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Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America's Mexican Migrants
The compelling adventure of a young writer who poses as a Mexican wetback to discover the hardships, fear and camaraderie of illegal aliens crossing the border to work in the United States.
264 pages, Paperback
First published August 12, 1987
46 people are currently reading
1707 people want to read
About the author
Ted Conover
32 books258 followersTed Conover, a "master of experience-based narrative nonfiction" (Publisher's Lunch), is the author of many articles and five books including Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes, Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Mexican Migrants, Whiteout: Lost in Aspen, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and, most recently, The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today. He is a distinguished writer-in-residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
January 31, 2008
conover is a serious badass. plain and simple. he heads down to mexico, joins up with a group of pollos who, led by a coyote, sneaks through the desert for two days, crosses the border (gets beat up, tortured, and robbed along the way), spends a season picking fruit with his new amigos and then all of 'em knock around the country looking for work before heading back down to mexico. this is a terrific book. gonna pick up New Jack (conover becomes a guard at Sing Sing!) and White Out (a taxi driver in aspen) next...
June 13, 2007
I'm not nearly eloquent enough to explain how I feel about this book & the author...
A nightmare of a subject, yet I promise you will somehow find yourself thoroughly entertained - even laughing - without ever losing sight of the author's sincerity towards the matter.
A nightmare of a subject, yet I promise you will somehow find yourself thoroughly entertained - even laughing - without ever losing sight of the author's sincerity towards the matter.
August 28, 2015
If you eat fruit or vegetables grown in the US anywhere except your own garden, you should read this book. Shades of Orwell (Wigan Pier), Steinbeck (everything), Agee (Let Us Now) plus elements of a road novel. The author lived with and traveled with Mexican workers for a year, making two illegal border crossings with them in the hands of coyotes and toiling with them in the orange groves of AZ and FL.
Incredibly hard work, to get which which these men brave not all God's dangers but a lot of them, including being tortured by Mexican police before they cross the border north.
In a powerful section, the author spends four months in the little Mexican town from which many of his compadres make the annual trip to the States to seek work.
Perhaps we see a slightly glossed-up picture of the workers but they are not idealized. They are dogged, resourceful, desperate to work and get money for those back home. The writer clearly likes them and makes the reader feel the same way. Pathos and good humor are both there. Great description of a plane trip to Los Angeles, a novelty for the Mexicans.
[Added next day] The book, published more than 25 years ago, is still on-time. Its tone is remarkably objective, almost apolitical, but under that is a giant question that I think the author did put to readers somewhere. What can be the rationale of making it so hard for the men in this story to enter the US to do work so arduous and ill-paid that no one else will do it? Work that saves U.S. consumers billions of dollars a year for cheaper food? Work that is as essential for our agricultural economy as sun and water (I almost forgot oil)?
Below is a brief description up to date of farm work in the US. Grim as it is, I suspect it gives a rosier picture than would apply to seasonal migrants who enter the US illegally. The 42 hour average work week, for example, must be annualized; it's my impression that when harvesting a given crop, 8 hour days are hardly the rule and there is no such thing as overtime pay.
http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm...
Incredibly hard work, to get which which these men brave not all God's dangers but a lot of them, including being tortured by Mexican police before they cross the border north.
In a powerful section, the author spends four months in the little Mexican town from which many of his compadres make the annual trip to the States to seek work.
Perhaps we see a slightly glossed-up picture of the workers but they are not idealized. They are dogged, resourceful, desperate to work and get money for those back home. The writer clearly likes them and makes the reader feel the same way. Pathos and good humor are both there. Great description of a plane trip to Los Angeles, a novelty for the Mexicans.
[Added next day] The book, published more than 25 years ago, is still on-time. Its tone is remarkably objective, almost apolitical, but under that is a giant question that I think the author did put to readers somewhere. What can be the rationale of making it so hard for the men in this story to enter the US to do work so arduous and ill-paid that no one else will do it? Work that saves U.S. consumers billions of dollars a year for cheaper food? Work that is as essential for our agricultural economy as sun and water (I almost forgot oil)?
Below is a brief description up to date of farm work in the US. Grim as it is, I suspect it gives a rosier picture than would apply to seasonal migrants who enter the US illegally. The 42 hour average work week, for example, must be annualized; it's my impression that when harvesting a given crop, 8 hour days are hardly the rule and there is no such thing as overtime pay.
http://nfwm.org/education-center/farm...
January 14, 2019
This book was first published in 1986. Ted Conover, the author, is a journalist who joins migrants in their travels to and from the United States. Even though his experiences were relatively long ago, I think the process is still the same, except probably even more dangerous for the migrants. The migrants went to Phoenix to pick citrus, Idaho for potatoes, and Michigan for apples. They travel in dangerous circumstances, having to travel with the help of "coyotes" to help them across the border. One time they traveled some distance with 15 men in the back of a pickup truck. Another time they were pulled over in Utah on their way from Phoenix to Idaho. They were jailed and deported only to return to Phoenix within 4 days. The INS flew them in chartered planes to El Centro and then over the border to Mexicali. Some of the ranches they work at treat them well and others not so much. The migrants at one point were even picked up by their own country's police (judiciales) who locked them up and beat them. Traveling back and forth between countries takes a big toll on the families. There really needs to be a better way. These people perform work that very few of us would ever want to do. We need a legal way for them to enter the country and work.
June 24, 2012
I like the first hand look at the life and work of Mexican immigrants working in the agricultural industry. Though it's a 20+ year old look at the situation, I am sure much of it remains true.
The work these people do is hard work that pays poorly so that we can enjoy lower priced fruits and vegetables. Many of these people pay local, state and federal taxes, including social security. Many other groups including the Irish, Italians and Germans, to name a few, have also come to America to seek opportunity. In some respects this is what America has traditionally represented: opportunity for those with nothing more than work ethic and a dream. I enjoyed reading this simply because most of my grandparents were immigrants and it reminds me of their sacrifices and hard work that helped set me up for success.
