The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border

Author: Francisco Cantú

Genre: Memoir

Publication Date: 2018

Introduction

Published in 2018, Francisco Cantú’s debut book is a memoir of his time as a Border Patrol agent on the US-Mexico border and his experiences after leaving the Border Patrol. Throughout The Line Becomes a River, Cantú interweaves scholarly research with his personal experiences to offer a multilayered portrait of the border region, the migrants who attempt to traverse it, and the border agents tasked with stopping them. While the first two-thirds focus on Cantú’s experiences, the final third shifts focus to José, a friend of Cantú’s who is caught by the Border Patrol while attempting to return to the United States from Mexico. The book’s title describes the ambiguous nature of the US-Mexico border: in one sense, it is an abstract “line” that exists only on maps. However, much like the Rio Grande (the river dividing Texas from northern Mexico), the border is not a simple static demarcation but something dynamic; it shifts and changes with the human and geological realities that govern it.