Reviews of The Mexican Operation by Lee A. Silva

Reviews of The Mexican Operation

by

Lee A. Silva

From: The Roundup Magazine - Western Writers of America
June 2007

SILVA, LEE A. The Mexican Operation: The Mafia, Mexican Immigrants, and Racism in a 1950s Desert Town.
Graphic Publishers, pap., 613 pps., $19.95. ISBN 0-9714719-9-1.

As the United States heads towards its next presidential election, two major issues-the war in Iraq and illegal
immigration-continue to provoke debate and controversy. Lee Silva's historical novel takes readers back sixty years to
examine the causes of illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. His story operates as several levels—above
all, a tribute to his father, Al Silva, whose death in 1962 Hermosillo has never been satisfactorily resolved. The
character Hal DaSilva is obviously Lee’s father, and the vents in the story are based largely on his life and work. The
book also examines the role of organized crime in reaping profits from both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. Silva
indicts the Bracero Program for its corruption and exploitation on both sides of the border. His evocation of life in
Blythe, California, the setting for most of the narrative, recalls his growing up there.
The central narrative deals with friendship and betrayal as Hal, Jeff Stone, and Dominick Avanti become entangled in
events that prove beyond their control. Their fictional activities are backed by the historical incidents that give this
book a sharply drawn reality. Mexicans gathering at the town of Empalme must pay the mordida (bribe) to Mexican
officials to obtain a bracero certificate, or to hire a coyote (smuggler) to get across the border illegally. Either way,
they endure horrific conditions and make tremendous sacrifices to risk entering the United States.
Silva's novel follows a tradition of other activist novels, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, and Alex Haley's Roots, works written to awaken public concern over injustice to
minorities. Silva first wrote the book in 1979, and he Updates it with an afterword and includes photographs at the end
of the text illustrating life in Blythe and its outlying areas in the postwar era. If sonic of the conversations among the
characters read like set speeches, it is only to remind the reader that questions of exploitation, racism, and injustice are
not restricted to a particular time but remain challenging issues we have yet to resolve.

-- Abraham Hoffman

From: The Valley News - Blythe, California Wednesday January 10, 2007
Column: The Bookshelf by Rosita Smith - Palo Verde Library

The newest book on the early history of Blythe is now in circulation at the Palo Verde Valley Library. Authored by Lee
A. Silva, The Mexican Operation: The Mafia, Mexican Immigrants, and Racism in a 1950s Desert Town is a
fictionalized accounting of the 1950s and early 1960s when the Bracero, or documented guest worker program, was
in full swing. Silva grew up in Blythe in those heady days, and draws on his experiences and memories of the local life
some 50 or 60 years ago to craft his novel of Blythe, during one of the United States Government's guest worker
experiments.
Old time residents will remember the Red Top Taxi company of those early years run by Al Silva, and the migration of
farm workers into town on weekends to buy groceries, seek out nightlife and make arrangements to send some of
their pay home to their families in Mexico. Old-timers will also remember the Trailways bus depot; the Bonanza
Airlines that flew regularly into the Blythe airport; the many river and hunting sports enjoyed by valley residents; the
gas pipeline over the Colorado River just below the bridge crossing into Arizona. And, of course, the slim two lane
Highway 60/70 that ran from the Coachella Valley through Blythe and into Arizona.
The Mexican Operation centers on the Red Top Taxi's service and it's thinly veiled owner, DaSilva. Streets and sites
in town are identified, although not always placed in their proper geographical locations. Farms and ranches and their
owners cannot be identified, but their existence is intricately woven into the story format. The life of a Mexican
bracero (legal guest worker) or an illegal farm worker is graphically illustrated.
Numerous actual incidents involving the guest farm workers and illegal workers are recounted, although not
necessarily in chronological order. The actions of fictional characters are woven throughout the entire narrative
turning a drab reiteration of facts into a spellbinding thriller.
To tie his novel into reality, Silva has a photo gallery at the end of the book of sites and persons relevant to the story.
Included are a number of photos not normally seen of Blythe and its surroundings. In light of the current uproar over
illegal immigrants and the debate over a government sponsored migrant worker program, The Mexican Operation will
provide provocative insights for thought. For an appreciation of what life was like in Blythe in the '50s and '60s, the
reader will realize how far we have come in creature comforts. For a glimpse at rare photos of that era, this book is a
must. And for a virtual novel with a thriller pace, The Mexican Operation is guaranteed exciting reading…

--Rosita Smith