The work these people do is hard work that pays poorly so that we can enjoy lower priced fruits and vegetables. Many of these people pay local, state and federal taxes, including social security. Many other groups including the Irish, Italians and Germans, to name a few, have also come to America to seek opportunity. In some respects this is what America has traditionally represented: opportunity for those with nothing more than work ethic and a dream. I enjoyed reading this simply because most of my grandparents were immigrants and it reminds me of their sacrifices and hard work that helped set me up for success.
October 26, 2009
To call Conover's project "undercover" is a little misleading, since as a white, blond American he can't exactly pass for Mexican, nor does he try. What he does do is insinuate himself into a group of migrant workers and document their experience. He works the orchards in Arizona, visits their Mexican hometown, and makes numerous illegal border crossings, among other things. This book is over 20 years old, but it doesn't feel dated at all, and Conover resists the temptation to preach. It's a great, thought-provoking read.
September 8, 2024
Published a year before the 1988 amnesty law, Ted Conover follows several undocumented immigrants through their journeys to and in the United States.
I do wonder why some parts are...weird. Sometimes Conover writes it as if he's introducing Mexicans to Americans for the first time, weirdly ignoring that Americans had to have met Mexicans first by default. There was a weird passage about how tacos are just as popular in rural Mexico as it is in the city, and it's like yes??? That's where tacos are from?? (Cannot wait to write my memoir where in the big city, I discover Walmart is JUST as popular and trashy as it was in my nothing-going-on small town).
He also goes into extensive detail about how the individuals mispronounce English that if he were telling his story orally, I would assume he's being a mocking dick. I don't remember seeing a passage about his mistakes speaking Spanish (because mistakes happen regardless if it's your first language or not).
I talk about if he were telling his story orally, because his method of writing really does emerge you into the experience that you forget the story is written. It feels like he's narrating the scene as it happens and you're there.
I definitely learned some surprising aspects. Immigration from Mexico is usually portrayed as random when in fact, growers can have specific economic relationships to parts of Mexico that sometimes it's down to the village. They know their workers will return in the next growing season and bring in more people from their town.
He also is keenly aware of certain cultural attitudes that I was like, wait, is that *not* how all people think?? The book revolves only around Mexican men as they come to the United States, and the issues involving masculinity, family separation, and economic opportunity for these men.
This book, if you can recognize the weirdness for what it is, is informative about the long journeys people make to work in and feed the United States.
I do wonder why some parts are...weird. Sometimes Conover writes it as if he's introducing Mexicans to Americans for the first time, weirdly ignoring that Americans had to have met Mexicans first by default. There was a weird passage about how tacos are just as popular in rural Mexico as it is in the city, and it's like yes??? That's where tacos are from?? (Cannot wait to write my memoir where in the big city, I discover Walmart is JUST as popular and trashy as it was in my nothing-going-on small town).
He also goes into extensive detail about how the individuals mispronounce English that if he were telling his story orally, I would assume he's being a mocking dick. I don't remember seeing a passage about his mistakes speaking Spanish (because mistakes happen regardless if it's your first language or not).
I talk about if he were telling his story orally, because his method of writing really does emerge you into the experience that you forget the story is written. It feels like he's narrating the scene as it happens and you're there.
I definitely learned some surprising aspects. Immigration from Mexico is usually portrayed as random when in fact, growers can have specific economic relationships to parts of Mexico that sometimes it's down to the village. They know their workers will return in the next growing season and bring in more people from their town.
He also is keenly aware of certain cultural attitudes that I was like, wait, is that *not* how all people think?? The book revolves only around Mexican men as they come to the United States, and the issues involving masculinity, family separation, and economic opportunity for these men.
This book, if you can recognize the weirdness for what it is, is informative about the long journeys people make to work in and feed the United States.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 7, 2008
Shit. What a poorly-conceived book. The author comes across as a self-congratulatory putz touting his accidental ability to "get in the shit" and come up with some juicy first-hand accounts of riding in a van with people crossing the US/Mexico Border illegally.
I tried like hell to get into it, but was cut off at every pass by this jerk-off. He makes statements like, "I was probably the most educated person X had ever met," and "Though there was great poverty, the Mexican side of the border did seem a relatively prosperous place." His argument is that maquiladoras are financially fruitful for the Mexican workers who slave there. Glance at the wages, and you realize that NAFTA is not the cure-all it is touted to be. F-you, Ted Conover. Duty free jeans and electronics coming over the border Do Not Provide A Living Wage, not even in Mexico, "where everything's cheaper!" The policy benefits companies, not workers. This issue is at the heart of why Mexico has historically housed such a consistently vehement labor movement throughout recent history.
"Coyotes" was written by a gaping hole who didn't perform enough research to make the book readable. Only recommended to readers who need a good pissing-off.
p.s. Lots of people gave this pile of crap great reviews. Get a grip. Anyone can be a journalist. Go somewhere and write something about it--that's all it takes. It doesn't make you Jesus Journalist. Many people who wrote lovely things about this book's so-called narrative excellence can't stand Mexicans (never mind that all of south and central America is moving north as well for reasons mirroring those of Mexicans) and are eager to explain their crackpot reasonings. My sage advice: Read a damn book or two--just not this one. Unless getting angry is your thing, like I said.
I tried like hell to get into it, but was cut off at every pass by this jerk-off. He makes statements like, "I was probably the most educated person X had ever met," and "Though there was great poverty, the Mexican side of the border did seem a relatively prosperous place." His argument is that maquiladoras are financially fruitful for the Mexican workers who slave there. Glance at the wages, and you realize that NAFTA is not the cure-all it is touted to be. F-you, Ted Conover. Duty free jeans and electronics coming over the border Do Not Provide A Living Wage, not even in Mexico, "where everything's cheaper!" The policy benefits companies, not workers. This issue is at the heart of why Mexico has historically housed such a consistently vehement labor movement throughout recent history.
