulity, and loss. “We looked at the desolation that surrounded us,” Miguel says,  “And there was nothing but scrub brush and a single, tailless lizard...I’d arrived in the very place I wanted to be....but I was in the middle of nowhere. Had I come this far to feel as I did in San Jacinto...To belong and be lost at the same time?” This equivocation is central to the book and is born out at the novel’s end with Miguel staying in San Francisco and Elena returning to San Jacinto to marry a neighbor and revitalize her grandmother’s farm. “El Norte never measured up to what she imagined it would be,” Miguel says. “There is no belonging... without longing.”

Married to an immigration litigator and herself an ESL teacher in a Salinas middle school, Jaramillo is well-placed to write for students who “find very few books that reflect their lives and experiences.” Cover art, taken from Sonia Nazario’s Pulitzer Prize–winning odyssey, Enrique’s Journey,  starkly conveys the exhaustion and isolation faced by many Latinos braving the perilous border crossing and will, along with Jaramillo’s text, acknowledgements, and epilogue, spawn rich discussion about Immigration Reform ª| which is currently being so hotly debated in this country.

Ann  A. Grandin
July 2007