The Only Road (2016) is Alexandra Diaz’s second novel. Diaz is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and this book focuses on the experience of migration. The novel, written primarily for young adults, follows cousins Jaime and Ángela, who are forced to flee their small Guatemalan village after the local gang kills Ángela’s brother. Faced with either joining the gang responsible for his death or taking the uncertain 4,000-kilometer journey north, Jaime and Ángela reluctantly leave their families and set out. Jaime is just 12, the same age as his murdered cousin Miguel, and Ángela only 15. Together they face the myriad dangers of the road to the United States, with Diaz detailing all the obstacles and challenges they encounter along the way.

Plot Summary

The inciting event of the novel is Miguel’s death at the hands of members of the local gang who control the region. The Alphas give Ángela, Miguel’s sister, and Jaime, his cousin, a clear message that they are expected to join the gang. Their families are incensed and refuse to consider the idea: Not only would the children likely be involved in the illegal drug trade, violence, and general mayhem, but they would also be allying with the same people who killed Miguel.

Jaime has a brother, Tomás, who legally emigrated to the United States. With the support of the local priest, the families agree the children’s only hope for survival or a better life is to try to find Tomás and join him. The danger and cost of this path of migration is familiar to everyone, but they are less certain of the specifics. The families raise as much money as they can, sew it into the hems and seams of the children’s clothes, and pay a local farmer to get them across the border into Mexico.

Once in Mexico, the cousins discover the country is not particularly welcoming to immigrants from Central America and face the challenge of evading Mexican immigration officers as they journey north. From the relative safety of the bed of a farmer’s pick-up truck to the relative comfort of a bus, their methods of transport get increasingly dangerous, starting with a terrifying two-day ride in a sealed box car during which they nearly die. After that they travel by boarding trains on the run and riding atop those, an all-too-dangerous exercise, as proven by the number of armless and legless would-be migrants they meet along the way.

Much of the novel focuses on those other migrants and the various reasons they have chosen to take the difficult journey north. Diaz paints a heartbreaking portrait of people with rags for shoes and hardly any food or water, but always with a determination that their chance for a better life means leaving behind the only one they have known.

Diaz reminds the reader that Central American immigrants face racism and xenophobia not just in the United States but also in parts of Mexico. At the same time, the immigrants are often aided on their journey by kindhearted civilians, demonstrating the tension between political and emotional circumstances.

As Ángela and Jaime travel, they make and lose friends. They are fully aware some of those lost are to the police, to deportation, or worse. Armed with their wits, the kindness of strangers, and perhaps a bit of luck, the children do eventually make it to the United States to start a new life with Tomás, but the mental, emotional, and physical costs of the journey are unimaginably high.

Along the way Jaime is buoyed by his close connection to his cousin and the constant companionship of his sketchbook and pencils. Even when he has absolutely nothing else, these two things sustain him. Family, Diaz tells us, is everything—especially when you must leave them. And while Jaime’s dedication to his art gets him in and out of trouble, without his driving passion for it, he would be nothing.

Diaz invites the reader to consider what they would sacrifice, what they would give up, to have a chance at a life free to pursue their dreams. For Jaime and Ángela, it’s nearly everything, but in the end they manage to hold on to the things that truly matter.