Daniel Montague's Reviews > Mecca

"Because no matter what Mrs. Bunny said, or much money she gave Ximena, she could always call ICE if she wanted to. Ximena never forgot that."

“Mecca”, written by Susan Straight is a book that highlights the lives of those who are often forgotten about. It is a book full of contradictions and paradoxes. A book full of intersecting lives in Southern California that is devoid of glitz and glamour. A setting that is noteworthy for its foreboding and capricious weather patterns, whether it be scorching hot days, wildfires or earthquakes. Even, the title is full of incongruity, how could a veritable hellscape be a Mecca?
The opening of the novel begins with Johnny Frias, a CHIPS patrolman who despite his heritage is not like Ponch. He is a 39 year old man with a few regrets whose life has devolved into traffic stops and settling petty disputes. He grieves for a mother who has passed on due to pneumonia and a life that has passed him by. He is like the novel as a whole, a man of anomalies. His greatest attribute is his steadfastness and patience which for most lifestyles and professions is a plus but in dealing with split second decisions as an officer can be a negative. He is a family man, kind to his ailing father and gentle with his friends who has never married or had kids. Even his origins are of a contradictory nature. Despite his proud ancestry, his mother is able to trace their heritage before the founding of the United States, due to his complexion he is told to, “Go back where you came from.” In a world that is full of unforgiving people who try to exert their power and dominance over others, Johnny is the rare bird who shows mercy.
We are next introduced to Ximena, an illegal immigrant who is from the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. She is in the ultimate no win situation, being forced into servitude as an orphan with only an Uncle to watch out for her and a slew of concerns. Chief among these is the fact at any time she can be denounced and forced to return to Mexico. Another issue is she lacks the language skills to communicate in her new surroundings. In spite of that she is a fervent learner who relishes the opportunity to study with her brainy cousin. She attempts to make sense of English-which confounds me even as a native speaker, by incorporating words she knows in Spanish and Mixtec. She also has had two great tragedies foisted on her during the perilous journey up North. One resulting in death, the other in life.
There are other threads in this tapestry, this mélange of cultures and heritages. The author, Susan Straight did many admirable things with this work but her ambition in creating so many parallel lives towards the midpoint felt ponderous. There were forays into various lives that while interesting and important stopped momentum. I did enjoy that the characters were never pigeonholed, they were fully realized. Whether it was the nurse, Merry who underwent a senseless tragedy or Matelassé a florist whose husband, Reynaldo has abandoned her and her children to live as a Brazilian martial artist, we are shown a vivid portrait of them. One thing that stuck with me was the exchanges that Merry had with trolls and media after she was met with scrutiny during her most trying hour. Merry, a woman of indomitable strength was most peeved that one of the sports journalists did not even know who Ralph Sampson is, let alone that he liked to sew. Grief is one of those things that can manifest in inexplicable ways and someone getting pissed due to someone’s ignorance or perceived ignorance about something they should know about was an interesting take. But that is the thing with trying to make sense from something that is senseless, you oftentimes focus on something irrelevant because what else can you do? There is also a COVID storyline involving Dante, who is forced to live a life of seclusion when his mother and subsequently his father get the vexing virus. Like I said, at some point Ms. Straight was oversaturating us with characters and perspectives, and they felt blended together instead of being separate and unique. The final scene ends in a cliffhanger with a standoff between ICE and multiple members of families of indigenous blood and some migrants on tribal land. While, there is not a clear cut conclusion the arid land that has provided for centuries will continue to harbor sun scorched inhabitants.
Perhaps the biggest contradiction that this novel highlights is the discrepancy between the reality and the perception of the immigrant issue. People, who pick our fruit, wipe our asses when we are too frail as infants or in our dotage and in general take care of us by doing many thankless jobs are treated as pariahs or scourges. Many of them have roots much deeper in American land than those who deride themselves as foreigners. People who have cultivated families and friendships that would be the envy of any red-blooded “patriotic” American who aspire to live in a Rockwellian utopia. No doubt, the issue of immigration both legal and illegal is complex; so I novel like this one written with much compassion is an important one to demonstrate that in spite of differences we all as humans strive for the same thing.