We Are Not from Here

Pequeña watches the stars from the roof of the train as well, thinking about how she attempted to kill herself, the baby, or both when she purposely fell out of the bus door in the market. She thinks about her mother holding the baby. Pequeña has a vision of looking down on the train from above and seeing cut-off limbs and bones, sliced by the train’s wheels, along with “crushed photographs and fluttering flowers” (187). A man yells at her to wake up. All of the migrants fear falling asleep and falling from the train inadvertently. Suddenly headlights glow in the distance and soon cars race up alongside the train.

No one knows if the cars are full of narcos (drug runners), la migra (immigration agents), or kidnappers, but the migrants atop the train are afraid. The man near Pulga tells his girlfriend that they have to jump from the train immediately and she listens to him. Pulga sees others jumping off as well and tells Chico and Pequeña they must jump and run. Chico is terrified and Pulga can only get him to jump by screaming at him. Pulga jumps and rushes to find Pequeña and Chico, who hit his head and was knocked out by the fall. Chico regains consciousness; Pulga and Pequeña, whose mouth is bleeding from broken teeth, try to hurry Chico into the woods but Chico is sluggish and slow. The man from the train and his girlfriend approach them. The man points a gun at them but lowers it when Pulga identifies himself. The girlfriend asks if they are injured. The man insists they be silent and listen for the train to start again; they must be ready to run to catch it. Chico is sleepy; Pulga tries to keep him awake. Soon after the cars leave, the train engines start up, and the migrants who fled to the woods all start running to catch it. The girlfriend wants to help Chico and insists that the man help as well. This time they all manage to climb up into an empty box car. Two men “take it upon themselves not to let [the boxcar] get too crowded because we won’t be able to breathe with too many bodies in the car” (197). Pulga is haunted by the sight of a mother handing a baby up to the roof and someone’s hand reaching down to pull him up, dangling the child by a spindly arm. It is hot, airless, and crowded in the boxcar; Pulga’s head itches and he scratches hard enough to bleed.

Pequeña keeps herself awake by looking out the dark open door of the boxcar. She reminds herself that she deserves a chance for a better life. Finally the train pulls into an industrial station and the migrants clamber out of the boxcar. Pulga says they should follow the man and his girlfriend, but the man tells them, “My girl may have a soft spot for you, but you can’t be following us […] I don’t want to be responsible for the three of you” (201). Pulga insists that Chico is well enough and that the teenagers can keep up, but the man tells them that Chico has to rest and that they will not make it “this time around” (202). The man says that Pulga’s notes and plans are not good enough, and that he himself has tried to make the trip north three times already and that one learns by doing. The man tells them about a shelter where Chico can get better, then he and the girlfriend leave. Chico apologizes, looking ill and vacant.

Pulga and Pequeña find the shelter. A kind woman there helps them, tending to Chico, feeding them, and cutting off their hair because of lice. The woman, called Soledad, tells them Chico has a concussion and must rest for several days or risk more swelling of his brain. Pulga wants to refuse and keep going but gives in. Soledad says that Pequeña’s name is too small and asks what Pequeña’s real name will be now. (Pequeña literally translates to “small” in English). Pequeña decides that her new name is Flor. Pequeña hardly recognizes herself in the mirror, thinking “Somewhere inside me, Flor waits to be born” (209).

After a week, Pulga wants to leave. Chico wants to stay with Soledad, who tells him he can stay, but that there is no life there for him. Pulga reminds Chico that Mexico will deport him back to Puerto Barrios and Rey. Soledad prepares a huge feast before they go, and Pequeña thinks the food and the sleep afterward are so good that they are almost unreal. The next morning they leave, Soledad hugging them and telling them to be careful. Soledad tells Pequeña to send a message when they make it to the United States.

After a 12-hour wait, La Bestia arrives and the three teens run for the train again. Pulga hears a man telling those with him how to run and grab the bars. Pequeña manages to climb up, but Pulga tries to stay with Chico, who is not moving quickly enough. Pulga sees a man fall and lose his legs, run over by the blade-like train wheels. Pulga and Chico manage to climb up onto the last train car. Pulga sees a crowd gathered around the injured man near the tracks behind them. Pequeña, cars ahead, waves and Pulga waves back.

