The Southwest Humanities course has read three books, in three different genres over the span of the semester; ranging from Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, being the nature writing, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, the fiction, and Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway, which is a creative non-fiction. Each author made a specific contribution to the class themes and the Southwest Humanities. During the semester, the non-fiction books have brought the most to the table. Though the fiction stories gave us a good cultural understanding of the Southwest, it was not nearly as powerful as the real stories told throughout the semester. Each book will be reviewed and compared by the author’s value, objectivity, and source. Starting off with Abbey’s
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Urrea makes the reader invest into the book in a way that the other two authors could not do. He focuses on the circumstances that make the individual want to cross a border, which seems to be the reoccurring theme throughout the book. Urrea contributes a side to the story of the southwest that many of the readers do not know about, and usually do not hear; which is the migrant’s story. Not everyone knows what it takes to cross through the dessert to get into the United States, but Urrea depicts what feels like an unreal side of the story. The overwhelming theme throughout this non-fiction is why these men and women are crossing the border (the bigger picture). The Devil’s Highway gives the readers a chance to understand current issues and policies surrounding the border that the other two books were incapable of doing. Though it is a creative non-fiction, Urrea has real stories and facts to prove his points throughout the book, “The average annual wage for Arizonans is $28,355; for the state’s Mexican immigrants it’s $12,963” (Urrea 218) thus, making Urrea’s book much more convincing than the other two read in class. This book brought and emphasized theme of borderlands to the class. The genre of creative non-fiction is limited in the way that it is not one hundred percent the truth, but has the advantage to tell the truth while emphasizing what the author feels
Urrea makes the reader invest into the book in a way that the other two authors could not do. He focuses on the circumstances that make the individual want to cross a border, which seems to be the reoccurring theme throughout the book. Urrea contributes a side to the story of the southwest that many of the readers do not know about, and usually do not hear; which is the migrant’s story. Not everyone knows what it takes to cross through the dessert to get into the United States, but Urrea depicts what feels like an unreal side of the story. The overwhelming theme throughout this non-fiction is why these men and women are crossing the border (the bigger picture). The Devil’s Highway gives the readers a chance to understand current issues and policies surrounding the border that the other two books were incapable of doing. Though it is a creative non-fiction, Urrea has real stories and facts to prove his points throughout the book, “The average annual wage for Arizonans is $28,355; for the state’s Mexican immigrants it’s $12,963” (Urrea 218) thus, making Urrea’s book much more convincing than the other two read in class. This book brought and emphasized theme of borderlands to the class. The genre of creative non-fiction is limited in the way that it is not one hundred percent the truth, but has the advantage to tell the truth while emphasizing what the author feels