Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders

The misogyny that inspires the Juárez murders and prevents the authorities from investigating more earnestly is exacerbated by the fact that the girls are mostly Mexican and poor. They are “poor, young migrant women with dollar signs in their eyes and the American Dream of success and U.S. citizenship fastened to their hearts with safety pins” (331). Once in Juárez, they are “[u]derpaid, sexually exploited, [and] forced to live in hovels made of maquiladora scrap in the middle of the desert” (331). They are devalued, dehumanized, and treated as expendable.

As Ivon researches the murders, she begins to believe that “immigration laws […] have always targeted women of color to prevent them from entering the U.S. and breeding babies of color” (166). Though the girls are making money for the factories, they are considered a border threat because if they get pregnant and cross the border, their babies would be American citizens: “More illegal Mexican women in El Paso means more legal brown babies. Who wants more brown babies as legal citizens of the Promised Land?” (332). Ivon concludes that J.W.’s explicit film business is a way of eliminating “surplus labor” while “protecting the border from infiltration by brown breeding female bodies” (333). 

This dehumanization is manifested in the lack of urgency surrounding the investigations of their murders. Father Francis created Contra el Silencio because the police task force did not actually look for the bodies, and they “[t]reat the families like shit” (24). When Ivon and Uncle Joe report Irene’s disappearance, they have to wait six hours and when they are finally called, the lawyer frequently checks his beeper and takes what appears to be a phone call. Outside the morgue after Cecilia is found murdered, Ivon hears a policeman calling protesters “crazy women wanting attention” (44); she also learns that they are burning the victims’ clothes, unconcerned about evidence that could help them solve the crimes. 

Desert Blood offers many examples of everyday racism that are unconnected with the murders themselves. Irene is called a wetback when she plays in the Rio Grande. When J.W. cannot understand the Spanish on Rubí’s tape, he tells Ivon, “‘I’m bored with this Chinese’” (279) as if all non-white people are the same. Even Father Francis, who is well-meaning and dogged in his desire to help the victims, continuously mispronounces Ximena’s name.

Desert Blood explores the relationship between America and Mexico and the intermingling of cultures at the border. Despite the fluidity at the border, tension exists between the cultures. When a little boy tries to sell them “Maqui-Locas,” Barbie dolls, Ximena tells Ivon that “maqui-loca” is “the vernacular way of referring to maquiladora workers who become Americanized and turn into whores” (211). In analyzing the murders, Father Francis tells Rubí that “[t]he Mexican gender system cannot accommodate the First World division of labor or the First World freedoms given to women” (252) because it makes the men feel emasculated. American factories are accused of instigating the modernization of gender roles, and women who take more power than traditional gender roles allow are seen as upstarts, dangerous, and overly sexualized. 

Irene’s offense at being called a “pocha” demonstrates how “Americanized” means not only that one is loose morally but also that one is a “sell-out” (104). Myrna is embarrassed by Irene, who speaks Spanish with an accent, and a boy working at the games calls Irene a “güera”. Though in the eyes of the law, being a Mexican with U.S. citizenship is a “privilege” (255), to everyday people, it means a dilution of Mexican culture and an association with those who exploit them.

In trying to understand the murders, Ivon ponders the connection between the government and the maquiladoras. Over the course of the novel, she begins to suspect that both Mexico and America are responsible for the conspiracy, with complicity widespread in many branches of both governments. Though many in Juárez are reluctant to accept First World mores, it is the presence American factories that instigate the crisis.

Vulnerable groups are taken advantage of by those with more power. The maquiladora workers are “the easiest workers to exploit” (254) because they are young and poor, they “don’t complain, [and] they’ll accept whatever wage they get” (254). They are drawn to the border by the promise of the American dream and of U.S. citizenship, and most come from poverty or abuse—Mireya, for example, escaped her stepfather, who violently killed her mother. 

Once at the factories, these young women are sexually exploited, forced to receive birth control and have their periods monitored. They are exploited again by J.W. and Lone Ranger Productions, which makes money off their rape and murder. Ivon wonders “[w]hose interests were being served” (333) and “[w]ho was profiting from the deaths of all these women” (333). Though the vastness of the conspiracy means she will never know all the answers, Ivon does know that the girls are exploited both in life and in death.

Mireya is exploited not only because of her poverty but also because of her youth. At the bar the night she is kidnapped, Mireya thinks how she loves living “in a real city” because she can “do what she wants without permission” (147). She is impressed by J.W., whom she finds “handsome enough to be in a telenovela” (147), and when she resists his sexual advances, she expects him to “be friends for now” (150). He lures her to his car with the promise of free makeup, fatally using Mireya’s innocence and lack of world experience against her. 

