Crossing the Wire

In Silao, Victor joins the other people with small backpacks waiting for the bus north to Guadalajara. He and the other undocumented workers who plan to cross the wire are known as mojados—“wetbacks” or “wets”—due to crossing into America via the Rio Grande River, even if this is not the route the workers actually took.

Victor worries about not having money for a coyote (a border crossing guide) and crossing on his own. At the bus station, he spots a man who looks like “a lone wolf,” Miguel Escobar (33). Victor thinks Miguel looks very experienced and must have made many crossings, so he plans to keep track of him.

The bus ride is pleasant. The driver plays ranchera music, which Victor loves, and at the song “Camino de Guanajuato,” a song about someone looking back on his homeland with longing, he nearly cries. When they arrive in Guadalajara, he buys a plastic-coated picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

From Guadalajara, Victor boards a bus for Nogales, a border town in Arizona. Miguel boards the same bus, and Victor makes small talk with him about the rumor that the U.S. will give all immigrants green cards.

In the middle of the night, the bus is stopped by customs police. Victor is afraid because he does not have identification, has been told in the past he looks Guatemalan, due to his dark complexion. The police accept Miguel’s documentation and then turn to Victor. When Victor cannot produce a passport or birth certificate, the police tell him to get off the bus. 

Outside, Victor sees a man unloading boxes from a truck bed and then realizes that people from Guatemala were hiding under the bus. He realizes that he will likely be deported to Guatemala with them and knows he needs to get away. He creeps out of eyesight slowly and then starts running, using nearby railroad tracks as his guide. Looking up for the North Star, he realizes that his has been running north, toward the border, and continues to proceed along the tracks.

Soon, a train comes by and he sees people hanging off the sides of the cars. He thinks they were probably people from south of Mexico on their way to the border. He decides to do the same, and hops a car and ties himself to it with his shirt. Very tired, he imagines a future where he has made it to El Norte and is reunited with Rico, who can’t believe that his cautious friend Turtle jumped onto a moving train.

Soon, the train slows, and a man above Victor on the train says police are coming and they need to jump off. The man pressures Victor to jump, and finally he does, blacking out as he hits the ground. 

Victor wakes to the sound of an ambulance. He is on his way to a hospital in Mazatlan, where the wound on the side of his head is stitched. The doctor says it will take him a while to remember what has happened, but Victor has not lost his memory. Victor sneaks away as soon as the policeman watching over him leaves his room.

Victor spends the next day in the crowded streets of Mazatlan and wonders how he will make it the rest of the way to the border with no money. He knows he has to get on another train. This time, he follows Julio, a boy his age who seems to have experience with riding the trains. Julio leads Victor to train cars stacked with automobile carriers. Inside are brand-new Suburbans, likely made at the plant near Victor’s home. Victor and Julio decide to take the train all the way to Nogales. They find the keys for the Suburbans and rest inside, listening to ranchera music.

Victor and Julio exchange stories. Julio tells Victor that Victor jumped off the train too early—he needs to wait until it is moving no faster than he can run. Julio is from Honduras, and, like Victor, he is crossing on his own, without a coyote. He has crossed once before to the U.S., in Texas, where it took him eight tries. This time Julio is crossing in Arizona because “everybody is saying” the state’s long border full of deserts and mountains make it harder for “La Migra,” or U.S. Border Patrol, to catch those crossing (57).