“Beasts Of The Border”

The border wall between Arizona and Mexico rises thirty feet, with pillars sunk in concrete ten feet down. In 2023 the wall becomes a flashpoint for the fate of a migrant family fleeing Nicaragua, drug smugglers, Arizona ranchers, a jaguar named Solitario, and two biologists hoping to see a jag. 

“Beasts Of The Border” ($10 in paperback from Long Creek Dutch Publishing), by former Chico City Council member Scott Huber, is a page-turner that grows in intensity, deeply compassionate and horrifyingly violent. 

Solitario is moving north from southern Sonora, Mexico, in search of a mate. In Nicaragua, Pedro Lopez and his family must leave after he is threatened because his brother criticized the government. His wife had birthed three children and they had also taken on two young nephews. “Now at 24 years of age, winsome Concepción was mothering five children under the age of 10.”

Their harrowing attempt to reach the United States, thousands of miles away, including jumping on a freight train called “the beast,” brings terrible loss. 

The novel also tells of two Arizona ranchers on the border. Marvin Estep “truly believed that brown-skinned people were an inferior race.” Meredith Gregg, contrariwise, “spoke fluent Spanish and was empathetic to the plight of many of the border-crossers.” It is unclear what the new border wall will mean for those fleeing from the south.

For the biologists, Ripley West and Tony Ramirez, the wall would seem to make it very difficult for wildlife to move across borders in one of the richest habitats in North America. More specifically, the two set up a series of cameras in an effort to capture images of that rarest of species, the jaguar. When Marvin mistakes Tony for a migrant, and shoots his face with birdshot, it is unclear just who the beasts are.

Huber brings nuance to the story. Border Patrol agent Sergio Jiménez, one of the “good guys,” recognizes the need for a wall “to keep my country safe from drug traffickers and terrorists and smugglers. But I see way more needy people and families crossing than criminals.”

All the storylines merge at the end in a way shaken readers will not soon forget.

"The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir"

"We had arrived in summer," writes Thi Bui, "so there was time to prepare for school in the fall." But as immigrants from Vietnam, her family needed time to adjust. You mean you choose classes? They don't just hand you your schedule?

Bui, a graphic artist now based in the Bay Area, as a youngster escaped with her family after the fall of South Vietnam, landing on American soil on June 28, 1978.

Later, as a graduate student, she wanted to capture her family's history. "My parents have been separated since I was nineteen," she writes, though they "remain friends." But what happened? Words were not enough, so in 2005 she learned "how to do comics." Pages of drawings accumulated.

Later, she and her husband and son moved from New York to California, where she taught at "an alternative public high school for immigrants in Oakland." Her book took shape as a graphic memoir, and in 2017 it was published as "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir" ($19.99 in paperback from Abrams ComicArts; also for Amazon Kindle, with a helpful pronunciation guide at thebestwecoulddo.abrams.link).

It is fitting, at the start of a new school year, that Bui's own explorations of her past become part of the reader's experience as well. "The Best We Could Do" is the "Book In Common" for 2022-2023 for Butte College (butte.edu/bic) and Chico State (www.csuc.edu/bic) and other community groups.

Bui's parents and their growing family knew the ravages of war. In 1975 South Vietnam's president Duong Van Minh surrendered to the north. Bui's father, in talks with his daughter years later, wants to correct "the American version of this story … about a country not worth saving…. Communist forces entered Saigon without a fight, and no blood was shed. Perhaps Duong Van Minh's surrender saved my life."

But the Communist regime ushered in a propaganda campaign and confession sessions with neighbor spying on neighbor. "My parents," Bui writes, "began to talk of escape."

Filled with emotion, the book's images and dialog convey the complexity of the past--and the realization that one's very-flawed parents were trying to do the best they could.

"All They Will Call You"

For writer and performer Tim Hernandez, Woody Guthrie's poem "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)," with music by Martin Hoffman, "was the beacon." Popularized in concerts by Pete Seeger, the song was a biting commentary on the crash of a Douglas DC-3 in Los Gatos Canyon on January 28, 1948. 

According to a news report back then, "broken and charred bodies and an indiscernible heap of debris were all that were left of a government chartered flight from Oakland, which would have taken 28 Mexican Nationals to their homeland...." 

The song puts it this way: "The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting/ The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps/ They're flying you back to the Mexico border/ To pay all your money to wade back again. ... You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane/ And all they will call you will be deportees."

Who died that day in Los Gatos Canyon? In a gripping retrieval of history, Hernandez has crafted a page-turning account of passengers and crew and their hopes for a better life. "All They Will Call You" ($16.95 in paperback from The University of Arizona Press; also for Amazon Kindle) by Tim Z. Hernandez (timzhernandez.com) is the 2018-2019 Book in Common for Chico State University, Butte College, and a host of area organizations.

Hernandez will speak at Chico State's Laxson Auditorium on Wednesday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m., part of the President's Distinguished Lecture Series. Tickets are $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, free for youth and Chico State students. Tickets for the performance are available at the University Box Office (csuchico.edu/boxoffice) or call (530) 898-6333. 

The book chronicles the grisly crash, the witnesses, and the lives of the crew and some of the passengers, including Luis Miranda Cuevas who heard, in 1946, "that even though the war was over, trains leaving Guadalajara for los Estados Unidos could still be found, and braceros were still needed." Once in the U.S., workers engaged in a strange dance with the needs of agriculture and the long reach of "la migra," the immigration authorities. 

It is a harrowing account, told with compassion, lyricism, and hope.