Beginning with the 1846 Mexican-American War and expanding to the post-9/11 era, the U.S.-Mexico border has become the embodiment of crises, conflicts, and reconciliation. The border crossing has occupied the headlines with strict border control policies and high death tolls along the border. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for the nonfiction category in 2005, Luis A. Urrea ' s The Devil ' s Highway (2004) gives voice to marginalized Mexican border crossers in his personal-political border writing. This article poses a major question about Mexicans crossing the border: why do they embark on a fatal journey across the border ? As a response, the article explores the historical, cultural, economic, and political repercussions of Mexican border crossing through The Devil ' s Highway. Mexicans ' sense of displacement and search for a place in American society and economy relate their border crossing to the concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, keyed by Deleuze and Guattari. In addition to Arjun Appadurai ' s intersectional global dynamics and John Tomlinson ' s overwhelming mass media and communication networks, Mexican migrants ' broadened entrapment in a cycle of global deterritorialization and reterritorialization is noted. With the failure of border militarism and prevalent xenophobic responses, Urrea ' s political narrative calls for collaboration between the United States and Mexico on diplomatic, legal, and humanitarian terms. Therefore, the analysis of Urrea ' s pro-life narrative and his call for border policy reform provide a new dimension to the politics of border control, border and immigration studies, and human rights struggle along the border. As an interdisciplinary border narrative, The Devil ' s Highway highlights the predominance of Mexican history, geopolitical and regional dynamics, and globalization in the experience of undocumented Mexican migrants.