"Coyotes" was written by a gaping hole who didn't perform enough research to make the book readable. Only recommended to readers who need a good pissing-off.
p.s. Lots of people gave this pile of crap great reviews. Get a grip. Anyone can be a journalist. Go somewhere and write something about it--that's all it takes. It doesn't make you Jesus Journalist. Many people who wrote lovely things about this book's so-called narrative excellence can't stand Mexicans (never mind that all of south and central America is moving north as well for reasons mirroring those of Mexicans) and are eager to explain their crackpot reasonings. My sage advice: Read a damn book or two--just not this one. Unless getting angry is your thing, like I said.
May 3, 2017
Excellent, entertaining, emotionally gripping read. Coyotes tells the story of a journalist who follows Mexican undocumented workers and their coyotes--traffickers, for lack of a better term. He writes with admirable clarity, showing the plight of the undocumented worker without beating the reader over the head with a policy argument.
Of course the immigration issue is a perennial hot-button one. We talk about how we protect American jobs, and we talk about how we treat those less fortunate. Conover goes several extra miles with Coyotes, with stories that show the kind of struggle and misfortune undocumented workers face.
We see them crossing the country in a van prone to breaking down. The fear of being stranded or arrested defeats any Jack Kerouac style romance of the road. And we see the labor in the fruit fields for meager pay. Conover, who is white, is told that his type--usually fugitives of the law--don't last long in this line of work. We see images of Mexicans watching planes take off, as though they're watching some fascinating technological breakthrough. This image reminds of what we, on the other side of income inequality, take for granted.
It's a journalistic piece, and there is remarkably little in the way of policy argument. Even the implications, beyond a compassionate approach to immigration policy, are not clear. But as an account of the lives and struggles of illegal immigrants, Coyotes is fascinating and engrossing.
Of course the immigration issue is a perennial hot-button one. We talk about how we protect American jobs, and we talk about how we treat those less fortunate. Conover goes several extra miles with Coyotes, with stories that show the kind of struggle and misfortune undocumented workers face.
We see them crossing the country in a van prone to breaking down. The fear of being stranded or arrested defeats any Jack Kerouac style romance of the road. And we see the labor in the fruit fields for meager pay. Conover, who is white, is told that his type--usually fugitives of the law--don't last long in this line of work. We see images of Mexicans watching planes take off, as though they're watching some fascinating technological breakthrough. This image reminds of what we, on the other side of income inequality, take for granted.
It's a journalistic piece, and there is remarkably little in the way of policy argument. Even the implications, beyond a compassionate approach to immigration policy, are not clear. But as an account of the lives and struggles of illegal immigrants, Coyotes is fascinating and engrossing.
April 4, 2008
I loved reading Coyotes by Ted Conover. His adventure, sneaking through the border and around country with illegal migrants, was astonishing and somehow it was shocking. With lots of insight from both side of border, he revealed lots of facts that I didn’t know about. It was tough and dangerous journey, but through his journey, he made lots of good friends and relationships with illegal migrants, who are human being just like you.
May 28, 2012
One of my all time favorite adventure-journalism :) I like this dude.
September 17, 2020
Parts of this book were really fascinating. Other parts crept slowly along...The chapter where the author visits a small slow town in Mexico, was especially tedious. I feel for people who are so desperate to provide for their families that they are willing to take such extreme risks as dangerous border crossings and working long brutal hours illegally in a strange country. And yet, this book hardened my heart against some of them in a way, too - especially when I read of illegals driving drunk in the states or driving in unsafe cars under icy conditions they are in no way prepared to handle. Or when they say they must work to provide for the 5 children back home...it does flash across my mind that having had less children would’ve made this entire situation unnecessary. And then there are the machisimo guys who sneak in, and spend the dollars they make here on hookers that cater to the illegals. Or the immigrants who have a woman and child back home in Mexico already and then come to the US and start another family with a new woman and child (who they then leave when the season is over and they traverse back to Mexico). Lastly, what a waste of US funding and resources to deport these men when they are back in the states again mere days later. Wouldn’t a temporary worker program be more effective? They appear to need the money and we need the workers.
March 16, 2026
Coyotes: A Journey Through the Secret World of America's Illegal Aliens by Ted Conover is a non-fiction book written by an American journalist who crossed the border from Mexico to the U.S. with Mexican immigrants. He then traveled with them for months; learning Spanish, meeting their friends and families, working where they worked, and finding out how and why they wanted to live as “illegal aliens” in the U.S.
This book was published in 1987, so it is certainly “dated” however it did not make it any less interesting to read. The writing could have been more engaging, but the content was good. The question of why… it seems like mostly the reasons were money, jobs, and sometimes, adventure or opportunity. I wish Ted would have dug more into the “why.” However, how involved he was in the process, that was both surprising and I think made this the book that it was. Pretty much everything they did, he did, too. He was committed. This was a good read. I wonder how this book would be written if a journalist did the same today.
This book was published in 1987, so it is certainly “dated” however it did not make it any less interesting to read. The writing could have been more engaging, but the content was good. The question of why… it seems like mostly the reasons were money, jobs, and sometimes, adventure or opportunity. I wish Ted would have dug more into the “why.” However, how involved he was in the process, that was both surprising and I think made this the book that it was. Pretty much everything they did, he did, too. He was committed. This was a good read. I wonder how this book would be written if a journalist did the same today.
April 17, 2025
Great read! I had heard about Conover through a narrative journalism class then nabbed this book in a college thrift store (which was really just a repository for students getting rid of stuff they didn't want at the end of the school year) and I realized only recently that my copy is signed! Pretty cool.
