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Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land
The son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this "stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many landscapes of the Americas" (Catriona Menzies-Pike, author of The Long Run).
Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.
At nineteen, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear―dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion―but also of asserting Indigenous and working-class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.
Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and―against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit―the dream of a liberated future.
Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.
At nineteen, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear―dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion―but also of asserting Indigenous and working-class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.
Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and―against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit―the dream of a liberated future.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published March 3, 2020
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August 13, 2020
I recognize the ways in which running is transforming me. Through it, I am inflicting violence on myself and my body, submerging myself in pain like I did when I was working in the warehouse alongside my mother, so that I may control the turmoil within me. But unlike any other labor, running relieves me of the weight that I should become better than my parents, my people.Noé Alvarez was at the beginning of his adult life, but he had seen a few things. Growing up near Yakima, WA, at 17, he took a job in a fruit packaging plant where his mother had worked for decades, in order to bring a bit more income into the household. Even though he had worked in the fields and done other physical labor as a kid, it gave him a lot more appreciation for how hard her life had been for all those years and gave him also a feeling of pride in doing his job well.
The area promotes itself as The Palm Springs of Washington. Uh, no. It is, however, the area from where Raymond Carver hails, and Carver has provided a less than Palm-Springs-like look at it in his fiction. Hard-scrabble would be a better description.
The train tracks that demarcate the town into East and West are no longer representative of the division between poor and rich neighborhoods—only poor and slightly less poor…We still seem trapped in the cycles of Carver’s narratives, as if his words condemned us to a world of loneliness, tarnished relationships, and violence. Seen differently, his words urge youth like us to rewrite ourselves out of these sinkholes. To sprint out of them.His parents had urged him to get out, and it looks like he will. Alvarez is accepted to Whitman College, with a generous aid package. The Hispanic Academic Achievers Program helps out more, so he winds up with a free ride. Off to Walla Walla in 2002.
Alvarez running in the event – image from WBUR.ORG
In April 2004, two years into his college experience, he hears a speaker on Peace and Dignity Journeys (PDJ), a North American run through indigenous communities, from Alaska to Panama, held every four years. Alvarez had done some running, but was hardly a seasoned long-distance runner. Struggling with the demands of college, and buying in to a negative stereotype of himself and Hispanics generally, he decides this is for him, even asking Whitman for some money to get him started on it. They fork some over, which seems pretty sweet of them. Gotta say, that if it had been my kid dropping out of a free-ride college deal after two years, I would have been less than excited. Why not wait until you get your degree and catch this train the next time through? Sounds like Noé’s parents felt similarly. The man giving the presentation, Pacquiao, warned him of the hardships, but presented it as an event that promoted unity among indigenous peoples. But ok, college was not going all that well for him, so maybe a break was called for.
Like, every step of the way, college was a very difficult thing for me. And it happened to coincide then when I was 19 years old with the Peace and Dignity Journeys, a six-month-long run that's organized every four years. And so it kind of saved me. It came - it coincided perfectly. I said, I needed to get out. I couldn't face my family. This is an opportunity for me to kind of hit the restart button and go and figure myself out. - from the NPR interviewThis is how Noé Alvarez found his way to the PDJ, but it is not how the book opens. There are many people who participate in this megamarathon. In the opening, we get a peek at each of the main ones before the event, strobe-light flashes of where they were just before deciding to join, maybe what prompted them. We get a where-are-they-now at the end of the book, a nice book-end. There is also a discontinuity between the event and Alvarez writing about it.
I definitely wasn't ready to tell a story at 19. It's a lifelong process to make meaning out of it. I talked to some of the runners and I checked in with them too. I said, "Look, this is what I remember about you, this time. Do you remember that?" They shared information with me that I had blocked out. Then I just got to writing them. I took it scene by scene, just getting it down and figuring it out later, not thinking about the bigger picture because there were so many components to it. Runner's story, my story, dad's story, mom's story. It's a day by day thing. That's how the run was. - from the Salon interviewAlvarez reports on his experiences on this massive run, how he personally endures (or not) the physical demands, his attempts to extract meaning and connection from the PDJ, and his struggle to forge a clearer sense of his identity. In the run, he is only nineteen years old, so there is plenty of identity left to construct. He also fills us in on the uplifting welcomes given the runners in some communities and the occasional hostility of others sharing the road, including being hit by rocks courtesy of passing motorists, and concerns like encountering a mountain lion while running solo in a remote location, or waking up with a back full of blisters, courtesy of some crickets, getting lost in Los Angeles or seeing his knees swell to the size of melons.
