The Cercas Family
This is a criminal operation whose business is to help illegal immigrants cross into America. The gang employs "coyotes" or guides who help the immigrants traverse difficult and unknown terrains. In this case, that service is absolutely necessary to their efforts, because the terrain is infamous for its dangerous and wildly unpredictable nature. The Arizonian desert poses a threat to the immigrants in many ways: they face starvation, frostbite, poisonous animals, and dangerous predators. The Cercas Family employs their coyotes, but to mixed avail.
The immigrants
The immigrants in this non-fiction narrative are up against the worst of the American wilderness, but their willingness to risk their lives and die is evidence of the danger and lack of opportunity in Mexico where they are coming from. To successfully cross illegally into America, these two-dozen or so immigrants have to cross great stretches of desert by foot, risking wolves, mountain lions, poisonous desert animals, and the extreme temperature swings of the desert. It is so difficult that many of the men died before the end of the journey.
Luis Alberto Urrea
Because the book is non-fiction, the author writes from his own point of view, sometimes offering challenging questions to the reader. To Urrea, the deaths of these Mexican immigrants is a true tragedy. He comments, of course, on the political atmosphere in America and the way immigrants are commonly regarded, but then Urrea digs deeper, showing that when one considers the absolute mayhem and horror of their lives in Mexico (because of the cartels), one might call them refugees instead of illegal immigrants. The book is an exploration into the difficulty of this question.