Anyway, this book is more relevant than ever and it paints a nuanced picture of the crossing by Mexicans into the USA. As Conover himself says, the fear of the "illegal alien" is one that seems much scarier far away than close up. As this book shows, most of these people simply seek better lives and financial support for themselves and their family. How did people in need seeking honest work become so demonized by anti-immigrant nutjobs who wouldn't even work the jobs they claim are being "stolen" from them? America is built upon the great work of countless immigrants; Mexicans and other Latin Americans are no different.
I have great respect for Conover and the effort he put into not just writing this book but showing the humanity in these immigrants too.
Anyway, this book is more relevant than ever and it paints a nuanced picture of the crossing by Mexicans into the USA. As Conover himself says, the fear of the "illegal alien" is one that seems much scarier far away than close up. As this book shows, most of these people simply seek better lives and financial support for themselves and their family. How did people in need seeking honest work become so demonized by anti-immigrant nutjobs who wouldn't even work the jobs they claim are being "stolen" from them? America is built upon the great work of countless immigrants; Mexicans and other Latin Americans are no different.
I have great respect for Conover and the effort he put into not just writing this book but showing the humanity in these immigrants too.
February 11, 2019
The author accompanied illegal immigrants into and around the US to various jobs. He expresses it eloquently when he says: "...I remember picking, nearly killing myself with work. The job seemed even more remarkable now, after seeing what guys went through to get the job. What American wanted a job so badly? Any job--not just bottom-of-the-barrel work like this. Would you walk thirty-five miles, through the desert, for a job?" Indeed. I know I wouldn't.
November 6, 2019
I read this book years ago while doing research for my novel The Iguana Tree. Conover's book remains one of my favorite non-fiction reads, and I find myself going back to it from time to time as I think about immigration, undocumented border crossings, and what that experience is like for those who choose to undertake that journey.
July 28, 2021
Enjoyed this trip. Ted travels, works and lives with migrant orchard pickers.
He also crosses the border northwards with the help of coyotes.
Interesting to look into their lives and spend time with them.
He also crosses the border northwards with the help of coyotes.
Interesting to look into their lives and spend time with them.
April 30, 2016
I feel like I have a relationship with Ted Conover. He grew up in Denver. He is my age. When he was a young man he hung out with Hoboes in Hobo camps and rode the rails. In between Peace Corps and my short stint in medical school, I hung out with pregnant homeless woman, in the night and day shelters, taught them about birth, stayed with them through labors,and helped them set up again in homes. In the long mostly nights of letting babies come I heard many stories of young women traveling anyway they could.
Ted of course went on to write about truck drivers, Aspenites and border coyotes. Just a few years back, He won the Evil Companions award given by Denver luminaries Joyce Meskis, Dana Crawford and I heard him read from New Jack. On the stage, he transformed my idea of him as a young adnventurer to an extremely well educated college professor who had moments of transcendence in his writing.
Coyotes was first publised in 1986, so Ted was not yet 30. One might wonder what such a book has to offer us thirty years later. In this country, when Donald Trump promises to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, what we find in the book is these men's humanity. Here in these pages, Ted crosses the border twice in a pack of Mexicans, acts as a coyote himself for a group of guys who fly for the first time from Phoenix to LA, drives in a packed, barely running car with no heat in a blizzard to Florida, as well as visitiing the home county of the men he meets on the road.
Ted describes picking oranges as "skilled labor" hanging off an aluminum ladder, holding a heavy sack of oranges, twisting or clipping of the ripe oranges and dropping them in the bag. He describes the men as hard working, even ambitious. All his stories involve physical strength, discomfort, cooperation between men, endurance, acceptance of their lot, and in off-times, drink, food and women. The men seem alive, game, religious, ingenious, ready to joke around at each other's expense. They seem innocent of the world of the United State, but in thier own world, Ted describes them as "important" having connections to wives, kids and parents. He says they see Americn men as we might see "Germans" without feeling, efficient, and organized.
One cannot imagine any American field worker risking what these men risked to cross the border and get to Arizona, or Florida or Idaho in order to sleep in the groves or at one point an abandoned walk-in refrigerator to have the privilege to pick up oranges or dig potatoes, not just once but year after year after year.
Now that I finished the book, iI feel like I know these men.
Ted of course went on to write about truck drivers, Aspenites and border coyotes. Just a few years back, He won the Evil Companions award given by Denver luminaries Joyce Meskis, Dana Crawford and I heard him read from New Jack. On the stage, he transformed my idea of him as a young adnventurer to an extremely well educated college professor who had moments of transcendence in his writing.
Coyotes was first publised in 1986, so Ted was not yet 30. One might wonder what such a book has to offer us thirty years later. In this country, when Donald Trump promises to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, what we find in the book is these men's humanity. Here in these pages, Ted crosses the border twice in a pack of Mexicans, acts as a coyote himself for a group of guys who fly for the first time from Phoenix to LA, drives in a packed, barely running car with no heat in a blizzard to Florida, as well as visitiing the home county of the men he meets on the road.
Ted describes picking oranges as "skilled labor" hanging off an aluminum ladder, holding a heavy sack of oranges, twisting or clipping of the ripe oranges and dropping them in the bag. He describes the men as hard working, even ambitious. All his stories involve physical strength, discomfort, cooperation between men, endurance, acceptance of their lot, and in off-times, drink, food and women. The men seem alive, game, religious, ingenious, ready to joke around at each other's expense. They seem innocent of the world of the United State, but in thier own world, Ted describes them as "important" having connections to wives, kids and parents. He says they see Americn men as we might see "Germans" without feeling, efficient, and organized.
One cannot imagine any American field worker risking what these men risked to cross the border and get to Arizona, or Florida or Idaho in order to sleep in the groves or at one point an abandoned walk-in refrigerator to have the privilege to pick up oranges or dig potatoes, not just once but year after year after year.
Now that I finished the book, iI feel like I know these men.