Though the run was physically taxing on the body, Álvarez joked, “running is the easy part.” Getting along with flawed people with broken histories could be challenging under the best of circumstances. - from the WBUR interviewWe meet, again, the runners whom he joins on the torturous trek from Alaska to Panama. Not all will last for the entirety. One of the strong points of the book is the stories he hears while hanging around the equivalent of a campfire after each day of extreme running. This was a highlight. Interesting, but not so compelling was the dysfunction within the group. The people on the run did not exactly seem like the most welcoming sorts. It certainly works as a descriptive, but does not exactly make us feel all that supportive for many of the runners and managers in this enterprise. People are people, whatever their origin, so this is not a huge shock, but I guess I was hoping that among a group of people who were engaged in a six-month test of their endurance and commitment, it might have been a bit less like middle school with more booze, sex, and snottiness. On the other hand, I have been around positively-minded political people at various stages in my life, and while most are pretty nice, there always seem to be some who are just awful. So, probably, bad on me for having unreasonable expectations.
Alvarez today - image from NBC News
There is a duality here. Alvarez wants to support and identify with his working-class family, while wanting to feel a connection to a wider world, maybe a chance to fulfill his parents’ wish for him to have a better life than they had had. I know, why can’t one manage both? But it seems that the author, now in his thirties, has made some sort of a divide between the two.
I seek elsewhere the spiritual and philosophical truths that running provided me. But within myself I believe that these truths can be achieved without a college education. The world tells me that achievement has to look one way, but I struggle with that.I take serious issue here, as the author appears to be conflating university education with a search for philosophical truths. Sure, it serves that purpose for many people. But it is a meaningful tool that allows one, or at least helps one, to make a decent enough living in the real world that one can afford to continue such truth-seeking without having to scrounge for cash. And Alvarez had some post-college work that was doing some real social good. In a description of his more contemporary life, he is working at lower end jobs than he really needs to. One was as an overnight guard at a museum.
Here I contend not only with the mental fatigue of museum silence, but the nervous reality that has haunted and pestered me all my life: that I will always be working class.No shite, Sherlock. Been there, done that. I have my own guard uniform tucked away as well, but unlike Noé, I never really doubted my class status, despite college and graduate school. Sure, some can get out, but for the vast majority, while we may swap collar colors, our relationship to real power remains where it began. And it is likely to remain that way for our children as well. It is called a class-based society, whether the slots we are born into are Indian castes, or striations in the increasingly ill-named American middle class.
The clacking dress shoes over marble floors remind me that I am surrounded by people who know where they’re going in life. In these small spaces, even in the most trivial conversations, I pretend that I matter, that people value my insight into random matters of life, literature, and local events.I would not project any sort of peace or direction onto anyone based on the sounds their shoes make on a marble floor. I have worked with many such people, as has Alvarez, and they are as likely to be as unhappy, or as undirected, as anyone walking on softer rubber soles. And if that is not persuasive, a quick look at any decent newspaper coverage of things political or economic should disabuse one of such notions. And maybe some people do value what you have to say. You can be working class and still have something to contribute that is of value, beyond physical labor, if sweat-based work is not sufficient to offer the feelz you need. That this book exists is absolute proof of that.
Speaking of which, some of Alvarez’s writing can be beautifully descriptive, while lyrically evocative.
It is an ink wash of a world here in rainy Chiapas where we traverse steep highlands with heavy feet, mobbing about the clouds as if in some dream world that smells of firewood. Roads coil around remote Mayan villages that appear and disappear in the fog like ghost towns. The silhouettes of women hunching over the land can be seen in the clouds, working the land, and carrying bundles of firewood on their backs.And then it can sometimes be clunky, for which I blame editors more than Alvarez, unless, of course, things of this sort were raised and changes were overruled by the author. My eye sockets sink with exhaustion… Not likely. Maybe your eyes sink, or it feels like they are sinking, within the sockets, but I expect the sockets stayed exactly where they were. Another. When the rhythms of working-class life cut inside me like broken beer glass, I run. Maybe broken beer bottle glass? What is, actually, broken beer? This sort of thing should result in DMV-like points on one’s poetic license.
One further concern. Much is made of the importance of this run to healing. It was never clear enough to me how exactly that worked. Maybe I was missing something. Always a possibility. But repeating what sounded to me like a mantra about how this was about healing and that was about healing without really explaining how, made me feel in need of some healing of my own. There are plenty of wrongs that have been foisted on indigenous people. How does this run help heal those lesions? It sounded to me like a line of political truism taken in, and repeated, by a new, young (19) adherent, who was fully on board, but who did not yet have a deep grasp of the content under the slogan. I am not saying there was not healing of some sort going on, just that it could have used a bit more explication. I did like, in Alvarez’s introductory remarks on the NCRL site, (linked in EXTRA STUFF), his piece about running as a form of connection and prayer.
