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Ted Conover

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Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants Kindle Edition

by Ted Conover (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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In this classic tale of life among undocumented migrants, Ted Conover, author of Newjack, immerses himself in a world few Americans ever see and fewer still come to know. He gets himself smuggled across the border, works on citrus ranches, accompanies workers to industrial L.A., Phoenix, Florida, and Idaho, and travels deep into Mexico to understand the poverty that begins the whole cycle. He helps migrants workers navigate America and sees it anew through their eyes. By turns harrowing and hilarious, Coyotes is an intimate journey with those who brave hardship and danger to seek a better life north of the border.

"There is grace in this book, even more wisdom. What makes it really glow on every page is Conover's realization that he is dealing neither with a crime nor a tragedy, but with another of those human adventures that make America a country that is constantly renewing itself ... remarkable." – The New York Times Book Review

Print length

290 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publication date

January 10, 2013
File size

906 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first title in the Vintage Departures series ("devoted to exploring the vastness of the world, of one's life, or even of one's own backyard") focuses on the world of illegal aliens. Conover, author of Rolling Nowhere, posed as an immigrant, crossing the border twice and learning first-hand about "coyotes"those who sneak Mexicans and other Latin Americans across the border, often under murderous conditions. Menaced by hoods, arrested, freed, forced to dodge spotter planes, Conover spent a year, as he puts it, "working, drinking, smoking, driving, sleeping, sweating and shivering with Mexicans." His conclusion: "It is urgent that we know more about these people who ask little more than to wash our dishes, vacuum our cars, and pick our fruit." This well-written, anecdotal account offers an intimate glimpse of the United States from a perspective few citizens are aware of.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA The title refers to the name given to those people who smuggle illegal aliens into the United States. Conover lived among the people who pay ``coyotes'' enormous sums of money to be brought into this country secretly under condi tions that are full of physical threat. The most touching part of the book is the description of Conover's visit to Ahua catlan, the province from which many of the men he has met come. Here he wit nesses what has happened to the families left behind. While the money the men have earned has resulted in some im provement, there is still enormous pov erty in their lives, and their home life is drifting toward disintegration. There is humor, too, including a hilarious episode in which several men pool enough mon ey together to fly from Mexico to Los Angeles but must find the appropriate clothing and behaviors to avoid arousing suspicions by ``La Migra.'' Conover has done a good job of capturing the difficult lives of these men who want only to earn a decent wage to support their fami lies. Barbara Weathers, Duchesne Academy, Houston

From Library Journal

Conover, author of an earlier book on hobos, studies Mexican illegal aliens by living their life and crossing the border with them. His book is similar to John Davidson's The Long Journey North ( LJ 10/15/79), but Conover takes dangerous personal risks, spends more time with his contacts, covers a larger group of Mexicans, and ranges across Idaho, Arizona, and Florida as he describes how these people migrate within the United States. His experiences in central Mexico effectively capture the immigrant's impact on his own rural community, although one wishes for deeper personal insights into his subjects' motivations. An eminently readable and revealing account. Highly recommended. Roderic A. Camp, Latin American Studies Dept., Central Coll., Pella, Ia .
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Ted Conover lived the bizarre life of the Mexican illegals. Theirs is a subterrestrial world of high-wire tensions, of brutal police, of sinister smugglers -- coyotes. A devastating document, this one must be read." -- Leon Uris

The acclaimed author of Rolling Nowhere has taken another adventure, this time on the underground railway that operates across America's southern border. To discover what becomes of Mexicans who desperately slip into the United States, Ted Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, walked across deserts, hid in orange orchards, waded through the Rio Grande, and cut life-threatening deals with tough-guy traffickers in human sweat. This electrifying account is the harrowing vision of a way of life no outsider has ever seen before.

From the Back Cover

"Ted Conover lived the bizarre life of the Mexican illegals. Theirs is a subterrestrial world of high-wire tensions, of brutal police, of sinister smugglers -- coyotes. A devastating document, this one must be read." -- Leon Uris

The acclaimed author of Rolling Nowhere has taken another adventure, this time on the underground railway that operates across America's southern border. To discover what becomes of Mexicans who desperately slip into the United States, Ted Conover disguised himself as an illegal alien, walked across deserts, hid in orange orchards, waded through the Rio Grande, and cut life-threatening deals with tough-guy traffickers in human sweat. This electrifying account is the harrowing vision of a way of life no outsider has ever seen before.

About the Author

Ted Conover is the author of several books, including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes, and The Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, and National Geographic. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is distinguished writer-in-residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He lives in New York City.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00AZRHNRG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ted Conover, via Smashwords and The Robbins Office (January 10, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 10, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 906 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 290 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0394755189

Best Sellers Rank: #539,516 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #88 in Social Policy
- #178 in Emigration & Immigration
- #437 in Government Social Policy

Customer Reviews:
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Ted Conover is the author of several books including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper's and National Geographic. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University. He lives in New York City.

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Rick Spell

A Different Perspective of Illegal Aliens!

Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2006

Verified Purchase

This is an exceptional book that puts a face on the current hot topic of illegal aliens in America. Having purchased property in Mexico I am reading many books and finding the culture much more diverse and charming than Americans realize. My latest book was Finding Enrique, the story of children left in Central America who are raised without their mothers as they are in the USA earning a living for the family. These kids endure a heartbreaking journey trying to join their mothers. Imagine arriving in Texas and asking which way to San Francisco!

Having learned so much, I purchased this book to review how the illegal alien environment was in the late 1980s as that is when this book was written. Frankly, it sounds very similar to today as so many of the workers are migrant farm workers and travel back and forth each season. Frankly, I just assumed that once across the aliens stayed here but in this book that is not the case as they continually travel back to their village. In addition, there is an entire "word of mouth" network of recommending new workers from certain villages to American farms of previous employ.

This author starts on orange groves in AZ. The living conditions are deplorable and it's interesting how he lives and works among the Mexicans but they treat him with such respect. From AZ, they head to FL for a different season. This is one of the comical parts of the book as over 6 people load in to a $300 car and head across America in a blizzard with repeated car trouble. After many mishaps they do make it to Florida where conditions are similar to slightly better.

The Author then spends a great deal of time in villages of workers he has met in central Mexico. This gives him great insight in to how their culture is being pulled apart by the migration to America, specifically how it breaks down the core family in this heavily Catholic country. This visit includes an illegal passage into America specifically through the AZ desert which is quite dangerous. Also, when revisiting AZ, there is a side trip to Los Angeles for work that due to poor transportation they decide to fly. This sounds like a good idea until you see that these men have never been in an airport before which creates great comedy and sympathetic stories. Finally, there is an extended stay in Los Angeles where it shows living conditions for those who have lived in America for a while in a big city.

I must say this author took great risk, physically on crossing and legally as he could have been accused of harboring illegal aliens that carries high penalties. I compliment him on this unique research that generates a compelling read. I found this book extremely educational and entertaining. And, it may change your view of the plight of these aliens. I'm not sure what the solution is but I have great respect for the hardworking tenacity of many of these people.

A very important book concerning current events.

6 people found this helpful

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F.L.E.

A real eye-opener...

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2006

Verified Purchase

This book offers a first-hand testimony of the lifes of Mexican undocumented aliens, on both sides of the border. The author has spent a year working alongside, living with and ultimately befriending them,while picking fruit in Arizona and Florida. Ted Conover even spends the off-season in his new friends' village in Mexico and crosses the border with them twice.

It is an amazing testimony, in turn hilarious, riveting and sometimes sad, of what goes on in this underground world, of which we actually know very little aside from some bits of information sometimes featured in the news about the Immigration border patrol.

The author goes where very few "gabachos" ever have been and depicts other little known characters, such as coyotes, the judiciales, border patrol agents, occasional smugglers keen on making extra income as well as US employers. He also sheds light on the unbelievable conditions inherent to illegal border crossing.

Once a (documented) alien myself, now a naturalized US citizen, I couldn't help but find this testimony very poignant.

This account doesn't aim at debating over the legal and political issue of illegal aliens. Rather, it puts faces on those hard-working, decent, silent, anonymous and almost invisible people who work incredibly hard to put produce on our supermarket shelves, clean our houses, maintain our gardens and wash our cars...

A must-read!

9 people found this helpful

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Ron McFarland, PhD

book is great - but purchased new and received with writing / highlighting in it

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2023

Verified Purchase

book is great - but purchased new and received with writing / highlighting in it ... come on!!! really???

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Karinka

True to Ted Conover's Work

Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2019

Verified Purchase

Ted Conover is an excellent writer...I have read several of his books and they are so true to the subject. Ted digs deep and involves himself within wht he is researching. I absolutly am enthralled with his writing and subject matter. It hold my interest so much that sometimes i stay awake at night reading beyond my time to sleep. I've learned so much from him because of his personal investigatios by putting himself in the subject and working from the inside of his subject. I highly recommend reading this book along with his others. He is a great representer of how things really are.

2 people found this helpful

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Gary York

The Tuth about Border life and Migrants

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2012

Verified Purchase

I was born in El Paso, Texas only one mile from Juarez, Mexico. I grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. As I child I would ask my Mother to make sandwiches for the illegal Migrants working in the fields next to our home in Brazito. Ted Conover tells it as I remember it being before I joined the Army and moved away from home. I am becoming a big fan of Mr. Conover after reading this book and his other book "New Jack". Mr. Conover tells things the way they are and lives what he writes about. I think everyone should read this book and learn that Migrants from Mexico are just hard working people trying to earn a living and make money for their families. From Mexico through the United States I know you will enjoy this book. Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption In Our American Prison System .

One person found this helpful

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Rachel Cavazos

Great

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2022

Verified Purchase

My husbands grandmother was mentioned in this book for her generosity to the hundreds of immigrants she fed & clothed during their overnight stay after crossing the border from Mexico.

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