by Jonathan Blitzer
Jonathan Blitzer's new history of the crisis at America's southern border "begins the reckoning we desperately need," said Fernanda Santos in The Atlantic. The New Yorker staff writer isn't describing a problem that's entirely self-made, but before it can be solved, the U.S. needs to take responsibility for its role in seeding the turmoil in Central America that prompts so many people to seek asylum here. Throughout the Cold War, when Washington was intent on thwarting communism's spread, "the U.S. supplied arms, trained soldiers, and dispatched its own covert troops to support merciless government repression in the region, creating a chain reaction that is still being felt today." Want to know why more than 2 million migrants arrive at the border seeking entry every year? By revisiting history, Blitzer's book revisits the crucial history, and "shows all the ways our immigration system is in shambles."
Blitzer brings to the task "a keen eye for individual lives," said Hamilton Cain in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "We meet Juan, a cardiologist from El Salvador tortured by right-wing extremists, and Keldy, a Honduran ripped from her teenage sons after they all were found wandering amid a New Mexico desert." Blitzer also trots out "a rogues' gallery of villains," from famous Washington operatives such as Elliott Abrams and Stephen Miller to corrupt profiteers throughout Central America. U.S. presidents from both parties, including "deporter in chief" Barack Obama, have been complicit in enabling the rule of death squads, militaries, and murderous criminal gangs in places such as El Salvador and Honduras. But for all Blitzer's willingness to hold our leaders accountable, "perhaps his most damning argument is how oblivious Americans have been, and still are, to widespread suffering committed in our name."
"The indomitable humanity of many migrants is an inconvenient fact for xenophobic politicians," and Blitzer's approach brings out the grit and grace of several individuals, said Gus Bova in the Texas Observer. Juan, the cardiologist, was tortured because he'd provided medical aid to activists brutalized by El Salvador's soldiers, and when he escaped, he set up a Latino community health center in Washington, D.C. At times, Blitzer's history is "character-driven to a fault," giving too much space to U.S. bureaucrats whose personal details prove distracting. Even so, "Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is a welcome intervention in a toxic discourse." It "unveils the ties that bind our artificially fractured hemisphere." |