The road is a classic image of the journey of self-discovery. We expect our narrator to begin in one place, both physically and emotionally or psychologically, and end his road trip someplace else, both internally and externally. I am struck ultimately by how little this run actually seemed to impact the author’s life. There is an immediate result, though. He does return to school, completing his expected education and much more, doing work that is of obvious value in the world. Yet finds insufficient psychic reward in that. Surprisingly, he seems no closer to finding what he was looking for years after the event than he was before he joined. While Alvarez may have picked up a nice trove of tales to tell, it was not at all clear that there was enough growth here to write about, given where he is when he writes the story.
Does Alvarez feel more connected to his indigenous brothers and sisters, the indigenous communities through which the run passed? Sure. But what does one do with that? Is this a purely personal effort? Does it lead him to look for ways to help support Native American communities, or groups, after the race was over? If so, it was not obvious. He seems shifted more to a generic desire to help poor people. It seemed a very personal journey, despite the initial rationale, and his initial enthusiasm for being included. Which leads one to consider whether this was the intent. He even admits it was a need for a personal restart that was a great motivator. Maybe not all journeys really take you somewhere. Intended or not, that was where this one dropped me off. But the run certainly helped Alvarez embrace who he was at one level, furthering his sense of connection with his family.
==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below.
March 4, 2020
The below review originally appeared on Open Letters Review.
When Noé Álvarez, crossing the Mexican border with an American passport, provided a Latino border guard with his reasoning for entering the country not as the typical business or pleasure, but instead, to run through the country on his way to Central America, he was met with a halting question: “But aren’t you running the wrong way?”
Though Central America was indeed the destination, it was hardly the start. In his memoir, Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land, Álvarez chronicles his experience traveling across the continent in a run hosted by Peace and Dignity Journeys. It is an event that happens only once every four years and lasts six months as indigenous peoples from anywhere on the continent participate in a highly symbolic run from Alaska to Panama, at which point the group will meet with a separate group of runners traveling north through South America. When pitched to Álvarez, the run was spoken about like a type of prayer, a way to spiritually connect with the land and learn “how to be human again.”
It is a yearning for both connection and escape that seems to draw the author to the run. The son of immigrant parents, he hails from Washington State, specifically Yakima, a region whose fertile soils are famous and agricultural products are abundant. Apple and cherry trees grow with ease and their fruit has been historically handled by the state’s immigrant populations. The author’s Mexican mother is one such worker, a fruit sorter whose identity at work collapses into the homogenous working machine. Both of the author’s parents urge him not to follow their path of becoming cogs in the wheel.
Through his adolescence, running becomes a means by which he can shake off his problems, if only for the duration of the run. At the same time, he has a tenuous relationship with the ground beneath his feet, a land which made steep promises to his family, but whose demands never cease. Growing up seeing his parents’ backs learn the curve of labor instilled deep resentment: “I grew to hate the land for what was done to it, and for what it had done to my parents, whose calloused hands I can never forgive, nor forget.” Álvarez, having found no solace in escaping into college life, drops out to join the run, hoping that using his feet will help him find the advertised peace and dignity.
Noé joins the runners in Canada one month after the start of the journey and feels the effects of being late. The other runners, to whom we are introduced long before the run’s beginning, in the book’s prologue, take some time to warm up to our author. Eventually, once the ice melts, we discover that each of his fellow participants has a story to tell. These individuals become major figures in the author’s experience and come to dominate the book, unsurprising given the reliance they place upon one another in the relay-style, 10-mile-per-day-minimum runs.
The challenges of the run are expectedly intense. The daily physical demands put the author’s body in a near-constant state of pain, especially after he experiences an injury, and the changing terrain presents shifting threats. Unpleasant interactions with non-runners are unavoidable as they pass through densely populated areas. Runners become target practice for rock-throwers and occasionally draw the attention of those with more sinister ideas. Even the runners, though intensely connected with one another, are not immune to in-fighting. The group’s rapport begins to go further and further south as the run does.
Throughout the book, in between presentations of the run and the runners, Álvarez deeply considers what the run represents. He notes, correctly, that the run stood in defiance of the negative connotations of running historically attached to immigrant populations:
Running, I begin to learn the hard way, is a sacred motion - different from the assumptions I had of the act growing up, when the stories I knew were only of migrants running from immigration raids, and mass deportations. That, coupled with my own experiences, back then, of running from street gangs. The motion of running to me meant a defensive act, one that arose from the fear and desperation of a vulnerable people who were running as a means of survival.
