"The Things They Carried" by Demetria Martinez

     This piece has a very strong message. I especially liked the line "...abandoned by their smuggler, abandoned by a gluttonous nation that craves cheap labor but detests the laborer." In "Inherit The Earth" Martinez commented on the illegal immigrants trying to smuggle themselves and their families into the United States, and many dying along the way. Her writing is so powerful and the images are so vivid that she really makes the reader feel the emotion she is conveying.
     In "The Things The Carried", the hard facts are conveyed by Martinez in a way that make them seem astounding to the reader, obviously in a negative way. The deaths and struggles of immigrants is a very touchy subject in our country, and Martinez does an excellent job of taking all politics out of the matter and making readers notice for themselves the lack of humanity shown to these people.