José Character Analysis

“We must be able not only to reckon the number of deaths but to reckon with each victim as an individual.”

In order a begin a true reckoning with our inner situation, “we have to expose ourselves to the animal impulses of the unconscious without identifying with them and without ‘running away.’”

Mostly I arrested migrants, I confessed. People looking for a better life.

I tell you, Walter said, the Border Patrol, the marshals, it’s like they forget about kindness. I’ve almost never seen these guys express any humanity, any emotion. I don’t know how they do it. How do you come home to your kids at night when you spend your day treating other humans like dogs?

Of course he has fear. La violencia, she said, la delincuencia, la corrupción.

All these years, I told her, it’s like I’ve been circling beneath a giant, my gaze fixed upon its foot resting at the ground. But now, I said, it’s like I’m starting to crane my head upward, like I’m finally seeing the thing that crushes.

For his family and for you, José is unique. Sure there might be thousands or millions of people in his position, but it’s because of him that their situation is no longer abstract to you. You are no longer severed from what it means to send someone back across the border. You know what’s keeping him away, what keeps him from his family. It’s something close to you, something that’s become a part of you.

“We must be able not only to reckon the number of deaths but to reckon with each victim as an individual.”

In order a begin a true reckoning with our inner situation, “we have to expose ourselves to the animal impulses of the unconscious without identifying with them and without ‘running away.’”

Mostly I arrested migrants, I confessed. People looking for a better life.

I tell you, Walter said, the Border Patrol, the marshals, it’s like they forget about kindness. I’ve almost never seen these guys express any humanity, any emotion. I don’t know how they do it. How do you come home to your kids at night when you spend your day treating other humans like dogs?

Of course he has fear. La violencia, she said, la delincuencia, la corrupción.

All these years, I told her, it’s like I’ve been circling beneath a giant, my gaze fixed upon its foot resting at the ground. But now, I said, it’s like I’m starting to crane my head upward, like I’m finally seeing the thing that crushes.

For his family and for you, José is unique. Sure there might be thousands or millions of people in his position, but it’s because of him that their situation is no longer abstract to you. You are no longer severed from what it means to send someone back across the border. You know what’s keeping him away, what keeps him from his family. It’s something close to you, something that’s become a part of you.