The fact that the run, in a powerful way, reclaims the act of running as a positive one, highlights the biggest shortcoming of the book; simply stated, there is not enough of the run in Spirit Run. Perhaps because the logistics are more than fifteen years in the author’s past, readers don’t get to feel enough of the repeated motion of feet hitting earth, but can instead expect the notable highlights as well as the grander lessons that have endured.
These lessons often bridge the gaps of the sometimes sparse narrative. Throughout, Álvarez delivers moments of profound insight as he re-develops his own relationship with the land, struggles to feel at home in his heritage, and, particularly in the Mexico portions, contemplates what his life may have been like if his parents never left. A reverent examination of the spiritual links to oft-trodden ground, Spirit Run stumbles at times, but still crosses the finish line.
When Noé Álvarez, crossing the Mexican border with an American passport, provided a Latino border guard with his reasoning for entering the country not as the typical business or pleasure, but instead, to run through the country on his way to Central America, he was met with a halting question: “But aren’t you running the wrong way?”
Though Central America was indeed the destination, it was hardly the start. In his memoir, Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land, Álvarez chronicles his experience traveling across the continent in a run hosted by Peace and Dignity Journeys. It is an event that happens only once every four years and lasts six months as indigenous peoples from anywhere on the continent participate in a highly symbolic run from Alaska to Panama, at which point the group will meet with a separate group of runners traveling north through South America. When pitched to Álvarez, the run was spoken about like a type of prayer, a way to spiritually connect with the land and learn “how to be human again.”
It is a yearning for both connection and escape that seems to draw the author to the run. The son of immigrant parents, he hails from Washington State, specifically Yakima, a region whose fertile soils are famous and agricultural products are abundant. Apple and cherry trees grow with ease and their fruit has been historically handled by the state’s immigrant populations. The author’s Mexican mother is one such worker, a fruit sorter whose identity at work collapses into the homogenous working machine. Both of the author’s parents urge him not to follow their path of becoming cogs in the wheel.
Through his adolescence, running becomes a means by which he can shake off his problems, if only for the duration of the run. At the same time, he has a tenuous relationship with the ground beneath his feet, a land which made steep promises to his family, but whose demands never cease. Growing up seeing his parents’ backs learn the curve of labor instilled deep resentment: “I grew to hate the land for what was done to it, and for what it had done to my parents, whose calloused hands I can never forgive, nor forget.” Álvarez, having found no solace in escaping into college life, drops out to join the run, hoping that using his feet will help him find the advertised peace and dignity.
Noé joins the runners in Canada one month after the start of the journey and feels the effects of being late. The other runners, to whom we are introduced long before the run’s beginning, in the book’s prologue, take some time to warm up to our author. Eventually, once the ice melts, we discover that each of his fellow participants has a story to tell. These individuals become major figures in the author’s experience and come to dominate the book, unsurprising given the reliance they place upon one another in the relay-style, 10-mile-per-day-minimum runs.
The challenges of the run are expectedly intense. The daily physical demands put the author’s body in a near-constant state of pain, especially after he experiences an injury, and the changing terrain presents shifting threats. Unpleasant interactions with non-runners are unavoidable as they pass through densely populated areas. Runners become target practice for rock-throwers and occasionally draw the attention of those with more sinister ideas. Even the runners, though intensely connected with one another, are not immune to in-fighting. The group’s rapport begins to go further and further south as the run does.
Throughout the book, in between presentations of the run and the runners, Álvarez deeply considers what the run represents. He notes, correctly, that the run stood in defiance of the negative connotations of running historically attached to immigrant populations:
Running, I begin to learn the hard way, is a sacred motion - different from the assumptions I had of the act growing up, when the stories I knew were only of migrants running from immigration raids, and mass deportations. That, coupled with my own experiences, back then, of running from street gangs. The motion of running to me meant a defensive act, one that arose from the fear and desperation of a vulnerable people who were running as a means of survival.
The fact that the run, in a powerful way, reclaims the act of running as a positive one, highlights the biggest shortcoming of the book; simply stated, there is not enough of the run in Spirit Run. Perhaps because the logistics are more than fifteen years in the author’s past, readers don’t get to feel enough of the repeated motion of feet hitting earth, but can instead expect the notable highlights as well as the grander lessons that have endured.
These lessons often bridge the gaps of the sometimes sparse narrative. Throughout, Álvarez delivers moments of profound insight as he re-develops his own relationship with the land, struggles to feel at home in his heritage, and, particularly in the Mexico portions, contemplates what his life may have been like if his parents never left. A reverent examination of the spiritual links to oft-trodden ground, Spirit Run stumbles at times, but still crosses the finish line.
