We Are Not from Here

The bus arrives in Guatemala City. Pulga knows the next step of their journey: They will walk to a different bus station and take another bus to Tecún Umán. Chico brings up going back again, but Pequeña tells him that everyone already knows they fled by now, including Rey. Pulga thinks Chico told Pequeña about their trouble with Rey, but sees from Chico’s reaction that he did not. The teenagers buy food and board the bus for a six-hour drive. Once off the bus, they cross the Rio Suchiate to Mexico quickly, but Pulga’s assumption that they will find a bus or taxi to take them to a shelter in Ciudad Hidalgo proves incorrect. Pulga insists that they will find transportation soon as the sun sets. Walking feels foolish and dangerous, and Pulga grows upset and almost tearful.

Pequeña gently calls Pulga on the truth at last: “It’s okay, if you don’t know where we’re going…Let’s just figure out what to do, okay? Let’s find a place to hide […] until the sun comes up” (127). Chico sees a house behind a fence and begs for shelter, but the man who lives there tells them to go away, mentioning a nearby graveyard where migrants hide overnight. The three teenagers walk to the cemetery and sit against a grave. Pequeña tries to comfort Chico, who is afraid. Pequeña has a “flash” of the baby that causes her to lactate; she hugs her arm across her breasts to stop it, saying “I won’t cry for something I never wanted and can’t love” (131). She tells Chico to rest while she stays awake, but soon she is distracted by the image of Rey as a cockroach finding her and crawling against her. She hears her name and pulls the switchblade, but it is only Chico. The boys stare at her knife. In the morning they and many other migrants leave the cemetery. They find a taxi to take them to the Belen shelter in Tapachula.

A priest, Padre Gilberto, and a shelter worker named Marlena welcome them. The woman asks many questions about their reasons for fleeing north toward the United States, and Pulga realizes that Pequeña is running from Rey as well, and that “that baby she didn’t want […] is Rey’s” (139). The teenagers are allowed to stay for three days and each get one shower. They, along with other sheltering migrants, pray before a large mural of La Virgen on the first night. This makes Pulga think of his own mother, and he feels a cracking pain in his heart. In the morning, Chico reveals to another migrant that they are headed to Arriaga to try to catch the train north called La Bestia. The stranger indicates he is headed there as well. Pulga does not offer to travel together, as he does not trust the young man. Pulga and Pequeña tell Chico they can only trust each other. Padre Gilberto gives a sobering talk on the danger of the journey and the train. Pulga wants to call his mother when he sees others on a pay phone, but Pequeña says no; they will be too tempted to return. Pulga knows she is right. When it comes time for them to leave the shelter, an old man traveling with his young granddaughter falls and needs an ambulance. The little girl cries and begs him not to leave her. Pulga, Pequeña, and Chico leave the shelter at seven in the evening.

A woman with a young child asks the teenagers if she is headed toward the highway correctly. Pequeña tells her she thinks so, and then they leave the woman behind. Near the highway, they wait for an anonymous white van. When it stops, they and other migrants crowd on. Just before a police checkpoint, the van stops and all the migrants run to hide in the nearby woods to avoid the authorities. Pulga runs ahead but Pequeña takes Chico’s hand and assures him she will not leave him. Pulga says they must walk for two hours before it will be safe to return to the highway and find another van to take them further.

The teenagers walk in darkness and Pulga thinks of Gallo, son of Don Felicio who made it the whole way to the United States. Soon they board another white van, then another, and another. Pulga sleeps. He is awakened suddenly by screams as the passengers bounce around due to erratic driving. The driver rights the van but looks shaken, and Pulga pieces together that they hit another migrant who was trying to board the van. They arrive in Arriaga, and Pulga asks the driver to take them the whole way to La Bestia.

Pequeña recalls Lucia getting a job as a housekeeper after Pequeña’s father left. Lucia was tearful that she was giving up her dreams, but Consuelo reminded her it was an honest job. In the present, Pequeña listens as the kind driver tells the teenagers to be careful and lets them out at the place where they will try to board the first train of La Bestia. The driver does not charge them for the extra transportation, saying he has three boys about their ages. Pulga, Pequeña, and Chico see many other migrants preparing to take the train north. She shares crumbs of cookies she brought with her, and they talk about the food they are hungry for. Pequeña is relieved that so many other migrants are like them, waiting for the train to pull away. Some migrants are already on the roof of the train, but it is burning hot as it is made of steel. Other migrants are settled between the cars, but that is a very dangerous place to ride as sudden stops cause the train cars to crush together and ”People lose their feet like that all the time” (171). Some on the roof cannot stand the sun and climb back down to wait in the shade of the woods.

Finally, the train rumbles to life and many migrants make a run to catch it and board, including Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña. Pulga manages to board first, but Pequeña waits for Chico to pull himself up the metal ladder next, running alongside the terrible machine that threatens to pull her under and cut her to pieces. Finally she manages to catch hold of the ladder and climbs to the roof. Pequeña watches Chico and Pulga howl like wolves in a show of hope and victory and thinks, “I can’t remember when I last saw them looking so happy, so free. I can’t remember the last time I felt that way, too” (175).