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Alicia Gaspar de AlbaDesert Blood: The Juárez Murders
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 43-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 43 Summary
At the hospital, an intern pulls glass and debris from Ivon’s arm. Brigit arrives, and Ivon cries into her chest before passing out. Later, as Ivon is surrounded by family in the waiting room, an officer tells her there are discrepancies between her story and the story told by those at the scene. Irene, meanwhile, is in the intensive care unit, and Judge Ramírez arrives with Father Francis; the latter donates blood to Pete, who almost bled to death.
The officer says a caretaker told him the dogs that attacked Ivon were coyotes, but Ivon insists they were trained dogs. The officer also says there were no dead animals found at the scene, even though Ivon shot the dogs. Another officer tells Ivon that Pete corroborates her story and that “he disobeyed orders in all kinds of ways” (307). Ivon says he helped save Irene’s life, and the judge says he was “[j]ust doing his job” (307).
Ivon complains about the officers’ disbelief, and one of the officers reminds her it is “a high profile case involving Border Patrol agents and police officers” (307). She describes the German Shepherds and how Captain J. Wilcox said he was going to melt Irene “down to bacon” (308); she insists J.W. feeds the murdered girls to the dogs. The officer tells her there is no K-9 unit with dogs of that description. Ivon cries, saying they think she is just a “stressed, hysterical female” (309).
Before Judge Ramirez leaves, he tells Irene that Pete was working on a case that would interest her. He gives her a piece of paper found in his desk. It says, “Over 600 rso’s in El Paso. Why so many? Why here? Why classified?” (310), referring to registered sex offenders. When Ivon notes it is a “weird coincidence” (311), Ramirez tells her she should look at the map in Pete’s office.
When Ivon wakes up later, Brigit is comforting her. Brigit gives her Ximena’s cell phone and says Rubí wants to speak with her. When Ivon calls back, Rubí begs her for the tape back, saying her family is at risk but insisting she did not know it also shows a young girl’s rape. She asks to meet Ivon privately.
Ivon visits Irene and is told it will be a year before she has full mobility of her leg. Ivon then goes to Pete’s room, where his parents sit by him.
Chapter 44 Summary
Rubí’s daughter Amber secretly watches her mother’s show. She is upset because, before her mother started the show, the two used to spend time together. Now she mostly sees her on television.
Currently on the show is Dorinda Sáenz, a prosecutor for the murdered women’s cases, and Paula Del Río, the founder of CARIDAD, which advocates for female victims of sex crimes. The two women argue; Sáenz accuses Del Río of interfering with investigations, and Del Rio accuses the prosecutor of not taking the crimes seriously enough.
Amber’s boyfriend Héctor calls as she prepares to go shopping with Myrna. She is annoyed when he tells her how to spend her money and assumes she will go with him to a party. As they argue, he tells her she is “sounding more and more like your mom” (322). Amber resents that ever since “she’d let him touch her down there, over her jeans, the night they went to the fair” (322), he believes “he owned her” (322).
On television, Sáenz complains that “feminist groups think it’s always about the patriarchy” and that they use the murders “to push their feminist agendas” (323). Del Río counters that “women are second-class citizens” and poor women especially are treated “no better than animals” (323). She insists there is a “devaluation of the feminine gender” (323) and that if men were being murdered, the murders would already be solved.
Papi Wally—Walter Luna, Amber’s stepfather—tells her to hurry so he can drive her to meet Myrna and make it to work. Amber ponders how a wealthy man named Cruz Benavídez—the president of the Maquiladora Alliance—had “taken advantage” (324) of Rubí, who got pregnant; after being sent away to live with relatives, Rubí returned to go to school, where she met Walter.
As she gets ready to leave, Amber sees a news report on Irene. Before she can join Walter outside, she hears gunshots.
Chapter 45 Summary
In the car with Brigit, Ivon is outraged because a newspaper article reports that Irene was attacked by coyotes and that the family had no comment. Also, a memorial service is being held for Border Patrol Chief Detention Enforcement Officer Jeremy Wilcox for giving his life “in the line of duty, holding the line” (326). Ivon wants to call the newspaper office, but Brigit encourages her to take a break and stops her from going to Pete’s office right away. She reminds Ivon that she has only two weeks left to work on her dissertation. Ivon relents, realizing that that her job and their house depend on her.
Ivon asks to be left alone at a special spot at UTEP where she can see the river and mountains. She also sees “the twin phalluses of the smokestacks” of ASARCO (330). As she surveys the scene, she thinks about the murders and how “tragedy began as soon as [the women] got jobs at the maquiladoras” (331). If women cross the border, their babies would be legal US citizens, and “[a]lthough we love having all that surplus labor to exploit, once it becomes reproductive rather than just productive, it stops being profitable” (332). She wonders if it is “just a coincidence” (333) that sex offenders are being sent to El Paso—implying they are sent there deliberately to murder women who pose a threat.
She concludes that “[t]his wasn’t a case of ‘whodunit,’ but rather of who was allowing these crimes to happen” (333). She thinks about “[w]ho was profiting from the deaths of all these women” (333). The workers’ periods are monitored, and they are kept from getting pregnant. At the same time, pornography websites are “[a] cost-effective way of disposing of non-productive/reproductive surplus labor while simultaneously protecting the border from infiltration by brown breeding female bodies” (333).
