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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following cities suffered damage during the Mexican Revolution?

2. What happens to Jose's middle son that Jose tells Cantu he is worried about on page 168?

3. What does the U.S. Marshal give to Diego, Jose's youngest son, outside the courtroom?

4. Why does Jose go back to Mexico for several weeks on page 176?

5. Who is the woman who owns the mercado where Jose works?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Jose and his family come to be connected with his private defense attorney, Elizabeth Green?

2. What Greek story does Cantu mention and compare to some of the tragedies he sees playing out in the desert through his job?

3. What does POW stand for at Border Patrol?

4. What are the three categories of metaphors that sociologist Jane Zavisca identified in media coverage of migrant deaths?

5. What does the U.S. Marshal from the courtroom give to one of Jose's sons that surprises Jose's defense attorney?

6. What does Cantu do to try to help Jose when he has trouble with U.S. immigration after leaving the U.S. to visit his dying mother in Mexico?

7. On page 135, what does Cantu say became the hallmark of Ciudad Juarez sometime around the mid-1990s?

8. What does Cantu tell Jose when Jose asks him if he ever found drugs at the border during his work for Border Patrol?

9. How does Cantu's uncle in Santa Fe feel about the work he has done his whole life?

10. What did Mexican president Felipe Calderon base his campaign on?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When Morales and Cantu arrest two men from Oaxaca for crossing the border illegally, the migrants share their homemade delicacies brought across the border, including grasshoppers, jerky, and mezcal with Morales and Cantu. Write an essay analyzing the tensions and contradictions Cantu feels towards the work he is compelled to perform as a Border Patrol officer and his feelings of sympathy towards some of the people he meets crossing the border.

Essay Topic 2

Soon after Cantu starts his field work with Border Patrol, he begins to get a sense that the work is not what he expected. He quickly becomes demoralized and disturbed both by what he sees and by the structural limitations of the job itself. Write an essay discussing how Cantu's earliest experiences performing field work with Border Patrol contradict his hopes and expectations about what the job would be like and what he may have been able to learn from it.

Essay Topic 3

How does Cantu's experience with looking after his co-worker Beto's dog relate to his experiences as a Border Patrol agent? How does Cantu end up feeling when he discovers Beto's dog is responsible for nearly killing a neighbor's dog when Beto's dog accidentally gets loose? Write an essay explaining your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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