84 pages • 2 hours read
Will HobbsCrossing the Wire
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
Victor Flores
Victor Flores, the protagonist of Crossing the Wire, is a Mexican teenager who lives with his family in the small farming village of Los Árboles. Victor’s father died working in the U.S., leaving Victor the “man of the family” (14). Victor feels a deep devotion to his family, and when he realizes that their corn crop will not provide enough money for them to survive, he decides to cross the border to the U.S. to find work.
Victor is slow and cautious, character traits that earn him the nickname “Turtle.” Over the course of the novel, however, it becomes clear that Victor is willing to take calculated risks if it means he will be able to support his family. The primary risk is attempting to cross the border in the first place, though Victor doesn’t feel he has any other choice. Along the way, he takes countless other risks, including befriending strangers, jumping aboard a moving train, and building a lean-to in a mountain snowstorm. Sometimes the risks pay off, such as when he convinces Miguel, an older and more experienced border crosser, to let Victor follow his route. Other times, these risks fail, such as when he gets caught hiding inthe back of a fisherman’s truck.
Throughout his travels, Victor is centered by his desire to provide for his family. He always resists the temptation of activities he considers immoral, like making money by smuggling drugs or stealing food, even though at times he decides to avoid asking “hard questions” of those around him who do make questionable decisions, like Julio and Rico (76). He prefers not to take shortcuts but to work for his success, a trait that ultimately leads to him to making $60 a day in the asparagus fields.
Rico Rivera
Quick to decisions and adventurous, Rico Rivera is the opposite of his childhood best friend, Victor. Rico is also crossing the border to the U.S., where he plans to join his older brother cleaning swimming pools. He dreams of a life that’s more glamorous than staying at home and caring for his aging parents; he plans to shake hands with Mickey Mouse and own a car.
This attitude leads to trouble for Rico, who is careless with his money and makes reckless decisions, including lying to Victor and signing the boys up to carry food for drug mules. When the boys finally arrive in the U.S., Rico is disappointed to find reality doesn’t match his dreams. He learns his brother has been making money by stealing and selling cars and realizes how little he enjoys farm work. This disappointment at the end of a dangerous journey north changesRico’s perspective, making him realize the importance of his family. Ultimately, he decides to return to Mexico.
Miguel Escobar
Miguel Escobar is an older man who has crossed the border on his own before. Victor meets Miguel on the bus to the borderand later convinces the more experienced man to let Victor join him on his route.
Miguel and Victor have many similarities. They are both crossing the border to find work to provide for their families, and they are both cautious, preferring to follow a careful plan than improvise and take risks. For Victor, whose father is dead, Miguel acts as a father figure. Miguel even dispenses some of the same wise sayings that Victor’s father used to, such as, “Talking about bulls is not the same as facing them in the ring” (101). He encourages Victor not to feel bad when things go wrong: “Don’t be sorry for me, or for yourself, either, when the bad things happen. You have to stay strong for your family. You have to be a man’’ (92). Miguel represents the kind of man that Victor eventually hopes to be: family-oriented, careful, and persistent.
Tony Jarra, The Mosquito
Tony Jarra, who calls himself The Mosquito, is a former gang member and drug runner who now works for a coyote as a pollero, someone who leads groups across the border. Jarra wears ostentatious gold jewelry and has a huge tattoo of El Cristo Ray on his chest, which Victor finds offensive.
Throughout their journey, Victor has encountered and turned down opportunities to earn money by carrying drugs across the border. Jarra represents the corruption that giving into this temptation can create. Jarra seems to care only for the money he can make, and he romanticizes his toughness, even reserving the passenger seat of his car for his gun. Rico, less anchored by his family and drawn to the appeal of a flashy life in the U.S., gives in to the temptation represented by Jarra, tricking Victor into joining him to carry food and water for the drug mules Jarra leads over the border.
Dave Hansen
Victor and Rico meet Dave Hansen on the road after they have escaped Jarra. Dave is kind to the boys when they initially stop him, though he says he cannot give them a ride because he has to work. The boys are surprised when Dave returns in a few minutes and agrees to take them to Tucson.
Dave studies jaguars in the mountains where the boys crossed, and he is excited to learn that Victor saw a jaguar. While the boys encounter many hardships on their journey north, they also have a lot of good luck. With his connection to the jaguar, a powerful symbol in the book, Dave represents the most fortuitous of these interactions, ultimately delivering the boys to Tucson and then to La Perra Flaca, where they are able to find work.
Julio
Julio is a teenager from Honduras who Victor meets on the train. Julio, who has crossed the border once before, helps Victor evade the police on the train and survive in Nogales. As a character, Julio’s personality falls somewhere between Victor’s cautiousness, Miguel’s worldliness, and Rico’s naïve adventurousness. Like Victor, he is crossing to support his family. Like Miguel, he has been across the border and knows from experience how it feels to be caught. However, like Rico, he prefers action to planning: when the opportunity comes to float across the border using the tunnels, he jumps in while Victor remains hesitant.
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