Sara Zapata
Sara Zapata lives in Juarez with her brother Emiliano and their mother. Their father left for the United States in the hopes of making a better living and promising to return. However, two years after he left, he sent divorce papers to Sara and Emiliano's mother, leaving them to struggle financially. Sara works at the newspaper, El Sol where she is a reporter. In January, Sara wrote a column about the disappearance of her best friend Linda Fuentes. Linda was kidnapped in November after leaving her job at a shoe store on Francisco Villa Avenue. In her column, Sara vowed to continue looking for her friend "forever and ever." To help in the effort to find these missing women, called Desaparecidas, Sara has been writing a weekly column profiling one of the hundreds of missing girls of Juarez.Now on Friday, March 24, Sara finds herself in her boss Felipe's office along with her editor Juana, where she is told that there are to be no more columns on the Desaparecidas. Instead, she is to focus on the positive aspects of the city. Felipe reveals that they have received a threat via email, "If you publish anything of Linda Fuentes we will kill your reporter and her family." When Sara objects, saying the columns ensure the girls are not forgotten, Felipe is insistent. Later Juana tells Sara that this email scares her and that she wants her to follow up on a story about a new mall near Zaragoza.
Sara forwards the email to Ernesto who is one of two IT's working at El Sol, hoping he can determine who sent the email. Ernesto recognizes that the email has been encrypted and sends it to his group of friends who are computer experts, known as Jaqueros. When she checks in with Ernesto later he tells her that "...the medium is the message...The sender wants us to be aware of his power." Ernesto informs Sara that one of the Jaqueros recognizes the encryption and believes it is connected to the State Police. This greatly concerns Sara because she remembers the lack of sympathy from the police when she accompanied Mrs. Fuentes to report Linda missing and how they do not seem to care about the missing girls.
Despite Ernesto warning her that the further they investigate the greater danger she places herself and her family in, Sara tells him to continue. At 2:45pm when she checks the newspaper hotline, there are no emails. After letting Ernesto know, he calls Sara and states that all the emails have been deleted from Juana's computer. Since Juana doesn't know how to access them this is puzzling. However, Ernesto manages to extract the emails from the cloud and he sends Sara an email containing a photograph of a beautiful young girl with an older man in a nightclub booth. Sara is convinced that this is from Linda because the email has the word "puchi", their code word in the subject line. Sara realizes that this club is where the girls must be being held against their will so she directs Ernesto to see if he can learn the identity of the man while she will check on the girl.
Sara identifies the girl as Erica Renteria while Ernesto and the Jaqueros identify the man in the photograph as Leopoldo Hinojosa, head of the Public Security and Crime Prevention Unit of the State Police. Ernesto advises Sara not to tell anyone including Juana, Felipe or her family. Sara realizes that whomever is threatening her believes she must have something else incriminating but what? That night at a coworker's daughter's Quinceanera, Sara is warned by both Juana and Elias to give up her investigation of the Desaparecidas.
The following morning Sara discovers that a package was sent to her in the mail, which Luis the staff mailman placed on her chair. He tells her the white package looked like it contained a cell phone. Sara confronts Juana who asks her to tell her everything, but remembering Ernesto's warning Sara doesn't reveal much. Unable to locate the cell phone in Elias's office as Juana suggested, Sara turns her attention to a photograph she has of Erica in front of a Mormon church in Juarez. From the Mormon church website, Sara is able to talk to Alberto Mirabiles who is head of the church. She learns from Mr. Mirabile that Erica's brother was severely beaten and that the cell phone that was sent to her came from Erica who sent it to her family via a commercial laundry service. A note with the cell phone indicated that Erica was being held on a ranch near an airport. Mr. Mirabiles tells Sara that the laundry company was La Vaquita.
With this much information Sara knows that to proceed further and contact FBI Agent Alejandro Durand will mean crossing the line between the safety of not doing anything and the danger of acting on her conscience and doing what is right to help the missing girls. As Sara pieces together the information about Linda's disappearance and acts to help her friend, she knows her life will change forever. But will it be enough to save Erica and Linda? And can she save her family too?
Emiliano Zapata
Emiliano Zapata struggled after his father abandoned the family. He began shoplifting small items but eventually was caught stealing an expensive video camera. Brother Patricio intervened, saving him from jail and took Emiliano on a hiking trip to the Sierra Tarahumara. Afterwards he and Brother Patriciano founded the Jiparis, a sort of Boy Scouts group. Now besides attending Colegio Mexico, Emiliano runs his own folk art business where he sells pinatas that his friend Javier makes.
Friday, March 24 is going to be a busy day for Emiliano; he has to pick up the pinatas, then meet Armando Cortazar who wants to talk to him, and later in the evening attend a birthday party for Perla Rubi Esmeralda's mother. Emiliano is in love with Perla, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer but he knows he has almost no chance of ever being her boyfriend due to his social standing.
