The Guardians

Religion becomes an important motif in these chapters. Regina and Miguel accompany Gabo to church, and it is obvious that they do not share Gabo’s affinity for Catholicism. Religion is a source of solace for Gabo in his time of loss, but it is also a source of identity. He has found direction in his faith, and unlike other boys his age, he is not struggling to figure out who he is: He already knows that he is a devout Catholic. The scene during which the three attend mass together highlights the fraught role that religion has played in the Borderlands because it is evident that Miguel and Regina view Catholicism with skepticism. As socially conscious individuals, they understand that forced conversion to Catholicism was part of Spain’s assimilationist project in the Americas, and they see Catholicism as a kind of Indigenous erasure. Thousands of years of Indigenous cultural and spiritual history were wiped out when Catholic clergy began to arrive in the Americas. At the same time, Catholicism has evolved in a culturally specific way in Mexico, making it inextricable from contemporary Mexican culture. For example, Catholicism influenced the cultural practices around el Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead). Likewise, Los Palominos observe their own Catholicism-influenced traditions by praying to Santa Muerte, a folk saint whose worship has been deemed blasphemous by the Church. This depiction of varying attitudes toward the Catholic Church in the Americas speaks to broader conversations about the role of religion in the region and engages with the idea that faith and Catholicism are contested in Indigenous, Hispanic, and Anglo communities in Latin America.

The theme of Family and Community continues to play an important role in the narrative, and these chapters introduce El Abuelo Milton, who embodies the importance of both. Giving him a title like this elevates his importance in the narrative. He is shown to be a surrogate father for Miguel, whose own father, a strict military man, was largely absent from Miguel’s childhood and did not share his interest in social justice and community organizing. Milton continues to play an important role in Miguel’s life and supports him emotionally, even though he has reservations about Miguel’s difficulty managing romantic relationships. Milton also becomes an important role model for Gabo and shows his love for the boy when he comes to Gabo’s aid after his arrest.

Although it is more subtextual, these chapters begin to develop the sexual tension that exists between Miguel and Regina. Crucita, who knows her husband’s womanizing ways all too well, notices the chemistry between Regina and the much younger Miguel, and both Miguel and Regina realize that they are drawn to each other. This relationship speaks to Castillo’s interest in Xicanisma, specifically in the idea that Chicana women can and should reclaim their identities as sexual beings. That Regina, a middle-aged woman, is the object of much younger Miguel’s desire helps Castillo explore female empowerment and the idea that women deserve love and romance at all stages of their lives.

Los Palominos become an important focal point in this section of the novel, and they help Castillo depict the complex relationships that exist between local gangs and organized Mexican cartels. Jesse, Tiny Tears, and El Toro have connections to the cartel whose coyotes ferried Rafa across the border, and they are shown to pose a distinct danger to Gabo’s safety and security as he secretly searches for his missing father. During the era depicted in this novel, cartel violence became an epidemic, and Castillo wants to draw attention to the lack of respect that the cartels had for human life. Gabo and Rafa are the text’s most overt depiction of the danger that cartels pose to individuals. In thinking about his murdered mother and disappeared father, Gabo reflects that the cartels and their coyotes would bring people “through the desert like herded goats that needed no consideration, sometimes not even water” (87). This simile reflects the dehumanization required to commit the sort of brutal crimes that cartels are known for.

The border continues to be an important motif in this section, and Castillo further engages with it as a shifting, contested space that separates nations—but not their populations—from one another. El Abuelo Milton, who grew up in El Paso, Texas, understands that border towns are hybrid, multicultural spaces. People and families move back and forth across the border, and individuals like Rafa and Gabo live and work both in Mexico and in the US. Milton, Regina, and Miguel understand that their histories are not discretely Mexican, American, or Mexican American; rather, they are histories of the Borderlands. The US-Mexico border has shifted multiple times during the histories of the two countries, and Miguel observes that it is inaccurate to label “Texas” as strictly an American space because “once upon a time, Texas was Mexico” (59). This perspective stands in sharp contrast to US border policies, which criminalize passing a fluctuating, fluid space.