Soldiers and Kings by Jason de Leon

If you don't know this book, you really should. For one thing, it won the National Book Award in the category on Non-Fiction. The real overriding and compelling reason is that it tells the story on what is happening in Mexico and Central America in a way that is important to hear, to listen to, and to understand. Now that the United States is establishing concentration camps within our borders, and allowing heavily armed men who wear balaclavas and no identification to pull people off the streets without showing paperwork or case and shoving them into unmarked vehicles, we are now the bad guys. We need to really get our collective minds wrapped around that. This book is an incredible feat of anthropology and human connection. In it, De León chronicles the near-decade he spent getting to know a group of Honduran human smugglers, those hired by migrants to help them cross the border (not to be confused with human traffickers, who take people against their will). Unlike with most books about the migrant crisis, which of course focus on the migrants, De León’s generous, tender focus on the smugglers he befriended shows us a side of the equation rarely considered and often dismissed. These people are not (all) rich, cruel crime lords. They are often fleeing situations just as impossible and dangerous as the people who hire them, and they too have dreams and families and desperate hope. I cannot even fathom the dangers the author faced and the emotional toll this work took on him, as many of the people he came to know well were killed over the course of his field work. This is gritty and important.