As an Anthropology major, I’d actually taken a course last semester– Cultural Anthropology– in which we read The Land of Open Graves in it’s entirety, which I would highly recommend if you liked the introduction and Chapter 7. I also had the opportunity to hear author Jason De Leon speak at Vanderbilt which was extremely fascinating as he talked about the real life interviews and interactions he had. Ongoing in this section of the book, and throughout others at points, is the story of Memo and Lucho. I particularly enjoyed this section of the book because the majority of the novel is frankly pessimistic in its criticism of the current government policy surrounding border crossing specifically in the Sonoran desert. However, Memo and Lucho’s story is a point in which we can see De Leon display the optimism of the migrants in their journey, and allows the audience to get a grasp of how much faith these indiviudals have in their dream to come the the states and just how meticulously they must prepare in order to be successful. What’s interesting about Memo and Lucho’s journey is that they were initially unsuccessful after being apprehended and forced to return home in their first crossing attempt, however, they demonstrate resilience in their next successful attempt. What De Leon spends most of his time speaking to is the policy of “Prevention Through Deterrence” or PTD, which was essetially based upon the idea that forcing migrants to cross in a deadly desert region where the chances of survival are evidently low would deter them from migrating in the first place, preventing more illegal immigration into the states. He points out the flaws with the nature of this policy and goes on to critique the cruel nature of current legislative policy against illegal immigrants on a holistic level. Questions I would ask based on the reading– We know that PTD is not the correct way to approach illegal immigration levels, so how should we actually handle it?