American Dirt

Jeanine Cummins

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapter 4

Chapters 5-7

Chapter 8

Chapters 9-12

Chapter 13

Chapters 14-18

Chapters 19-22

Chapters 23-25

Chapters 26-29

Chapter 30-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 23-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 23 Summary

Soledad thanks Lydia for saving them, but Lydia confesses it was Luca’s idea. The group encounters a doctor named Ricardo Montañero-Alcán, who offers them food and medical attention. Lydia asks about migrant services in the nearby town of Navolato and the more distant city of Culiacán. Ricardo tells her the roads are unsafe at night and suggests they try the local church. He offers his help again, at which point Luca asks for proof he is a doctor. Ricardo shows him an ID card. Soledad asks about Ricardo’s motives. He touches the crucifix around his neck and cites a line from scripture. The group travels to a motel where Ricardo buys food and pays for a room. Soledad wakes in the middle of the night and miscarries.

Ricardo returns in the morning, buys the migrants breakfast, and drives them to Culiacán. Two well-dressed women hand out tamales by the tracks, while a third reads from the Bible. Luca eats even though he isn’t hungry. Railway employees stand by as the migrants board the train. Lydia wonders why the government spends millions to clear migrants from some places while turning a blind eye in others. A little girl named Ximenita climbs aboard and tells Soledad her aunt needs a waitress, but she is recruiting girls for sex work. A police officer yells at her to get down. The train departs, only to stop at a fork in the tracks, where it remains for three nights.

Chapter 24 Summary

Time on La Bestia slows as the train remains parked in a field. Food vendors visit infrequently, leaving Luca hungry. Cheers erupt when rail workers arrive on the fourth day to prepare for the train’s departure. Luca informs Lydia that the parked train is heading east and that they must wait for a north-bound train. Twins who regularly travel north concur. Soledad worries the Pacific Route train will never come. One twin hands out carne seca and assures her it will arrive soon, calling her a survivor. Luca tells Rebeca they are only 300 miles from the border and that she has already traveled 2,000 miles.

Immigration agents approach the train. Lydia, Luca, and the sisters run, passing a little girl eating an ice pop. A woman hides them in her shed. Lydia fears it is a trap. A man arrives and asks the woman’s son if he has seen any migrants. The woman calls the boy inside and tells the man they haven’t seen anyone. The man reveals the girl with the ice pop pointed him in this direction. He leaves. The woman appears with food. She tells Lydia’s group they can rest in the shed but that they must be gone by morning.

Chapter 25 Summary

The group walks to Hermosillo where they find a wall topped with razor wire lining the tracks. Lydia spends half her remaining money on new hiking boots for herself and Luca before finding a place just beyond the wall to catch La Bestia. The wait feels long to Soledad, who has been anxious to reach the US since learning it was only 300 miles away. They board the train and travel deep into the Sonoran Desert where they notice migrants on a southbound train. An asthmatic boy named Beto leaps from one train to the other. He and Luca are close in age and quickly become friends. Beto reveals that he was born in Tijuana, but that he grew up in the US. He explains that the southbound migrants are deportees, many of whom had been living in the US long-term. He also informs the group that drones and cameras make it impossible to cross the border at Tijuana. A few hours later, signs for the Nogales International Airport come into view.

Chapters 23-25 Analysis

Chapters 23-25 mark the final leg of Lydia, Luca, and the sisters’ journey on La Bestia. Despite the passage of time and the distances travelled, the sense that danger is never far away persists. The groups’ experiences with corrupt immigration officials in Sinaloa heighten their fears. When the twins warn of approaching agents in Chapter 24, for example, Soledad and Rebeca react instinctively: “The sisters are already halfway down the ladder and they don’t wait for a reasonable place to get off. The memory of Sinaloa makes them fast, not despite their damaged bodies, but because of them” (254). Everyone is a potential enemy, as evidence by Ximenita, who tries to lure Soledad into sex work, and the innocent-looking girl eating an ice pop, who points immigration agents toward the migrants’ hiding spot.

The kindness of strangers is one of the novel’s running themes. Motivated by his Christian beliefs, Ricardo stops to offer help as Lydia’s group walks along a dark road in Chapter 23. While other good samaritans are satisfied with handing out food and water, Ricardo takes empathy a step further by helping Luca steady a heavy jug of water as he drinks, buying the group food, and paying for a motel room for the night. He even returns the next morning to buy them breakfast and drive them to the train at Culiacán. There, Lydia, Luca, and the sisters encounter other do-gooders, including two women handing out tamales while their companion quotes Bible passages. Random acts of kindness also occur in Chapters 24 and 25. In the former, twin migrants share their carne seca with Lydia, Luca, and the sisters. In the latter, a woman drapes her hose over a fence to allow the migrants to wash up and fill their canteens. These interactions emphasize the migrants' vulnerability; they depend on the kindness of strangers to meet their basic needs.

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Some characters become stronger and more resolute on the journey north, while others seem crushed by their experiences. For example, Soledad’s strength grows so much that Luca likens her to an Aztec warrior. She remains hopeful despite her experiences. By contrast, Rebeca’s outlook dims in the aftermath of her rape. Gone is the vivacious girl of previous chapters: “I can’t do this anymore” she tells Luca, claiming she is too frightened to go on. “I just want to die. I want it to be over” (257). She remains bleak even as Soledad tries to lift her spirits.