what it means to witness ; Luis alBerto Urrea ’ 77
“ It was a world of witness . There was love and horror and violence ... There ’ s this whole world of people who just have no hope and no voice .”
After so many years of hopelessness and strangeness , it didn ’ t seem possible : a child of the border teaching at an elite East Coast university . Once again , Urrea struggled to fit in . He realized if he was going to teach writing , he would have to publish or he ’ d lose his job . He might have left Tijuana behind , but what he had seen haunted him . He ’ s written several times about one memory in particular :
One day I was leaning on the missionary van , writing in my journal . The day was particularly ripe with beauty and horror . It was hot . And a man working the trash came over to me and said , “ What are you doing ?”
“ Writing ,” I said . “ See ?” I showed him the notebook .
He couldn ’ t read , but he squinted and looked at the words .
“ What are you writing about ?” he asked . “ This ,” I said , gesturing at the dump . He turned and looked . “ This ?” he said , astounded . “ Yes . It ’ s a journal , you see . Like a diary .” “ Wait a minute ,” he said . “ You ’ re writing about us .”
— Luis Alberto Urrea ’ 77
“ Yes , I am . I write down what I see , what I hear , what you do .” “ You ’ re writing about me ,” he said . I nodded . Emotions washed over his face , and some of them looked like anger . I prepared myself to get scolded . I didn ’ t know if he ’ d throw a punch or walk away . “ Will people read it ?” he asked . “ Someday .” He nodded , a fierce scowl on his face . “ Good ,” he said . “ Good ! You write it down . Write it all down . Because I live in the garbage , and I ’ ll die in the garbage , and I ’ ll be buried in the garbage . And nobody will ever know that I lived . So tell them about me . Tell them I was here .”
Urrea did .
WRITINGS FROM THOSE TIMES would eventually become Urrea ’ s first book , Across the Wire : Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border . Yet the becoming of that book would take upwards of 10 years and countless rejection letters , including one that left an indelible mark on Urrea , when an editor told him flat-out : “ No one cares about starving Mexicans .”
Such attitudes only spurred him further , and his subsequent work continued to revisit issues of the border , though Urrea would prefer to say he ’ s more interested in bridges . It ’ s a fitting description of his books — bridges toward a greater understanding , that span genres of fiction , poetry , biographical essay and investigative journalism . He has explored the savagery of coyotes who deal in human trafficking , the desperation of men lost to the Arizona desert ; he ’ s ridden with the U . S . Border Patrol and talked with those who ’ ve made the crossing , telling the stories of those who lived despite it all and those who didn ’ t . “ It ’ s interesting to me that so many people must die a hideous death because of an arbitrary line ,” says Urrea . “ I have seen a lot of unnecessary suffering and pain . I still do . And I honestly don ’ t understand what it is in me that makes me feel that I need to tear my soul apart to write a book . Why can ’ t I just have fun writing a book and throw it off ? I think because I ’ ve seen so much and I ’ ve been through a lot of things , I feel a real need to bear witness and to do battle .”
And today , with the borderlands being the site of battles like never before , Urrea ’ s latest statement has interestingly taken shape in an intimately personal novel , The House of Broken Angels , a work of fiction inspired by Urrea ’ s very real loss of his brother . It is the story of family , of what binds us together beyond borders or languages , a story that so many readers are relating to , regardless of who they are or where they come from .
“ I ’ ll be in book signing lines that are so moving ,” he says . “ I had a woman come up to me one night , and she pointed to the book and said , ‘ Page 163 — that was my mother and me ,’ and she started crying and left .”
We ’ re more alike than we think , it seems . We may live in different worlds , but bridges like these can bring us into another ’ s life , and there we can see that we ’ re really not so different . “ It ’ s the power of stories ,” says Urrea . “ You can make something that connects with people and brings them understanding . It ’ s sacred work . I take it seriously .”
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