July 30, 2021
I liked where this book led me - to the dictionary, to maps, to YouTube, to gather more info - but I never completely understood the journey Alvarez is on. The epic marathon he is running is part of the Peace and Dignity Journeys. This is “a non-competitive race to renew cultural connections across North America.”
Alvarez definitely celebrates the landscape and gives an inkling of the various cultures he encounters, but he never delves deep. It seems the run is plagued by in-fighting and a lack of resources. Some of those managing the runners seem to be vengeful and to lack compassion for the difficulty of the goal these runners are trying to complete. To be clear, these runners are on a spiritual quest that requires a resilience of mind. They aren’t running in easy terrain. I understand all of this, yet I feel the writing often jolted me out of the experience too soon. The chapters are short. I think it could have done with more details.
Alvarez definitely celebrates the landscape and gives an inkling of the various cultures he encounters, but he never delves deep. It seems the run is plagued by in-fighting and a lack of resources. Some of those managing the runners seem to be vengeful and to lack compassion for the difficulty of the goal these runners are trying to complete. To be clear, these runners are on a spiritual quest that requires a resilience of mind. They aren’t running in easy terrain. I understand all of this, yet I feel the writing often jolted me out of the experience too soon. The chapters are short. I think it could have done with more details.
April 1, 2020
The first half of this book read like the overwritten product of an MFA program. The second half read as if the author thought maxim was “tell, don’t show, and then tell some more.” This ranged from the frustrating (The group struggles to adhere to local customs as they travel - I want to learn more about those customs and how the differences are resolved!) to outright bizarre (One of the organizers was withholding food and water to the point it reached the authorities, and then you were bullied into recanting? That deserves way more than a one paragraph aside!)
I’m also really disappointed in that I hoped to learn more about various indigenous communities through this book, but for all the author rails (rightly) against privilege, he has a lot of his own that mostly goes unremarked upon. He very quickly glosses over the fact that he, someone who does not identify as indigenous, inserts himself into an indigenous-led and indigenous-focused effort, and turns it into whining that he doesn’t understand the social etiquette and no one wants to explain it to him. He also spends only a couple sentences on the fact that he not only drops out of college, but walks away from a full-ride, and considers that is maybe a privilege - I really had to shake my head.
I don’t mean to discount at all what the author has gone through being working class and Latinx - in fact I think a work focusing instead on why he struggled to transition to college, followed by a trip to Mexico with the explicit purpose of understanding his parents better, would’ve been a much stronger work.
I’m also really disappointed in that I hoped to learn more about various indigenous communities through this book, but for all the author rails (rightly) against privilege, he has a lot of his own that mostly goes unremarked upon. He very quickly glosses over the fact that he, someone who does not identify as indigenous, inserts himself into an indigenous-led and indigenous-focused effort, and turns it into whining that he doesn’t understand the social etiquette and no one wants to explain it to him. He also spends only a couple sentences on the fact that he not only drops out of college, but walks away from a full-ride, and considers that is maybe a privilege - I really had to shake my head.
I don’t mean to discount at all what the author has gone through being working class and Latinx - in fact I think a work focusing instead on why he struggled to transition to college, followed by a trip to Mexico with the explicit purpose of understanding his parents better, would’ve been a much stronger work.
November 14, 2020
Noé Álvarez, a Mexican-American with Purépecha ancestry, participated in a 6,000-mile ultramarathon relay through North America in 2004 that sought to bring awareness and healing to indigenous peoples from Canada to Guatemala. The author also surrounds the run with more about his life - from his childhood in Yakima, Washington with parents who worked in backbreaking agricultural jobs, to flailing as a first-generation college student, to the places he created for himself after this journey. He follows up in the end with many of the other runners, and it seems to have been a transformative experience for all of them (or, these are people who are most likely to seek out such an experience.)
I liked experiencing the individual stories of the runners, the challenges of trying to pull it off for this higher purpose when individuals are not so high-minded, and various indigenous places and traditions they got to interact with along the way. (Did I watch all the videos on the internet about Purépecha language and history, mostly in Spanish? I did! They were never conquered by the Aztecs and from my limited understanding are the ancestors of the people who would attempt to reclaim land in the Zapatista movement.)
It was interesting to see North America through an indigenous, feet on the ground (literally) perspective. That lens connects to the natural world and the rich history more easily, but doesn't shy away from the tensions of borders, military movements, police presence, poverty, and control.
