View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What words are painted on rocks Cantu can see on the Juarez Mountains on page 130?

2. What is one of Jose's jobs?

3. Where is Jose originally from?

4. What had just happened in Cantu's family right before he and his mother traveled to Mexico for the first time?

5. On page 106, what does researcher Molly Molloy believe about the reporting on the statistics of homicides in Mexico since 2007?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the woman whose feet Cantu bandages tell him about himself pn page 154?

2. How does Cantu get to know Jose, and how does their friendship grow?

3. Cantu's mother was surprised when she finally met her long-estranged father. Why?

4. 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?

5. Why does Cantu tell Hayward he will likely stop working for Border Patrol on page 157?

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

7. What does the sicario, or hit man for a cartel, tell Charles Bowden was an important symbolic part of disposing of the bodies of the people he killed?

8. What does Cantu write that Carl Jung said the meaning of a savage animal in a dream was?

9. What does POW stand for at Border Patrol?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What does Cantu's discussion about the rampant femicide in Mexico reveal about the culture in that country, and how does it help to explain some of the reasons for the increase in immigrants trying to cross the Mexican/U.S. border illegally? Write an essay explaining your answer, citing specific references to the text to support your conclusions.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

Write an essay analyzing what Cantu's attendance at his great-Aunt France's funeral, and his contact with his extended family there, reveals about his feelings and attitudes towards his own ethnic and cultural heritage.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 907 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample