Luis Urrea - By the Lake of Sleeping Children

Advance Praise for By the Lake of Sleeping Children

Cool, tense, and terrifying. Sounds and sights crowd Urreas sentences to the point that his book almost breathes. His vision of Tijuana as a garbage dump where the Third World antagonizes the First, a war zone where nothing is authentic except a word processor, is hypnotizing.

I LAN S TAVANS , author of The Mexican Condition

Read it and you will understand more than the governments and politicians. We are fortunate to have Luis Urrea, a man who loves his country. Both of them.

C HARLES B OWDEN , author of Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America and Desierto: Memories of the Future

By the Lake of Sleeping Children is a splendid bookfull of humor as well as important insights into the future along the Mexican-U.S. border.

L ESLIE M ARMON S ILKO , author of Ceremony and Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit

Unabashedly one-sided, stubborn in his missionarys view of the world, a literary kamikaze fusing death and sex and God and politics, Urreas voice is worth more than all the newspaper dispatches ever written about the border for the objective press.

R UBN M ARTINEZ , author of The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City and Beyond

Urrea has written a lyrical and lucid work of art. His writing is precise, clear, compassionate, and he tells a story all of North America needs to hear. I will always be grateful it was written.

B ENJAMIN A LIRE S AENZ , author of Carry Me Like Water

First Anchor Books Edition, October 1996

Copyright 1996 by Luis Alberto Urrea
Photographs copyright 1996 by John Lueders-Booth

All rights reserved. under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Urrea, Luis Alberto.
By the lake of sleeping children: the secret life of the Mexican border / Luis Alberto Urrea; photographs by John Lueders-Booth.
p. cm.
1. Tijuana (Baja California, Mexico)Social conditions. 2. Mexican-American Border RegionSocial conditions. 3. RagpickersMexicoTijuana (Baja California) I. Title.
HN120.T52U773 1996
306.09722dc20 96-11784

Anchor Books Trade Paperback ISBN97803854841901

Ebook ISBN9780307773807

www.anchorbooks.com

rh_3.1_c0_r1

For Joe Urrea Leyvas
primo y
hermano,
and for his family,
Evelyn,
Lisa, and
Jessica
Carmen, Carmen,
mi Carmen

In Mexico, nothing happens until it happens.

Presidente de Mxico, General P ORFIRIO D AZ

Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior.

J OHN LE C ARR

God wouldnt have much fun in the brave new world.

B URNING W ATER

Gracias, Carmen Galicia Zazueta: my lifeline and my muse. Mother of many of these essays, and mi doctora. At last, because of you, I understand grace, forgiveness, and faith.

Several portions of this book first appeared in the following publications: the San Diego Readerthanks, Jim Holman and Judith Moore; Double Takethanks, Liz Phillips; the Tucson Weeklythanks, Dan Huff and Doug Biggers; The Late Great Mexican Borderthanks, Bobby and Lee Byrd; Many Mountains Movingthanks, Naomi Horii.

This book was composed in Tucson, Arizona, in an old-barrio adobe through fire, flood, plagues of locusts, and visitations of evil spirits. I owe thanks to too many Tucsonenses to name here for support and free tamales. A few names must be mentioned, however. First, thanks to family: to my cousin, medicine woman, and soul sister, Esperanza Urrea, and her family; and to cousin and brother, Joe Urrea, and his family. And to friends: to Chuck Bowden, thanks for your sterling advice (Finish your book, damn it!); to Demetria Martinez, occasional companion on the road, in madness, and onstage; to Sue Myal at Fiesta Publications for her generous support; to Laurie Ramzel, who got me to the hospital in time; to Snappy, Frances Shoberg, and all the fine people at the Cup; to Tom Miller and Brian Laird. For her kindness, warmth, and faith, I must give thanks to Glorious Gloria Chivers at the Book Markyou inspire me at every turn. Tucsons writers owe you their eternal loyalty.

And, especially, thanks to Greg McNamee and his wife, Melissa McCormickfaithful friends, coconspirators, and fellow survivors of the Snuckles Factor. Dominacin Mundial, S.A.

In Mexico City, thanks to Ignacio Gmez-Palacio and his family; thanks to the staff of La JornadaCarmen Lira, Blanche Petrich, and Jos Agustn Ortiz Pinchetti; and a special gracias to Homero Aridjis.

Judi Millsyou are holy; the truth of this story lives in you. As ever, thanks to Jack Booth and his ravenous cameras. And I must again thank Pastor Vonyou taught me more than Ill ever need to know about bravery, dignity, and dedication. You have been, and will always be, my hero. Y Gracias a Negra y su familia, again and always.

Several out-of-towners influenced this text in direct or indirect ways: Joanna Hurley of Santa Fe; Csar A. Gonzlez-T.; the Desert Queens of San DiegoTwanna, Darcy, Barbara, and especially Jonna Faulkner; Gary Holthaus; Sharon Connors; Sandra Cisneros and Josie Garza y las Santas Pecadoras of San Anto. Thank you, Linda Hogan. And un abrazo for Terry Tempest Williams.

Thanks to Donella Coffey, at Picket Fences; Roberto Lovenheim, Paris expat; Patty Limerick and the Center for the American West; John Nichols, for efforts above and beyond; Mary Willix; Jan Bersin (Heitz); Denise Cot; and Nicki Sullivan, who came through in a dark hour.

For desert mysteries, midnights under the comet, and new dreams, to Natalie Sudman and Terri Warpinskilindas amigas.

And, of course, thanks to Tony Delcavo and Pam Moser, of Bella Luna Books, Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Finally, thanks and praise to you, Teresita Urrea, La Santa de Cabora.

The illegal immigrant is the bravest among us. The most modern among us. The prophet. The peasant knows the reality of our world decades before the California suburbanite will ever get the point.

R ICHARD R ODRIGUEZ

Who are they? How do they live? Why do they come?

I was born an American citizen in a small clinic upstairs from a Mexican drugstore near taco row in Tijuana, not five blocks from the old municipal bullring. I have blue eyes, spoke Spanish before I spoke English, grew up in a mix of colonia, barrio, ghetto, and suburb. My dad was a blond Mexican, late of the presidential staff, a secret-police officer, an army captain, holder of a badge of the dreaded federal judicial branch of Mexican law enforcement. The peculiarities of being a Mexican in California reduced him to working in bowling alleys until his death.