Side note, or personal note - the community in which I grew up in rural Oregon was heavily populated by seasonal workers, and I had several classmates who were only in school half the year until their parents were able to relocate more permanently. I grew up maybe 5 miles from at least one "migrant housing" situation. I did a project in high school where I interviewed a man who had grown up as a child of a seasonal workers and ended up going to college, etc., and was at that time working for the State of Oregon in the employment office, often assisting people who were new to the area for similar reasons. This is backbreaking work, but I never really saw it from the inside. Like most parents who hope their children will be in a better situation, both my parents didn't want us doing that kind of work. They both had to spend their summers working in agricultural jobs to help their families make ends meet, as soon as they were able, and until they either got better jobs or left home. My Dad picked beans and worked at a maraschino cherry plant. My Mom picked beans, cucumbers, and berries (but quickly found a fast food job instead!) We still picked fruit in the summer and canned/froze it for our own consumption but that is very different from the demands of the industry itself which only thrives if you can push your body to the limit as Álvarez describes his mother doing in this book. It sent me on my own path of reflection.
I believe the publisher sent this to me way back in the beforetimes, the author did a lot of virtual book talks, because it came out in March.
I liked experiencing the individual stories of the runners, the challenges of trying to pull it off for this higher purpose when individuals are not so high-minded, and various indigenous places and traditions they got to interact with along the way. (Did I watch all the videos on the internet about Purépecha language and history, mostly in Spanish? I did! They were never conquered by the Aztecs and from my limited understanding are the ancestors of the people who would attempt to reclaim land in the Zapatista movement.)
It was interesting to see North America through an indigenous, feet on the ground (literally) perspective. That lens connects to the natural world and the rich history more easily, but doesn't shy away from the tensions of borders, military movements, police presence, poverty, and control.
Side note, or personal note - the community in which I grew up in rural Oregon was heavily populated by seasonal workers, and I had several classmates who were only in school half the year until their parents were able to relocate more permanently. I grew up maybe 5 miles from at least one "migrant housing" situation. I did a project in high school where I interviewed a man who had grown up as a child of a seasonal workers and ended up going to college, etc., and was at that time working for the State of Oregon in the employment office, often assisting people who were new to the area for similar reasons. This is backbreaking work, but I never really saw it from the inside. Like most parents who hope their children will be in a better situation, both my parents didn't want us doing that kind of work. They both had to spend their summers working in agricultural jobs to help their families make ends meet, as soon as they were able, and until they either got better jobs or left home. My Dad picked beans and worked at a maraschino cherry plant. My Mom picked beans, cucumbers, and berries (but quickly found a fast food job instead!) We still picked fruit in the summer and canned/froze it for our own consumption but that is very different from the demands of the industry itself which only thrives if you can push your body to the limit as Álvarez describes his mother doing in this book. It sent me on my own path of reflection.
I believe the publisher sent this to me way back in the beforetimes, the author did a lot of virtual book talks, because it came out in March.
October 20, 2019
Noé Álvarez is the son of working-class, immigrant parents and he wants desperately to get out of Yakima, Washington. After an initial try at college, he signs up for the Peace and Dignity Journeys-- a run from Alaska to South America celebrating indigenous peoples. Along the way, he connects to the land and the people in ways he never expected. He finds a sense of peace within himself and a new appreciation for both where he's from and where he wants to go.
Being from the Yakima Valley myself, and a fan of Raymond Carver, this book holds a special resonance for me. But that aside, this is a book about a journey. And like any great pilgrimage, this one is thoughtful, honest, emotional, and yes, spiritual.
Being from the Yakima Valley myself, and a fan of Raymond Carver, this book holds a special resonance for me. But that aside, this is a book about a journey. And like any great pilgrimage, this one is thoughtful, honest, emotional, and yes, spiritual.
January 22, 2020
The world needs more books like SPIRIT RUN, written by people who have actually lived the experiences of marginalized communities, rather than just parachuted in, done a few interviews, and then written about them. Noé Álvarez speaks with an eloquent and much-needed voice for the working class, for the struggles experienced by people living—not just outside of, but ostracized by—the mainstream as part of a community that is at the same time a key element of the infrastructure the entire bloody framework is propped up on. I challenge anyone to find one drop of hyperbole in that statement. The community Álvarez and his family occupy—immigrant, migrant, whatever-you-want-to-call-them laborers—are a critical piece of the American puzzle and we only show them, at best, a vague disrespect.
Beyond that, though, the story of the run hinted at in the title is interesting enough on its own. The way Álvarez threads the run and the people who undertake it through the rest of the narrative is done very well, and the book succeeds at being a kind of travel narrative/reporting piece as well. This is a timely and important book.
Beyond that, though, the story of the run hinted at in the title is interesting enough on its own. The way Álvarez threads the run and the people who undertake it through the rest of the narrative is done very well, and the book succeeds at being a kind of travel narrative/reporting piece as well. This is a timely and important book.
