The Line Becomes a River
From “The Line Becomes a River”, Cantu gives us a very different perspective of border history and establishment than what we have read so far. His personal experiences give in-depth descriptions of how the Border Patrol react to certain situations. It also gives us insight on how they view migrants.
I think one thing that I took away from this reading was that not all BP agents are “bad” and out to stop every illegal immigrant in every way possible. They are also there to help and give aid to people who need it. They are caring and have compassion. For example, Cantu has friendly conversations with the people he must deport back to Mexico. He even shares meals with them and bonds with them before sending them back across the border. Cantu also gives us a view from the BP life that we can empathize with when describing how his fellow BP agents are killed or injured in the line of duty. It shows that they are human as well and his story shows us that most of them are just doing a job that they were hired to do because it is good money, and someone has to do it. Cantu gives great insight on the life of an agent.
Along with his life experiences, Cantu also hops back and forth between his own stories and historical events that happen in the US and in Mexico. He gives us writings from poets that kind of take your mind off the horrifying descriptions of dead bodies and violent crime happening in the midst of his time with the BP.
Some limitations of a memoir of this capacity may be that everything offered may not be factual or they may be based on opinion. Cantu’s perspective might not be the same as all BP agents and they do not represent the life of every BP agent either. He is not writing for every agent out there just his own perspective and experiences. Another limitation is that in academic writings, there are multiple academic sources used citing specific evidence of certain events and first-hand encounters from historical settings.
Some strengths of a memoir are that we get the first-hand knowledge not from authors doing research, but from someone who actually lived the life and can write about it. It gives us such vivid descriptions about what he has seen that we can picture it without having to google or watch videos or movies about it. When Cantu describes the smell, it’s almost as if I know what he is talking about and it’s enough to make me wince. When Cantu is talking about how his friend Jose is going through the system of trying to gain citizenship, it brings emotional feelings because he is torn away from his family there in the US and must try and find illegal ways to cross the border.
Overall, this was my favorite reading and I learned that even though there are downsides to being a BP agent, there is an experience that you would get nowhere else that can be very valuable. It can make you appreciate the simple things in life and appreciate other people’s experiences so that you don’t have to go through those on your own.
