The Road from San Miguel

The book opens with ethnographic field notes written in the first person. Holmes describes his journey to the US-Mexico border alongside migrants from San Miguel, a Triqui village in the mountains of Oaxaca. The group traveled by van and bus for 49 hours, passing five army checkpoints financed by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The bus driver instructed the Mexican migrants to say they were traveling to Baja California for work, while Holmes was told to identify himself as a hitchhiker going to the next tourist town. Among the passengers were three soldiers, one of whom assumed Holmes was a coyote.

Fieldwork on the Move

Holmes introduces his research methods. His book is based on 18 continuous months of fieldwork in 2003 and 2004 during which he engaged in participant observation, taped interviews, and immersed himself in the daily lives of migrants. He also studied media accounts about migrants and reviewed their medical charts. Holmes’s conducted his fieldwork on multiple sites as he moved from one place to another with migrants. He focused on Triqui migrants, an ethnic group new to US-Mexico migration with a reputation for being violent and unhealthy.

Next, Holmes describes his first visit to San Miguel, home to many Triqui migrants.