May 8, 2025
I spoke too soon when I accused Ted Conover of not writing "action-packed" books in my previous reviews. By my calculations, Ted (I guess I can start calling him by his first name now, since I've read three of his books. That makes us old friends in my delusional mind 🤡🥳) was most likely having the adventure of his damn life when he wrote this one. 🤣
The first chapter reads like a Liam Neeson movie (at least that's what I scribbled down on one of the pages as I was reading it. I've... only ever seen one Liam Neeson movie... I don't actually have any idea what kinds of movies Liam Neeson usually makes.)
One of the few things I remember from journalism school is the importance of a creative "lede"/"lead" (depending on your spelling preference, for some reason I can't recall. I must have left class early to chain-smoke that day) or opening "hook." Ted delivers that in chapter one: "Sun slipped through the cracks left by poor workmanship, providing the shack's only light. A space around the plywood slipped across the window, a slit between the corroding sheet-metal and it's jamb, tiny arcs between crumbling cinder blocks and the corrugated tin roof," the book begins.
He goes on to describe his experience befriending a young man named Alonso at a bus stop in a Mexican border town, accompanying him as he negotiated with "coyotes" (the men who earn their money guiding Mexican immigrants across the border, with varying degrees of competence... Forgive me, but I laughed out loud when Ted described realizing that the coyotes, who were actually naive teenagers, planned to lead them across a river in what was basically a child's floaty pool *WITH A DAMN LEAK IN IT!*) and later waiting for the coyotes in a shack, apparently scared for their lives. He goes on to write: "Alonso, squatting down to give his legs a rest, surveyed the scores of [cigarette] butts. 'Lots of 'wetbacks' waited here, eh?' I thought of the minutes of worried waiting represented by each butt, the cumulative anxiety of them all."
For some reason I didn't personally connect with this book as much as I did with Ted's book Rolling Nowhere-- probably because, given that he wrote Rolling Nowhere in his early-mid 20s, I related to the experience of *trying* to write something that, despite your lack of life experience, meaningfully captures some important part of the human experience.
But, in terms of writing, Coyotes is him at his absolute best. I kept noticing the sheer amount of attention to detail and subtle emotion (for example, in one chapter, he describes listening to a Mexican migrant in a bar who was so desperate to enter the U.S. that he hopped a train and hid on top of the axles. It was an extremely dangerous endeavor-- the train could jerk forward too quickly at any moment. After several beers, the man in the bar admitted to witnessing another man who was attempting to do the same thing fall to his death. Ted writes about the conversation: "'You know, you're under there and it's nighttime , you see sparks,' he said, the aggression gone from his voice. Vicente had stopped looking at anything particular in the cantina. He was looking somewhere into the past." I found this observation incredibly moving.)
The pacing and build-up of tension in some chapters was unlike Ted's other books-- like I said, it felt like watching an action movie. I have this feeling that men often tend to have their own action movie fantasies, the same way that women often tend to have dramatic soap opera fantasies. I'm convinced Ted was living out his action movie fantasy in this book. 🤣 If you don't believe me, while waiting in the shack for the coyotes to return and still feeling unsure about his safety, Ted noticed an empty glass bottle nearby. "If worse came to worst, I thought, I could grab it by the neck, knock off the bottom against a wall, and have a weapon," he wrote. Next to that paragraph, I wrote in red ink: "Lol, I'm sure Ted. 😂"
Anyway, about the immigration issue itself: I'll confess I'm pretty ignorant on the topic, aside from what I just read in this book. I went in with the following assumption: America is basically like the lifeboat in the scene from Titanic where the passengers are arguing about whether to go back and rescue more people in the water. They *wanted* to help, but there wasn't nearly enough room for everyone, and if they tried they were afraid of getting swamped by all of the people desperately clamoring for safety and getting dragged into the water themselves too. I wish they would have gone back, like most viewers, but maybe it really is one of those situations where you don't know what you would do if you weren't there. I get it: self-preservation is a human instinct. Anyway, I guess that metaphor still stands in some senses (the world is filled with people attempting to flee terrible conditions and we can't take them all) but the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.
For one, the Mexican migrants (at least the ones in the book) who leave home for the border, usually as young adults, do so for economic reasons (they come from incredibly impoverished places, we're talking dirt floors homes here) but also for the same reasons most young adults leave the nest. They are lured by the temptation of (in this case specifically, American media images) adventure and excitement in a new place, by a chance to experience something different and maybe better. It just seems like human nature.
That said, as the mother of one migrant son lamented in her Mexican village, he could have stayed home and learned a trade but was lured by the risky prospect of earning easy money in the U.S.
On the other hand, the American government doesn't actually want to shut down illegal Mexican immigration totally (at least not when this book was published in the 80's) because it would alienate Mexico and, at least according to the argument Ted presents in the book, America's government thinks it is best to maintain a "good neighbor" policy with Mexico. Also, rural American farm owners who rely on Mexican immigrants have good reason for their choices (to reduce costs. They are trying to make ends meet, too). So do the American corporations, I guess, who reduce costs by outsourcing labor to factories in Mexican border towns. (The people living in those towns make more money at the American factories than they would without them.) And so do the Mexicans from poor villages who make more money than they could have ever dreamed of back home by working for less than minimum wage on American farms. And so do the Americans in towns with dwindling jobs who rightfully raise hell about the companies letting migrant workers come in and take the jobs they should be getting because the migrants are willing to work for less money. The whole issue just seems like a hodgepodge of different people with different motivations. It seems like just a collection of different humans "humaning," as one YouTuber I saw put it, and I genuinely don't know if there is a solution. I'm not sure what to think of everything yet, but I'm glad Coyotes has prompted me to think more about it.
The first chapter reads like a Liam Neeson movie (at least that's what I scribbled down on one of the pages as I was reading it. I've... only ever seen one Liam Neeson movie... I don't actually have any idea what kinds of movies Liam Neeson usually makes.)