After picking up the pinatas, Emiliano heads to the Taurus nightclub where he meets Armando and is paid to take Armando's black Mercedes to the repair shop. When he returns, Emiliano is sent to meet Alfredo Reyes who tells him he wants to use his pinatas to ship drugs to the United States. The operation will stay small, only a dozen pinatas which will be stuffed with the "product" then eventually taken to Reyes' stores. This will net Emiliano thirty thousand pesos a week. Emiliano leaves the meeting both stunned and in deep conflict.
That night at Mrs. Esmeralda's birthday party, Emiliano talks with Perla's father. He is overwhelmed at the wealth and opulence of the Esmeralda's home. Mr. Esmeralda reveals that he has connections with both Armando Cortazar's father and that Alfredo Reyes is a business associate. He tells Emiliano that when he was young he worked in a factory and saved to go to law school. At first he was a "good, conscientious, clean lawyer" but in order to "take care of his family" and to grow professionally he had to become involved in the dirty part of life in the city. Emiliano leaves the party in deep distress and conflict. In order to become part of Perla Rubi's life, he must become part of the narcotics trade in Juarez, a choice he knows to be evil. The choice before him is to be honest and continue to struggle to make a living or to "dirty" himself and make a good living for his family.
Discussion
Disappeared is yet another finely crafted novel by Francisco X. Stork. The novel was inspired by two events, the first was the thousands of young women who went missing in Cuidad Juarez over the period of a decade, the second was the recent U.S. presidential election in which anger towards illegal Latino refugees was intense. Set in Mexico, in a city rife with violence as a result of the drug cartels, the two main characters must confront situations that require them to choose between two courses of action; one that is right and one that is wrong, one that is to act, the other that is to do nothing. The defining moment will affect their lives in ways they cannot foresee.
For Sarah Zapata, this comes when she learns about Erica Renteria's efforts to get the cellphone to her. "There is a line in front of her. One more step on behalf of Linda and her life will change forever. How does she decide between safety and the risk that comes from doing what her heart knows to be right?" Sara can choose to do nothing more but that will mean Linda will never be rescued. If she chooses to act on the information she now has, her life and the life of her family will change forever. Agent Durand attempts to explain this to her. But as Sara considers the consequences of acting or not acting, she remembers "The decision to act against evil is not measured by the impact it has on the evil but by the impact it has on the person who acts." For Sara, "The only thing that matters is that she act in accordance with her conscience." There is little interior conflict for Sara; without her help, without her taking risks, her friend Linda will never be found. Her conscience won't let her choose any other course but to act.
For Emiliano Zapata things are more complicated. He has just met with Alfredo Reyes who makes him a shocking offer to be a part of shipping drugs to the US through Javier's piñatas. This sets up an immediate conflict within Emiliano. Reye's proposal represents the chance to make big money, to pay the bills, to make a more comfortable life for his mother and sister and to be with Perla Rubi but it also goes against everything Emiliano has been taught. Brother Patricio who rescued Emiliano from jail has told him that "Success takes hard, slow persistent work..." without shortcuts. He thinks he will refuse Reyes. However, in the overwhelming opulence of the Esmeralda residence, Emiliano's indecision is symbolically demonstrated when holding his mother's cake - a representation of his family's values of honesty and hard work - he hesitates over where to take it. It represents the decision he must make. "Sooner or later he has to do something, take a step in one direction or another."
Mr. Esmeralda tells Emiliano, "There's no way to be successful in Mexico without getting dirty. The best one can do is control the degree of dirt..." Esmeralda rationalizes the choices to become part of the dirty side of life in order to obtain wealth and prestige, "All I want to do is tell you that...growing up means, unfortunately, expanding our views of what we consider good and bad. Within that larger view, we do what can for our families, we create jobs, we help the less fortunately ... Getting dirty means doing what we have to do for our families and for those around us, given the realities of where we live, in this mess of a life that is good and bad."
Emiliano recognizes that what bothers him is that Esmeralda has told him the only way to be well off is to be a part of something that he knows inside is wrong. This is in contrast to Brother Patricio's advice. "Its those conditions that you hate. The conditions for having a house like Mr. Esmeralda's, for being allowed to be his daughter's boyfriend." Emiliano accepts Esmeralda's view and decides he will accept Reyes's offer telling himself that this will be helping his family. It is Javier who identifies more consequences of Emiliano's decision. To accept means putting Javier, a boy whom Brother Patricio rescued from truancy and addiction back into contact with drugs. It also means going against his Jipari pledge: "I will abstain from all intoxicants. I will be honest with myself and others. I will use the knowledge and strength the desert gives me for the benefit of others." Javier points out that Emiliano's involvement will break all aspects of the pledge, being honest and while it will benefit some, others will be hurt. Javier, although only fourteen shares some of his wisdom with the older Emiliano; that on the surface these people seem good but deep down are not nice and that the hunger for money is like the hunger an addict feels. "And the other thing I know as an addict is that once you get that hunger inside of you, you can't control it. It's impossible...You say we won't get greedy, that we'll stay small. But money is like heroin. Once you get it, you want more..."