The exploitation explored in Desert Blood is not confined to the factories or the murders. Exploitative personal relationships are depicted as well—specifically Raquel’s manipulation of the younger Ivon when they first began their relationship. The novel presents a world in which people regularly seek out others’ weaknesses to meet their own needs and desires.

Desert Blood shows how people who exist between identities are mocked, criticized, or rejected from society. Myrna offends Irene by calling her a “pocha,” an Americanized Mexican girl, and Irene feels conspicuous among the Mexican girls. Just as people in Mexico are conspicuous for being Americanized, people in America are mocked for being too Mexican. Irene is called a “wetback,” an ethnic slur meaning an illegal immigrant from Mexico who swam across the Río Grande into America. That one can be too American or too Mexican—and that Irene is seen as both—shows the difficulty of people who are align with both cultures.

Irene not only hovers between Mexican and American identities but also between childhood and adulthood. Irene is old enough to have a car and a job but not old enough to understand the adults around her. This awkwardness prevents her from being truly at home in either group. She is described as responsible and hardworking; she works as an assistant for Ximena, she is going to be valedictorian, and she wants to go to law school. However, Irene is a minor and frequently demonstrates that she is still childish. After Ivon fails to take her to the fair, Irene goes by herself, partly to prove she can take care of herself. Once there, she is amused by the games and rides and, in her innocence, fails to pick up on signs that she is in danger. Though she manages to survive her captivity, showing bravery and wit, at the end of the novel, she revels in the stuffed animals brought to her by concerned family. 

Ivon faces scrutiny for her sexuality, frequently encountering discrimination and judgment. Before bailing Ximena out of jail, she dresses in loose linen pants and a guayabera shirt, but she adds “a touch of lipstick just to defuse the looks she was bound to get from people not used to seeing a woman in a guayabera” (30-31). Father Francis warns her not to tell Cecilia’s family she is gay because they “are very religious, very traditional” (36). Her mother Lydia chastises Ivon for “embarrass[ing]” her by trying to adopt a baby, says Ivon should “be ashamed” (66), and hurls insults at her as she and Irene leave the house. After Irene is kidnapped, Lydia tells her that “God is punishing us” (163) and asks whether she sees what she has “brought on this family with your degenerate lifestyle” (163). Her cousin Patrick mistakes her for a man, and J.W. derisively calls her “Ms. Butch” (277). As she is being leered at by a parking attendant in Raquel’s employer’s parking lot, Ivon muses how “Mexican men weren’t used to seeing women in men’s shirts” and how lesbians are seen as having “betrayed not just their culture, but their gender, their families, and their religion” (134). Ivon’s experiences show how those who deviate from preconceived notions of femininity—those who appear not to stay firmly on one side of the gender line—are confusing or offensive to those with traditional sensibilities.

The factory workers are also punished for deviating from traditional gender roles. Women who “have jobs outside the home” are seen as “whores” (211) because they take power that is not traditionally theirs. They have dared to behave like men, and as punishment, they suffer “the violation and mutilation of the maternal organs” (333).

One obstacle faced by those who seek justice for the Juárez murder victims is the silence of anyone involved. After Cecilia’s murder, Ivon wants to investigate and talk to the security guard, but Ximena warns her that investigating would be not only “dangerous” but also futile, as “[n]obody will tell you anything” (55). Ivon learns the truth of this statement as she dives into her investigation. Elsa is wary of revealing which plant inseminated her. Magda looks around warily while talking to Ivon about a murdered dancer, and she also pretends not to know what “Poor Juárez, so far from the Truth, so close to Jesus” means (203). The transvestites recognize J.W. in the background of the photograph of Irene but give each other “a warning look” (208) when Ivon asks who he is. One of the transvestites turns up dead with his mouth stapled shut, showing how dangerous speaking out against the perpetrators can be.

Ximena’s understanding of the danger of speaking out is the reason she withholds information about the murders from Ivon. Ximena also tells Father Francis and Ivon that she does not want to make further contact with Cecilia’s family because her “policy” is to “stay out of it to protect” her own family (60).

People remain silent not only for fear of retribution at the hands of the killers but also to protect authorities who are complicit in the conspiracy. Pete McCuts is “disgusted” that residents of El Paso “were not supposed to know” (273) that an inordinate number of sex offenders is being sent to their city. It is “classified information” (273), just like the pennies found in the bodies, news of which medical assistant Laura Godoy says “cannot be made public” (251). 

Ivon concludes that they are dealing with “[a] huge malignant tumor of silence, meant to protect not the perpetrators themselves, but the profit reaped by the handiwork of the perpetrators” (335). Authorities “on both sides of the border” (335) conspire to hold these secrets so the mutually beneficial machine can keep running. Those who break the silence risk their jobs and their lives. Father Francis’s organization Contra el Silencio—literally, “against the silence”—offers hope that one day, the conspiracy will be revealed.