[.ca] Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Illegal ... (ISBN 0394755189)

Mexicans are human beings:
The author focus on the human side of the Mexican illegal aliens. You learn from this book that there is no reason to discriminate against Mexicans. If Americans give themselves a chance to meet Mexicans, they are going to find a beautiful friendship. While reading this book, you are going to laugh. The author describes excellent the language and cultural differences between Americans and Mexicans.

Fantastic work:
I am a bilingual teacher living and working among recent immigrants to the US, and I found this book very enlightening and well written. This book spoke directly to my heart.

Crossing the border:
"Coyotes" is the name given by Mexicans to the men who smuggle them into the US and transport them illegally within the US. Traveling with Mexican farm workers, writer Ted Conover crossed twice into the US. He worked with them, picking oranges in Arizona, and drove with them to farm jobs and harvests in Idaho and Florida. Conover writes with a clear eye and doesn't disguise his feelings for his subject matter. He is able to create and sustain suspense over many pages, including a days-long journey through a blizzard in a broken-down car, crossing miles of Arizona desert on foot by night, being pulled over by police in Utah and jailed under suspicion of transporting illegals -- a felony. In an episode both foolhardy and hilarious, he helps four of them get from Phoenix to Los Angeles by escorting them on their first-ever airplane flight. "Coyotes" is a book about friendship and winning trust, and Conover shares his pleasure in becoming a trusted friend of the men he comes to know. He even makes a pilgrimage to the Mexican village his friends come from, where we meet their families and relatives. After reading this book, it's difficult to maintain one's stereotypes of alien workers and illegals. And when you read the headlines and see TV coverage devoted to stories about border control, you feel you have a better idea of what it's like to be walking in their shoes.

Compelling:
The book started off nicely. I read the first 100 pages at a clip, intrigued as I became acquainted with the lives of these modern-day pioneers: los trabajadores indocumentados. The author had his finger right on the pulse of the situation of the men he followed on their journey(s) from Mexico to finding work in the U.S. I enjoyed the book all the more b/c I was thinking about this subject for a thesis topic...giving up after realizing there was nothing to improve upon.

A New Outlook on My Fellow Americans:
The Mexicans you see everyday could quite possibly be illegal aliens. Then again they might also be United States citizens. These illegal aliens come from all over Mexico, and travel to work anywhere they can in the United States. From Idaho to Florida, they keep American produce in the grocery stores for less than minimum wage. The wages they earn may be appalling to many Americans, but to them it is immensely better than what they would earn in Mexico. Ted Conover tells his amazing journey of border hopping with illegal aliens in "Coyotes". Through either courage or just plain insanity, he endures a hike in the heat of the desert, a freezing winter road-trip in a busted up car, corrupt police, and of course the gun-toting immigrant smugglers, coyotes. This is an excellent read, and the best non-fiction book I have ever read. I would recommend this book to those who have interacted with Mexicans, and those who have not.