The children's stories are always shuffled, stuttered, always shattered beyond the repair of a narrative order. The problem with trying to tell their story is that it has no beginning, no middle, and no end.
-- Valeria Luiselli (chapter 1 paragraph 7)

Importance: This quote summarizes the goal of the essay; to repair the narratives of these child immigrants and attempt to give them closure. The description of these stories as having no chronological structure foreshadows the multiple narrative streams within the essay, all developing at a different pace.

The name also points out the fact that the detainment centers along the border are a kind of enormous refrigerator for people, constantly blasted with gelid air as if to ensure that the foreign meat doesn't go bad too quickly--naturally, it must be harboring all sorts of deadly germs.
-- Valeria Luiselli (chapter 1 paragraph 22)

Importance: Luiselli describes the hielera in this quote, comparing the bodies of immigrants to pieces of meat in order to convey...