One of the few things I remember from journalism school is the importance of a creative "lede"/"lead" (depending on your spelling preference, for some reason I can't recall. I must have left class early to chain-smoke that day) or opening "hook." Ted delivers that in chapter one: "Sun slipped through the cracks left by poor workmanship, providing the shack's only light. A space around the plywood slipped across the window, a slit between the corroding sheet-metal and it's jamb, tiny arcs between crumbling cinder blocks and the corrugated tin roof," the book begins.
He goes on to describe his experience befriending a young man named Alonso at a bus stop in a Mexican border town, accompanying him as he negotiated with "coyotes" (the men who earn their money guiding Mexican immigrants across the border, with varying degrees of competence... Forgive me, but I laughed out loud when Ted described realizing that the coyotes, who were actually naive teenagers, planned to lead them across a river in what was basically a child's floaty pool *WITH A DAMN LEAK IN IT!*) and later waiting for the coyotes in a shack, apparently scared for their lives. He goes on to write: "Alonso, squatting down to give his legs a rest, surveyed the scores of [cigarette] butts. 'Lots of 'wetbacks' waited here, eh?' I thought of the minutes of worried waiting represented by each butt, the cumulative anxiety of them all."
For some reason I didn't personally connect with this book as much as I did with Ted's book Rolling Nowhere-- probably because, given that he wrote Rolling Nowhere in his early-mid 20s, I related to the experience of *trying* to write something that, despite your lack of life experience, meaningfully captures some important part of the human experience.
But, in terms of writing, Coyotes is him at his absolute best. I kept noticing the sheer amount of attention to detail and subtle emotion (for example, in one chapter, he describes listening to a Mexican migrant in a bar who was so desperate to enter the U.S. that he hopped a train and hid on top of the axles. It was an extremely dangerous endeavor-- the train could jerk forward too quickly at any moment. After several beers, the man in the bar admitted to witnessing another man who was attempting to do the same thing fall to his death. Ted writes about the conversation: "'You know, you're under there and it's nighttime , you see sparks,' he said, the aggression gone from his voice. Vicente had stopped looking at anything particular in the cantina. He was looking somewhere into the past." I found this observation incredibly moving.)
The pacing and build-up of tension in some chapters was unlike Ted's other books-- like I said, it felt like watching an action movie. I have this feeling that men often tend to have their own action movie fantasies, the same way that women often tend to have dramatic soap opera fantasies. I'm convinced Ted was living out his action movie fantasy in this book. 🤣 If you don't believe me, while waiting in the shack for the coyotes to return and still feeling unsure about his safety, Ted noticed an empty glass bottle nearby. "If worse came to worst, I thought, I could grab it by the neck, knock off the bottom against a wall, and have a weapon," he wrote. Next to that paragraph, I wrote in red ink: "Lol, I'm sure Ted. 😂"
Anyway, about the immigration issue itself: I'll confess I'm pretty ignorant on the topic, aside from what I just read in this book. I went in with the following assumption: America is basically like the lifeboat in the scene from Titanic where the passengers are arguing about whether to go back and rescue more people in the water. They *wanted* to help, but there wasn't nearly enough room for everyone, and if they tried they were afraid of getting swamped by all of the people desperately clamoring for safety and getting dragged into the water themselves too. I wish they would have gone back, like most viewers, but maybe it really is one of those situations where you don't know what you would do if you weren't there. I get it: self-preservation is a human instinct. Anyway, I guess that metaphor still stands in some senses (the world is filled with people attempting to flee terrible conditions and we can't take them all) but the situation is a lot more nuanced than that.
For one, the Mexican migrants (at least the ones in the book) who leave home for the border, usually as young adults, do so for economic reasons (they come from incredibly impoverished places, we're talking dirt floors homes here) but also for the same reasons most young adults leave the nest. They are lured by the temptation of (in this case specifically, American media images) adventure and excitement in a new place, by a chance to experience something different and maybe better. It just seems like human nature.
That said, as the mother of one migrant son lamented in her Mexican village, he could have stayed home and learned a trade but was lured by the risky prospect of earning easy money in the U.S.
On the other hand, the American government doesn't actually want to shut down illegal Mexican immigration totally (at least not when this book was published in the 80's) because it would alienate Mexico and, at least according to the argument Ted presents in the book, America's government thinks it is best to maintain a "good neighbor" policy with Mexico. Also, rural American farm owners who rely on Mexican immigrants have good reason for their choices (to reduce costs. They are trying to make ends meet, too). So do the American corporations, I guess, who reduce costs by outsourcing labor to factories in Mexican border towns. (The people living in those towns make more money at the American factories than they would without them.) And so do the Mexicans from poor villages who make more money than they could have ever dreamed of back home by working for less than minimum wage on American farms. And so do the Americans in towns with dwindling jobs who rightfully raise hell about the companies letting migrant workers come in and take the jobs they should be getting because the migrants are willing to work for less money. The whole issue just seems like a hodgepodge of different people with different motivations. It seems like just a collection of different humans "humaning," as one YouTuber I saw put it, and I genuinely don't know if there is a solution. I'm not sure what to think of everything yet, but I'm glad Coyotes has prompted me to think more about it.
June 18, 2008
Like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed, Coyotes is first-rate undercover journalism. Ted Conover lived and worked among Mexicans working illegally in the U.S. -- sharing their jobs, living space, food and (as much as is possible for a gringo) the risks they take to be in our country. The book is about 20 years old, but it still feels fresh and relevant for today's immigration debate
Conover is a solid writer and he wisely frames the novel firstly as adventure tale, secondly as cultural reporting and only occasionally as overt political statement. This makes for an exciting page-turner of a book ... with an unmistakable political under-current.
