Editor's Choice
Why were the deceased immigrants listed as "white males" in The Devil's Highway?
Quick answer:
The deceased immigrants were listed as "white males" in "The Devil's Highway" to highlight the authorities' disregard for their identities, viewing them as a faceless mass rather than individuals. This misidentification symbolizes the bureaucratic indifference and the desire to quickly file away the issue of illegal immigration. The incorrect labeling reflects a lack of care, both in life and death, for these men, who are ultimately forgotten and denied dignity.
The authorities' incorrect description of the dead men epitomizes how they regard Mexican immigrants. Frankly, they just see them as a gigantic amorphous mass rather than individual human beings. As the authorities don't look upon the dead men as individuals, they feel no obligation to do justice to their true ethnic and cultural identity.
Wrongly identifying the deceased as white men also has the symbolic effect of filing away the problem: out of sight, out of mind. The quicker this can be done, the better. And putting "white males" down on the death certificates speeds up the whole process. The local authorities are overwhelmed by bureaucracy relating to illegal immigration and so anything they can do to relieve the burden will provide some respite. Unfortunately, this means that the Yuma 14 and countless others like them are denied dignity in death and soon forgotten.
Luis Alberto Urrea wrote The Devil's Highway
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
The Devil's Highway as a kind of expose of the kinds of horrors which routinely happen at the Mexican-American border. Specifically he follows a group of men called the Wellton 26. Fourteen of them, known as the Yuma 14, did not survive the crossing.
On the last page of the book, a secretary in the Yuma coroner's office discovers that the death certificates of the fourteen Mexican men who died in the crossing all say they were "white males." Once she makes the discovery, the "files go on a shelf; a stack of newer files is dislodged and falls over." The woman leaves and these men, Urrea implies, will be forgotten, lost amid many more deaths.
Urrea is a researcher, and he does not state any reason why the death certificates were incorrect; however, readers can draw a few conclusions about what the fact means. First, no one cares enough to get it right, even in a case which rose to international prominence. Second, these fourteen men were treated as carelessly in death as they were in life (and not just in America). Third, in death these men have been betrayed again by people who should have cared more about what happened to them.
Why it happened is unknown; the fact that it happened and was not corrected is the tragedy.