Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A young girl vanishes as a family crosses from Mexico to the United States
Border Child
What you need to know before your trail
Young lovers Héctor and Lilia dreamed of a brighter future for their family in the United States. Héctor left Mexico first, to secure work and housing, but when Lilia, desperate to be with Héctor, impetuously crossed the border with their infant daughter, Alejandra, mother and child were separated. Alejandra disappeared. Now, four years later, the family has a chance to reunite, but the trauma of the past may well be permanent.
Back in their sleepy hometown of Oaxaca, the couple enjoys a semblance of normal life, with a toddler son and another baby on the way. Then they receive an unexpected tip that might lead them to Alejandra, and both agree they must seize this chance, whatever the cost. Working increasingly illegal jobs to earn money for his journey north, Héctor seeks more information about his long-absent daughter. Meanwhile, a bedridden Lilia awaits the birth of their third child, but cannot keep herself from reliving the worst mistakes of her past
Travel Guide
Oaxaca, Mexico
A family leaves their poor town in Mexico for the chance to start a new life in the USA. As many families before then, the father goes on ahead and then the mother and her child follows. But tragedy strikes at the border. Lailia had tried to cross from Mexico into Texas with her infant daughter, Alejandra, to join Hector at his job in South Carolina.
Hector and Lilia are now back in Mexico and trying to find out what happened. Their life is one of poverty and the neighbours and Mexicans who stayed behind seem to resent them for having left or abandoned their country. But everyone wants a better life. When the couple have a chance to find out what happened to their little girl, they are prepared to risk everything and head back north.
And so the chaos and struggle that is the desperation of people wanting to cross the border and those who prey on that desperation.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Border Child
Destination : Oaxaca Author/Guide: Michel Stone Departure Time: 2000s
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