Raquel calls Ximena’s cell phone crying that Walter Luna has been shot. When Raquel realizes it is Ivon who answered, she hangs up.
Ivon considers how “[t]his thing implicated everyone” and that it is “[n]o wonder the crimes had not been solved” (335). It is a “conspiracy,” a “huge malignant tumor of silence” designed to protect not only the perpetrators but also the “law enforcement agents on both sides of the border” (335) and even those who made the trade agreements.
Epilogue Summary
Irene is finally home from the hospital. She lies in her bed surrounded by flowers and stuffed animals sent by her family. Ivon is revising the Juárez chapter of her dissertation, which “had practically written itself” (336) while she and Brigit stayed at her mother Lydia’s house.
Ximena says Judge Anacleto Ramírez called to tell them Pete’s condition is improving. Rubí and her daughter have gone into hiding; Rubí contacted Ximena, asking her to tell Ivon “that we don’t blame her” (337). Ivon feels guilty for giving J.W. Walter’s name. Ximena tells her “he deserved what he got” (337), and Irene, still traumatized, tells them to stop talking about it.
Raquel arrives with a present for Irene—a new CD player, to replace the one Ariel took. As Raquel stands there, Ivon senses that she and Ximena are romantically involved. Raquel also brought Jorgito, who hugs Ivon. Brigit enters the room, and Ximena tells Ivon she and Brigit must decide if they will adopt him because Elsa is growing sicker.
Ivon calls her mother into the room and asks for her opinion. After a suspenseful moment, Lydia hugs Jorgito and offers to give him some food. Ivon worries she will not be able to finish her dissertation if she takes Jorgito, but she is determined. Ximena says she will make sure Elsa signs the papers. The family talks about the reunion and playfully chides each other. Ivon thinks “of the families of the murdered women” and tells herself, “Just be grateful you have a family, Ivon” (341).
Chapter 43-Epilogue Analysis
Ivon realizes that the murders are part of a vast conspiracy to make money and keep women in their place. Poor girls who come from the south are simultaneously needed for their cheap labor and feared for their power to bring brown babies across the border. They also arrive in numbers that border resources cannot accommodate.
Though factory owners enjoy “having all that surplus labor to exploit,” they worry about losing productivity to pregnancies. They therefore seek to “continue to make a profit from these women’s bodies and also curtail the threat of their reproductive power” (332) by monitoring menstrual cycles and forcibly administering birth control. It is also curtailed by sexually exploiting the women. By kidnapping, raping, and televising the women’s deaths, those “profiting from the deaths” (333) serve a dual purpose: they eliminate the threat while catering to those “with a taste for hurting women” (333). The movies are orchestrated by J.W., a white, racist Texan, which reinforces that resentment of immigrants is a major component of the murders.
The girls are “lucky pennies” because their value is determined by their ability to make money for the factories and those running the pornography ring. Like pennies, they are cheap and expendable. It is no wonder, Ivon concludes, that the crimes were left unsolved; everyone, from the medical examiner to the Border Patrol, was complicit in profiting off death and misery.
As Ivon stares at “the twin phalluses of the smokestacks” of ASARCO (330), the implied symbolism suggests that the patriarchy is the true perpetrator of these crimes. Gaspar de Alba shows how the patriarchal system represses all women, even when not physically attacking them. Women are manipulated and devalued in everyday life, by those in authority and by those they love; their experiences are minimized, their opinions are dismissed, and their insistence on equality chastised and mocked. Officers do not believe Ivon’s assertions that trained dogs, attacked her and Irene; they try to gaslight her into believing the animals were coyotes and that she did not kill anything. Amber is frustrated with her boyfriend Héctor for trying to control her and joking that he has “spies” to follow her (321). Héctor even accuses her of “sounding more and more like your mom” (322)—an insult about her mother’s high-powered career and liberated status. These examples illustrate the dangerously imbalanced system that allowed the Juárez murders to happen.
Héctor’s treatment of Amber because of their sexual relationship is a dark reminder of men’s control over women’s sexuality, a dynamic at the center of the Juárez murders. This connection to the sexual mutilation of the Juárez murder victims is made clear by the episode of Rubí’s show playing in the background. One guest, Paula Del Río, insists the girls are victims of “a society in which women are second-class citizens” and “cows and cars are worth more than the lives of women” (323). The murders happened because, ultimately, they are about “the complete devaluation of the feminine gender” (323), and they have yet to be solved because, as Ivon suggests, nobody “cares about girls from the south” (329).
Desert Blood’s end does not offer conclusions, but it does offer hope. Though the conspiracy is an overwhelming tragedy that may be too difficult to fully resolve, Ivon imagines that, even at that moment, “a prophet was writing on bathroom walls” (335). Throughout the novel, graffiti is an act of subversion, an anonymous way for everyday people who witness the suffering to reveal the truth. Though the “impassive limestone face of Cristo Rey and the pervasive, fetid fumes of a copper smelter” (335) bear down on them, the people of Juárez continue to send messages to those with the power to help. On a personal level, Ivon’s implied reconciliation with her mother and her decision to adopt Jorgito suggest not only growth but also the promise of peace.
