The Line Becomes a River Summary and Analysis

Summary: Prologue

Francisco Cantú begins his memoir with an account of a Thanksgiving trip he takes with his mother to the national park in West Texas where she used to work. During this trip, which occurs before he joins the Border Patrol, he’s amazed by the natural beauty of the park and the unique geological features of the Guadalupe Mountains that run through it. While entering the park, Francisco and his mother meet one of her former coworkers, who remembers Francisco from when he was a little boy. When they mention to the woman their plan to visit Juárez, Mexico, she warns the two that it’s a dangerous city.

While camping in the park, Francisco’s mother tells him why she became a park ranger and describes the migratory patterns of the animals who call the park home. She also invites him to swim with her in a river, but he declines. After leaving the park, they drive to El Paso and then into Juárez over the Mexican border. At the border, they’re surprised that the Mexican border officials don’t ask to see their passports.

In Juárez, they walk around until Francisco’s mother becomes exhausted and needs to rest on a bench. While getting her water at a shop, Francisco overhears locals discussing the newly elected president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón (born 1962), who they hope will combat the organized criminal groups terrorizing the country. Later, despite insisting she’s fine, Francisco’s mother collapses in the middle of an intersection. A local motorist wearing a cowboy hat helps Francisco carry his mother out of the street and then offers to make quesadillas for the two of them if they visit him in the market later. The man remarks that in Juárez, people take care of each other.

Analysis: Prologue

The brief prologue introduces Francisco before he joins the Border Patrol, when he’s more innocent and hasn’t yet faced life-and-death situations. This section also establishes his important relationship with his mother. Many of the recurring patterns and main ideas of the memoir are introduced or foreshadowed in this section, such as the juxtaposition of natural and humanmade boundaries and the indifference of the natural world to human politics. Francisco’s descriptions of the geological features of the Guadalupe Mountains show how ancient the land is compared to the very recent imposition of human borders. His mother’s description of animal migration mirrors the human migrations central to the memoir while showing how wildlife pays no attention to political boundaries.

In declining to swim with his mother, Francisco foreshadows the distance that will grow between them after he joins the Border Patrol. The ease with which Francisco and his mother enter Mexico is starkly different from the deadly risks taken by migrants entering the United States, as shown in later parts of the memoir. Despite the warning that Juárez is a dangerous place, Francisco and his mother find kind, generous, and helpful people there. The man who helps them when Francisco’s mother collapses is an honest, hardworking Mexican citizen who welcomes them into the country and treats them as if they are neighbors rather than tourists. This hospitality is a marked contrast to the treatment that Mexican migrants receive from the impersonal and legalistic American authorities in later sections of the memoir.