January 7, 2020
The child of immigrants, Álvarez grew up southeast of Seattle in Yakima Valley. His parents endured laboring in the apple packing plants that distribute our famous Washington apples to the nation, and he joined them for a time and witnessed the harsh conditions firsthand. This part of the narrative was especially eye-opening for me. Renewed my resolve to always give thanks for the food I eat, and do more towards GOOD working conditions for folks who toil a lot harder for their livelihood than I do.
The majority of the tale focuses on Álvarez' break from college to run in an Indigenous relay called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, joining the run in British Columbia, finally departing from it near Huehuetenango, Guatemala. The journey is about a lot of different things to a lot of different people, including but not limited to reconnecting with the magnitude of land that is Turtle Island.
Very readable. Álvarez has a solid writing voice. He brings his family, friends, and frenemies to life in my mind. Would like to have read about the experience from a few other vantage points: how did Cheeto see things; Zyanya Lonewolf; Chapito?
I was reading The Buddhist on Death Row by David Sheff at the same time as I read Spirit Run, so suffering was on my mind as I tried to follow him through his journey. Whereas Masters in the former book graduated from his own suffering, to the suffering he inflicted, to the suffering of others, Álvarez' narrative seemed stuck at his own suffering and sometimes his parents' suffering. That's probably where I'm at most days, but I wonder if there's another version of this story in the future that does that deeper dive.
Unlike Annie Dillard's writing, I did not feel like I was experiencing the terrain or nature with Álvarez; descriptions of ecosystems were about weather and the kind of ground being traversed; this really is a story told more by feet than anything. And, the narration glosses over it somewhat, but it seems like Álvarez was regularly pushing way passed what his body was ready to do, so a lot of the book feels a little like a fever dream of surviving. To me, one of the only running moments that burned itself into my confabulated-visual-memory was his encounter with a mountain lion.
Unlike Cheeto, Álvarez doesn't share with us all the People who provided food on the journey or the gratitude he might have expressed to them. I would like to have known more about all of the People who welcomed the runners on to their land and fed them.
All that said, I am probably asking the same question a lot of others have: did he burn his neighbor's house down?!
The majority of the tale focuses on Álvarez' break from college to run in an Indigenous relay called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, joining the run in British Columbia, finally departing from it near Huehuetenango, Guatemala. The journey is about a lot of different things to a lot of different people, including but not limited to reconnecting with the magnitude of land that is Turtle Island.
Very readable. Álvarez has a solid writing voice. He brings his family, friends, and frenemies to life in my mind. Would like to have read about the experience from a few other vantage points: how did Cheeto see things; Zyanya Lonewolf; Chapito?
I was reading The Buddhist on Death Row by David Sheff at the same time as I read Spirit Run, so suffering was on my mind as I tried to follow him through his journey. Whereas Masters in the former book graduated from his own suffering, to the suffering he inflicted, to the suffering of others, Álvarez' narrative seemed stuck at his own suffering and sometimes his parents' suffering. That's probably where I'm at most days, but I wonder if there's another version of this story in the future that does that deeper dive.
Unlike Annie Dillard's writing, I did not feel like I was experiencing the terrain or nature with Álvarez; descriptions of ecosystems were about weather and the kind of ground being traversed; this really is a story told more by feet than anything. And, the narration glosses over it somewhat, but it seems like Álvarez was regularly pushing way passed what his body was ready to do, so a lot of the book feels a little like a fever dream of surviving. To me, one of the only running moments that burned itself into my confabulated-visual-memory was his encounter with a mountain lion.
Unlike Cheeto, Álvarez doesn't share with us all the People who provided food on the journey or the gratitude he might have expressed to them. I would like to have known more about all of the People who welcomed the runners on to their land and fed them.
All that said, I am probably asking the same question a lot of others have: did he burn his neighbor's house down?!
December 31, 2020
Another quarantine purchase. Loved the first third of the book. Opened my eyes to immigrant labor and orchard production in Yakima, WA, a city three hours from Spokane. The language in the first half was also musical. The storytelling had good pacing. But when the actual run began, I felt completely boxed out of the story. I had trouble keeping track of characters because I hardly knew them. I couldn't track Noe's interior journey--only his exterior one. The chapters were extremely short, with titles or opening paragraphs often providing updates on where the runners were. I did not feel like I got to know the land, the places they visited beyond a few details here and there. I was not privilege to any of the actual discussions the runners had with the tribal members they were visiting. Mostly, I got updates on the runners' fighting--at least that frustration came across. Ugh. I wanted to love this book, and it had a strong start. But it ultimately felt as though it was rushed and/or the writer didn't want to give readers all the details.