Just as Brother Patricio took Emiliano into the desert to help him after he was caught stealing, Emiliano once again finds his bearings in the desert. He tells Sara that he wants the life the Esmeralda family has for his family but "It's not possible to live without some kind of lying. It can't be done. If you think it's possible, then your fooling yourself." Sara reminds him "But there are conditions to living in that world, aren't there... It's those conditions that are bothering you. It's like it says in the Bible, 'What use is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?' " Sara tells him, "You know that you can never be the person those people want you to be."
After being attacked by two men sent by Hinojosa to rape and murder his sister, Emiliano still wants to be part of their world. At this point he still doesn't understand his motivation. It isn't until Emiliano is dying in the desert from an infected foot that he is able to recognize the motivation for his actions - anger towards his father for abandoning them. He is given a second chance to make the right choice after being saved by Gustaf and Lupe. Gustaf tells him about a man in Sanderson asking about undocumented Mexicans, whom he suspects is Emiliano's father. He offers Emiliano the choices before him, "If you want to call him, you can call him. If you want to stay, you can stay. I could use the help around here. Good old hard, honest work. Or go back to Mexico. It's up to you." Emiliano decides he will call his father to let him know about Sara but his choice remains, "Good old hard, honest work. Or go back to Mexico."
While there are many other themes in the novel, the themes of anger, forgiveness and being the person God means you to be, are deeply interconnected. The anger towards his father is Emiliano's motivation to accept Reyes's offer. In the desert with Brother Patricio, Emiliano learned that "unchanneled anger would destroy him, that anger needed to be converted into courage and determination to overcome the obstacles in life." This is in contrast to what Mr. Esmeralda tells Emiliano about courage, that controlled anger is a type of energy, a gift not to be wasted. But Sara tells Emiliano, "There are better sources of energy. Like love, or wanting to do something with your life. Anger makes you sick. It makes you go after hurtful things, as if hurting yourself is a way to get revenge on the person who hurt you." In the desert, dying, Emiliano comes to understand how his anger towards his father suing for divorce has harmed him. "The anger started then and there, and everyone assumed that in time it would go away, but he made sure it didn't. He kept it alive. That anger turned to wanting more, to be more and better than his father. But he was never better, was he?" Emiliano realizes his father was just trying to be the best person he could be. Of course the best choice for Emiliano's father would have been to remain faithful to his wife, to honor his promise to her and to his son and to have tried to bring them to America. While that did not happen, Emiliano now realizes his father was trying his best. "The man, his father, a flawed human being like any other, chose to be and do good, as best he could."
Mami and Sara come to recognize the same struggle in her son when she tells him; "And Emiliano, son, here in Mexico it is too hard for you to be the person God wants you to be." Sara also tells her brother, "I think we are all meant to be the best person we are capable of being. You're right that we need to choose to be that person. But sometimes, circumstances make it hard for us to make the right choice..."
Stork utilizes the image of a spiderweb as a metaphor for the connection between wealth and narcotics in Juarez and Mexico. A spiderweb's function is as a trap for insects. Once ensnared, the insects are doomed. In the same way, Emiliano is facing entrapment in the spiderweb of the drug trade in Juarez in order to better his family's life. Mr. Esmeralda tells Emiliano that he knows Alfredo Reyes. "This city is like a spiderweb. Every thread is connected directly or indirectly to every other thread. Enrique Cortazar, Alfredo Reyes, myself, we are businessmen." Esmeralda points out that Colegio Mexico gives out scholarships because of financial aid from businessmen like himself and Cortazar. That he is already part of the web that connects everyone in Juarez to money and drugs. Emiliano learns very quickly how vast the spiderweb really is when he and Sara are tracked through the desert.
Disappeared has been written in an era when there is much anger in the United States over illegal immigrants from Mexico. Stork's novel conveys the real plight of refugees from Mexico; the difficulty in leaving behind one's beloved country with its connections to family, language and culture, and the reality that people often become refugees out of necessity. If given the choice, most would prefer to live a life of safety and peace in their homeland. In this regard, Disappeared asks young readers to rethink what they hear in the media and to try to understand that Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal are not that much different than Americans.
Stork has crafted an entire cast of complex, realistic characters. Sara Zapata is the true heroine, who never really falters in her choice to do good, but Emiliano is more complex and nuanced. His struggle is more realistic. He has his good qualities such as his devotion to his family and his desire to help others, but also his weaknesses such as his inability to forgive his father. Many of Stork's characters in the novel are similar in this regard as is noted by both Emiliano and Sara. Emiliano thinks, "Or maybe the bad people look more like the good people, he thinks. Armando, Mr. Reyes, Mr. Esmeralda. They don't look like your typical narcos." He finds Lester, the man sent to kill his sister confusing, "It's like seeing evil and some kind of goodness and innocence all rolled into one, inseparable."
Disappeared is an outstanding novel, well written and timely. This kind of quality writing, characterized by a strong story, well developed characters and rich in thematic elements to explore, is much needed in young adult literature. Definitely another brilliant contribution by Francisco X. Stork.
Book Details:
Disappeared by Francisco X. Stork
New York: Arthur A. Levine Books 2017
326 pp.
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