“I didn’t want this tragedy to get lost among all the daily news stories,” says Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos, referring to the ill-fated attempt to smuggle at least 74 illegal immigrants into Texas two years ago. So, to bring attention to the incident as well as to larger immigration issues, he wrote Dying to Cross (Rayo/HarperCollins, April 2005), an account based on eyewitness testimonies. “There was also a human element that made me get involved,” explains Ramos, who lives in Miami. “One of the nineteen people who died was a five-year-old boy, and at the time I was researching the story, my son was also five. I was struck by how two kids can have such completely different destinies.” “We Are Going to Die in Here,” an excerpt from Ramos’s book.
