Summary Of Luis Alberto Urrea's Across The Wire

Across the Wire: Poverty, Violence, and Corruption

Numerous people are ignorant of the horrors the people on the Mexican side of the boarder are forced to endure on a daily basis. In Luis Alberto Urrea’s Across the Wire, he gives his personal experiences while he volunteers on the Mexican side of the border. Individuals attempting to cross the border, do so with hopes of better lives and opportunities, because most are unemployed and live under impoverished conditions. Many are unsuccessful in their attempts at crossing the border, and as a result they are sent back. This caused a vast population of poverty stricken adults to live in horrific conditions. Not only do these individuals live in poverty, but they are subjected to unprovoked

Children suffered, they were diseased and infested, and yet didn’t know what was wrong. These people did not have the luxury of having access to doctors or any medical treatment for that matter. These people live in intolerable filth, it becomes understandable why so many make the dangerous journey across the wire into the United States. In addition to the unbearable living situations these people have to endure in the Mexican border towns, they have to withstand violence. Urrea gives insight to the actual violence residents have to survive, some at the hands of pandilleros, or gang-bangers in the border towns. The gang-bangers:

…sense of fun relies heavily on violence. Gang beatings are their preferred sport, though rape in all its forms is common, as always…For good measure, these boys—they are mostly boys, aged twelve to nineteen, bored with Super Nintendo and MTV—beat people and slash people and thrash the women they have just finished raping. (Urrea

Although the United States is also guilty of having its people live in poverty, and others falling victim to violence and countless injustices, it’s not as tolerable as seen in the border towns. It is eye-opening that two countries that are so incredibly close geographically can be so far apart economically. This could be traced back to wealthier, faster developing countries exploiting underdeveloped countries like Mexico. The uneven distribution of economic power, assets, and increased globalization benefits wealthier countries like the United States and can hurt poor ones like Mexico as seen in the book. Increased globalization for poorer places like the ones mentioned in the book means they get to be exploited, pushed further into poverty, used for cheap labor, and any valued natural resources, all leading to a dying economy. People in the Mexican border towns don’t even have the basic essentials like clean water. The homeless and the individuals who live in poverty in the United States would still be considered as living a life of luxury, due to the fact that there are more resources in the United States to aid the helpless. It would be hard for any American to read this book which gives a glimpse of the hardships these people have to endure on a daily basis and not think that there is an incredible imbalance in economic power and assets,