One harrowing border-crossing through the Sonoran desert reminded me of nothing so much as Sam and Frodo's march toward Mt. Doom. Other incidents are funnier, but you never lose sight of the precariousness of their lives and Conover communicates a deep respect for the courage, tenacity and cleverness required to be an illegal immigrant. Good stuff.
Conover is a solid writer and he wisely frames the novel firstly as adventure tale, secondly as cultural reporting and only occasionally as overt political statement. This makes for an exciting page-turner of a book ... with an unmistakable political under-current.
One harrowing border-crossing through the Sonoran desert reminded me of nothing so much as Sam and Frodo's march toward Mt. Doom. Other incidents are funnier, but you never lose sight of the precariousness of their lives and Conover communicates a deep respect for the courage, tenacity and cleverness required to be an illegal immigrant. Good stuff.
May 25, 2010
From 1984-85, Ted Conover, an undercover journalist, crossed the Mexican/US border several times with illegal Mexican migrants. He also lived in a small settlement in Mexico besides working in fields in AZ and FL. This book helps give a sense of what it was like during that time period to be an illegal migrant. The characters are all well-meaning and eager to work. The picture of illegal Mexican immigrants painted in this book is much different from what is described in our media today. I may read some more of Conover's books such as Newjack which describes his two year job as a guard at Sing Sing, and Rolling Nowhere which is about time he spent riding the rails with hoboes.
November 5, 2007
A blonde-haired, blue eyed journalist enters the society of illegal Mexican migrant workers. Journalistically, this is a great, well-written read and look into the world of illegal border crossings, human trafficking, the underground agricultural industry, the language and society of migrant workers, and the effects on families on both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Anyone who has scorn of "The illegals invading our country and stealing our jobs" or who thinks a wall across the border is a good idea or applauds the efforts of groups like The Minutemen should read this for a dose of reality.
Anyone who has scorn of "The illegals invading our country and stealing our jobs" or who thinks a wall across the border is a good idea or applauds the efforts of groups like The Minutemen should read this for a dose of reality.
February 13, 2017
I wanted to like this book, but it felt outdated. I appreciated many of the immigrants' stories, but really struggled with paying attention at the end. I know immigration has been around forever, but I feel like it changes with the times, and when this book was written, perhaps it wasn't such a hot button issue. I think this book is great for the history of unauthorized entry, but it doesn't really speak to the current day and the journey that immigrants face here in 2017.
June 6, 2012
Pairing this book with Dying to Cross was very informative. The illegal immigrant experience is one most of us would not endure. The story was interesting while the writing was clunky.
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June 30, 2020For August Book Club, I read Coyotes by Ted Conover. Conover is a young American journalist who wanted to tell the story of undocumented immigrants on the move in the U.S. Yet, he wasn’t planning on telling that story by reading articles and researching from the comfort of his own home in Colorado. He wanted to tell that story by being there himself-to cross borders when they crossed, to wake up when they wake up, work when they work. And so he did, actually embarking on multiple journeys with different groups of people.
As his work would require of him, he had to keep himself open to the situation changing at a moment’s notice. With groups of men he befriended, he illegally crossed the Mexico-U.S. border twice and traveled and/or worked across many states, including Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Florida, and more. Conover worked in the orchards and fields with these men, experiencing first-hand the intense labor that reaped little financial reward. He hung out at the bars with them, ate with them, and quickly became friends with many whom he spent time with. Basically, this book is a lot of storytelling and I’d have to say that I really enjoyed it. As others who do storytelling projects try to do, Conover put a human face on this large and growing group of people that most Americans do not interact with really at all. It’s like they became your friends throughout the book, too. I think Conover hoped the stories would especially end up in the hands of those who were worried about America’s ‘backdoor’ being unlocked, who were fearful of these ‘illegal aliens,’ who at times might even lump them into the same group as terrorists.
I would definitely recommend the book to anyone. It’s a quick read and Conover’s journeys are fascinating. Most importantly, I thought he did really well at personalizing this massive group of people who live and work in our country on a daily basis yet who in various ways remain a large mystery to many of us still. Yes, of course there should be caution when speaking so broadly about such a huge group of people but he expresses his acknowledgement of that at the beginning of the book. Overall, it definitely makes you dwell more upon our broken immigration system and those who are most affected by it.
As his work would require of him, he had to keep himself open to the situation changing at a moment’s notice. With groups of men he befriended, he illegally crossed the Mexico-U.S. border twice and traveled and/or worked across many states, including Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Florida, and more. Conover worked in the orchards and fields with these men, experiencing first-hand the intense labor that reaped little financial reward. He hung out at the bars with them, ate with them, and quickly became friends with many whom he spent time with. Basically, this book is a lot of storytelling and I’d have to say that I really enjoyed it. As others who do storytelling projects try to do, Conover put a human face on this large and growing group of people that most Americans do not interact with really at all. It’s like they became your friends throughout the book, too. I think Conover hoped the stories would especially end up in the hands of those who were worried about America’s ‘backdoor’ being unlocked, who were fearful of these ‘illegal aliens,’ who at times might even lump them into the same group as terrorists.
I would definitely recommend the book to anyone. It’s a quick read and Conover’s journeys are fascinating. Most importantly, I thought he did really well at personalizing this massive group of people who live and work in our country on a daily basis yet who in various ways remain a large mystery to many of us still. Yes, of course there should be caution when speaking so broadly about such a huge group of people but he expresses his acknowledgement of that at the beginning of the book. Overall, it definitely makes you dwell more upon our broken immigration system and those who are most affected by it.