The teenagers switch trains three times. On the fourth train, Pequeña says they should stop and rest. Pulga says they must keep going. Pulga is worried about how sick Chico looks but feels a desperation to make up the time they lost at the shelter. Watching the mountains in the distance he tries to shake off the feeling of unreality he has, knowing that the disorientation increases the danger of falling asleep.

Pequeña sees a husband and wife with their little girl atop the train, and a pollero, a person hired to guide others across the border, guiding three children. In the night, the pollero tells his charges to get closer to a ladder. Pulga wants to follow them. Cars approach the train and the train stops; many flee the train and Pequeña hears children crying out. Pulga, Chico, Pequeña, and the pollero with the kids try to hide by lying down in the tall grass. A man calls out, “We will find you” (221). Pequeña sees, as if from above, the family from the train. The little girl’s father kneels with a gun to his head and the mother tells the little girl to close her eyes. Then Pequeña has a vision of thousands of spiders coming out of the grass to harass the men with guns. The spiders bypass the migrants but bite and crawl on the armed men, chasing them back to their cars. Pequeña hears a spider telling her to stay still and thinks that the spider weaves a white web over her eyes to give her a moment’s peace.

The migrants climb back onto the idling train. There are no open boxcars, and some say that the men were kidnappers. Chico is very tired, and Pulga tells him they will stop at the next shelter. The blinding sun rises. Pulga is exhausted and can barely stay awake, and Chico is so tired he cannot hold up his head. When the train brakes, Chico falls off. Pulga cannot catch him in time, and he watches Chico go over the side. Pulga hears Pequeña screaming and sees her trying to reach Chico, too. Everything is strange and hazy in Pulga’s mind. He jumps off the train before it stops and starts running back down the track, but in a confused state he does not know how many miles or even days have passed since Chico fell. A car rushes up; Pequeña is in it, and she tells Pulga to get in. They find Chico with his leg crushed and mangled by the wheels of the train; he is alive but only barely. Chico tells Pulga to not worry, that they made it. Pulga cries and begs Chico to stay, but Chico dies. Guilt and sorrow wash over Pulga.

Pequeña watches the events unfold from the car: The man and woman who picked her and Pulga up to drive them back to Chico try a tourniquet, CPR, and a heart defibrillator, but nothing revives Chico. Eventually, the woman has Pequeña get back into the cab of the truck, and the man convinces Pulga that they must move Chico’s body. Pulga helps carry Chico’s body to the truck and rides in the bed with it, cradling Chico’s head. At a nearby shelter in the town of Lecheria, the woman wraps Chico’s body in a sheet. Pequeña wants La Bruja to carry her away, but realizes that La Bruja is not coming.

Pulga spends the day wracked with guilt. Pulga thinks he pushed Chico past the point of hunger and exhaustion, and that Chico’s fall was his fault. Those in the shelter come to the room where Chico lies in the sheet to pray, as a sort of makeshift wake. Pulga cries and sleeps. In the morning, Pequeña sits beside him. The shelter priest, Padre Jimenez, tries to talk to Pulga and Pequeña about what to do with Chico’s body. Padre Jimenez offers to send it back home, but explains that the chances of it arriving successfully are not good. Padre Jimenez suggests that Chico be buried in a graveyard nearby, where others who have died on the journey are buried, reassuring them that “I visit the cemetery every day and pray for all of them. He won’t be alone” (236). Pequeña thinks this is best, but Pulga wants to take Chico’s body home. When Pequeña says they cannot return, Pulga says he will go alone. Pequeña tells Pulga he must continue on the journey, and that Chico’s body can rest there while Pulga carries Chico’s spirit in his heart. Pulga relents but feels that his heart is “destroyed”. The men at the shelter build a coffin for Chico, and Padre Jimenez has a service and says “the things all holy people have to say” (238) which brings Pulga some comfort. Pulga thinks about Chico with his mother in heaven, but wonders, “why do we have to die to finally, finally, be safe?” (238). Chico is buried in the cemetery and as Pulga throws dirt on the coffin he feels that “each particle of soul that falls is a heavy weight in my heart” (239).