Genaro's personal account rings a bell with recent personal experience

When I read the different accounts through the eyes of the people that have shared their stories, the following statement from chapter one rings in my head: "Carlos Fuentes considers the line marked by the Rio Grande less a border than a scar, a scar that divides the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, those whom history has blessed from those whom history has damned. The scar seperates not only Mexico from the United States but also the United States from all of Latin America. It is a scar that still bleeds, and the blood runs north." I can't help but think about how lucky I am to have been born in the United States. My everyday worries include how I am going to finish all of my homework and prepare for exams, when the people of Guatemala live in constant danger, worrying about how to preserve their lives and protect their families. Why has history dealt them such an unlucky situation while sparing those of us in the United States? How would we cope if it was the other way around in which the blood from the scar that still bleeds ran south?
I was particularly touched by Genaro's story presented in chapter 1 because during my experience as a site leader for Alternative Winter Break this past break, I met several young boys just like him. In fact, Brownsville, Texas and Harlingen, Texas which are mentioned on page 15 is exactly where I was, right next to the border of Mexico. The types of decisicions these young children have to make to leave their families, flee their native country alone, and take the risks of trying to start a new life in a place that is completely foreign to anything that they have ever known is unfathomable. On the other hand, Lovell presents a context of the desperate situations in Guatemala that make these decisions a bit more understandable.
I traveled with my group to a detention camp for young boys classified as Central American aliens similar to the one that is described where Genaro was kept after being caught by border patrol the third time. It is not until now through Lovell's words and the descriptions of these personal experiences of these Guatemalan people that I can begin to understand what brought those young boys to the camps where I volunteered. I simply enjoyed getting to interact with some of them, getting them to come out of their shells, and of course practicing my Spanish. There I was, teaching them simple multiplication problems, not truly understanding what they had to face in their native countries. Although everyone at the organization told us how much they truly appreciated our presence, every now and then during my time there, I would wonder to myself, "How much am I really helping these people? Do they even have a chance to really win?" In reading through Genaro's personal description, similar thoughts ran through my head. Genaro was simply able to obtain his current situation through luck as Lovell suggests, but many of these other young kids are not so lucky. I learned during my time there that the boys were held at these centers until they had to go before the court to plead their cases in their efforts to remain in the United States. Unfortunately, many of them are unlucky and are deported.
This saddens me because it seems like a lose lose situation. Many of these young kids are faced with extreme violence and their lives are in danger back in their native countries. They are forced to flee and go through long perilous journeys just to make it to El Norte. When they finally arrive, they continue fleeing, but this time they are fleeing the United States Border Patrol. Once again, I wonder, "Does the misery ever end for them, and why has history dealt them this hand?" As I read Genaro's personal account, I thought back to the young and seemingly innocent faces that I encountered in Brownsville, and I still cannot completely fathom what it must be like to fill their shoes.