May 14, 2020
Ted, is an American journalist who is in Mexico to see what life is like and how it feels to experience crossing the border illegally with other Mexicans in hope to find a better life with no poverty. Ted meets Alonso, one of the Mexicans who is trying to cross the border, and become very good friends. He traveled to so many places in the US, he went from Arizona to California to Florida, with various different groups of immigrants. But in the beginning he met a guy named Alonso, who was a mexican trying to cross the border they stick together for a long time, they crossed the border together, with the help of coyotes (which are smugglers who cross immigrants to the US illegally). They have to go through certain phases because the coyotes thought they were acting suspicious and thought they could be spies or cops undercover. So they had to pay more than the original amount in order for them to be trusted and crossed over. After they successfully arrived to the US, Ted finally found a job. He was searching for the job for so long. But before he crossed the border, he was caught once trying to cross it with other immigrants. He saw what the people went through. He saw adults on the rides, he saw little kids, he saw teens that were pregnant, and he saw other pregnant women and he just felt bad for what he saw because he knew that they were trying to cross the border just to find a better life, because in Mexico the economy was bad, there was no way you can survive on your own with just getting paid very little when everything is just so expensive. But back to when Ted got a job, he luckily got a job because the place he stayed in for a while there was mostly only immigrants, and people must've seen him very different to everyone else in the town. And in reality he wasn't a bad person, he was just trying to survive like all the others would do so too. He experiences jail and sees his friends being deported and so the book ends with this amazing journey he took to give people a glimpse of the lives of immigrants.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 8, 2020
"Where it is difficult to be seen, it is also difficult to be caught. Invisibility and an unlimited supply of free oranges are the dubious perquisites of orange picking" [pg 33]
Having written this at the age of 27, Coyotes is an impressive attempt at becoming closer to a forever-in-transition peoples that is marked by dull descriptions and an interesting dive into gaining trust from the subject matter. For the first fifty pages or so, everything is quite absorbing having travelled for a long time within North America (Canada/US/Mexico) and further south hitchhiking the back-roads and meeting such characters. However, reading onwards, one realises that the rest of the book will be exactly the same - perhaps it was shocking at the end of the 80's and for those who had little contact with Latin Americans - alien in all ways- but nothing really goes deep, penetrates the surface of what is a culture that is far more than oranges, tortillas, women and beer.
Happy to have finished and move on to something that surprises me a little more. "Tan cerca de estados unidos, tan lejos de dios" and God is a word, is expression, is poetry, is digging deep...not to be found here. As a character study, however, it is a worthwhile edition for those who have no contact with such ways.
Having written this at the age of 27, Coyotes is an impressive attempt at becoming closer to a forever-in-transition peoples that is marked by dull descriptions and an interesting dive into gaining trust from the subject matter. For the first fifty pages or so, everything is quite absorbing having travelled for a long time within North America (Canada/US/Mexico) and further south hitchhiking the back-roads and meeting such characters. However, reading onwards, one realises that the rest of the book will be exactly the same - perhaps it was shocking at the end of the 80's and for those who had little contact with Latin Americans - alien in all ways- but nothing really goes deep, penetrates the surface of what is a culture that is far more than oranges, tortillas, women and beer.
Happy to have finished and move on to something that surprises me a little more. "Tan cerca de estados unidos, tan lejos de dios" and God is a word, is expression, is poetry, is digging deep...not to be found here. As a character study, however, it is a worthwhile edition for those who have no contact with such ways.
October 10, 2020
With illegal crossings of the Mexico/US border becoming major news again with the ascendence of white nationalim "Coyotes" is a great antidote to the shallow headlines. In "Coyotes" Ted Conover documents his time working with Mexican migrants in the orange fields of Arizona, making a cross-country road trip to Florida with those migrants to chase the next seasonal work, visiting them at their hometown in Mexico and illegally crossing the border with them as they make their way North to pick potatoes in Idaho. While "Coyotes" feels fresh and current it was published in 1987. The amount of crossings has dramatically increased, but the motivations remain the same: dire unemployment in Mexico, work in the US and unscrupulous employers in the US hiring illegal workings knowing that it is the workers who will be penalized, but not them. The big thing that has changed since the mid 80s is the role of the cartels and narco violence in Mexico. Conover is not interested in policy prescriptions or deep analysis. He wants to give us a view of these hidden workers as human beings and in that he suceeds.
March 26, 2023
This book was informative as the author followed Mexican migrants from Mexico to various parts of the United States as they looked for work on the various farms picking fruits in the orchards or potatoes from the fields. He crossed the borders illegally with them. Shared their travels across the country in very iffy cars, barely. He then recrossed the border back to Mexico and down to his newfound friends village to live for a time.
He eventually followed the Mexican men back to America and had experiences with the Judiciales in Mexico where everything involves a price and eventually the Sherrif's in America. Such is the life of the Mexican Migrants. Get deported to just turn around and come back to the States again.
The book is easy to read as Ted Conover documents the laid back way of the Mexican migrants as they go through what seems to me, a continuous circle. What I took from this book was what a hard life being a migrant is and the subsequent consequences of living this life in the hopes of making enough money to make life easier at home in Mexico.
He eventually followed the Mexican men back to America and had experiences with the Judiciales in Mexico where everything involves a price and eventually the Sherrif's in America. Such is the life of the Mexican Migrants. Get deported to just turn around and come back to the States again.
The book is easy to read as Ted Conover documents the laid back way of the Mexican migrants as they go through what seems to me, a continuous circle. What I took from this book was what a hard life being a migrant is and the subsequent consequences of living this life in the hopes of making enough money to make life easier at home in Mexico.
January 15, 2026
3.5. Randomly picked up from a book sale and thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author joined the adventures of average and brave Mexican workers leaving their families to try and cross the border in an attempt to find work, often to be beaten, robbed, or deported as a result, or with little to show for it by the end of the farming season. Though it was written in the 80s, I didn't realize how similar and relevant to today it would possibly be. Due to the political climate, immigration is obviously a heated topic and I wish we would have made the readers of this book from the 80s more proud of us as a nation today. I wish there was more of this message today (the author's ending): "These are the guys. They're not perfect, but the majority would make good neighbors...Immigration, you could say, is America's history book...I am left eager, not frightened, to see what comes next."
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