Read
August 2, 2021• SPIRIT RUN: A 6000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez, 2020.
Amidst the sci-fi and Central American lit in July, I fit in this memoir about immigration, Indigenous land rights and sovereignty, and running.
Álvarez is the son of Mexican immigrants with Indigenous ancestry, growing up in the apple orchards of Yakima, Washington where his parents were employed as fruit pickers.
In college, he learns of Peace and Dignity Journeys, an event that takes place every 4 years where runners span the entire North and Central American continents - from Alaska to the tip of Panama - raising awareness for Indigenous land sovereignty.
Very short chapters make for a quick reading experience, and Álvarez keeps things pretty surface. While he ran with PDJ from British Columbia, Canada to Guatemala - approximately 6000 miles - the actual running is more of a background with some notes on injuries and wildlife encounters. Camp life and relationships with his fellow runners form the real story here, as well as Álvarez's memories and stories about his parents.
This could have been a great feature magazine article, or could have been a deeper and longer personal story gathering experience of PDJ runners; as it stands, it's kind of an in-between. I wanted to know more about the people and communities he runs with and through, and unfortunately that information was not shared - but that also could be because he ran in 2004 and the book was not published until 2020. Over time, memories were smoothed over? Hard to say.
Thanks to Jenny @readingenvy for this gifted copy 🙏🏻
Amidst the sci-fi and Central American lit in July, I fit in this memoir about immigration, Indigenous land rights and sovereignty, and running.
Álvarez is the son of Mexican immigrants with Indigenous ancestry, growing up in the apple orchards of Yakima, Washington where his parents were employed as fruit pickers.
In college, he learns of Peace and Dignity Journeys, an event that takes place every 4 years where runners span the entire North and Central American continents - from Alaska to the tip of Panama - raising awareness for Indigenous land sovereignty.
Very short chapters make for a quick reading experience, and Álvarez keeps things pretty surface. While he ran with PDJ from British Columbia, Canada to Guatemala - approximately 6000 miles - the actual running is more of a background with some notes on injuries and wildlife encounters. Camp life and relationships with his fellow runners form the real story here, as well as Álvarez's memories and stories about his parents.
This could have been a great feature magazine article, or could have been a deeper and longer personal story gathering experience of PDJ runners; as it stands, it's kind of an in-between. I wanted to know more about the people and communities he runs with and through, and unfortunately that information was not shared - but that also could be because he ran in 2004 and the book was not published until 2020. Over time, memories were smoothed over? Hard to say.
Thanks to Jenny @readingenvy for this gifted copy 🙏🏻
December 8, 2022
The Peace and Dignity Journey (PDJ) is a relay-run from Alaska through to Guatemala, braiding its way through tribal lands and stopping in Indigenous communities to pass on a message of solidarity. In return, each Indigenous community supplies shelter, food, water and spiritual guidance. As soon as Alvarez learns about this event, he drops everything and makes arrangements to join the group partway through British Columbia and continues on with them for four months. He is an American citizen, born of Mexican immigrants, and he is very familiar with the hamster wheel of the hand-to-mouth existence of poor, working-class immigrants. He wants Change - not only for himself but for all people living on the fringes of corporate society.
Upon joining the group (10 runners with 2 vehicles), he gets his first dose of resentment from the established PDJ runners. Within the group, there is a hierarchy and it seems that each person is trying to prove that s/he is more worthy of the cause than others. For thousands of kilometers, the runners turn against each other, withhold food and water from the group and shame those who are unable to maintain speed, courage and purity of belief in the cause.
This book is more about the Spirit than the Run. As an endurance athlete myself, I was hoping for more logistics of the running and details about the waypoints, the communities and the land that they run through. Considering that his role was to run one or two 10-mile segments each day, Alvarez includes surprisingly little about the run itself. Instead, beyond the dysfunction of the PDJ group, the memoir focusses on Alvarez's personal journey and that of his parents.
There are glimpses of beautiful prose in Alvarez's debut but those parts seemed out of place in his documentary-style book. I found the sub-title of the book slightly misleading since there is no other mention of 'stolen lands' except in the sub-title itself.
The Peace and Dignity Journeys continue on and I truly hope that Alvarez's account brings positive attention, stronger infrastructure and peaceful tribal collaborations to the annual event.
Upon joining the group (10 runners with 2 vehicles), he gets his first dose of resentment from the established PDJ runners. Within the group, there is a hierarchy and it seems that each person is trying to prove that s/he is more worthy of the cause than others. For thousands of kilometers, the runners turn against each other, withhold food and water from the group and shame those who are unable to maintain speed, courage and purity of belief in the cause.
This book is more about the Spirit than the Run. As an endurance athlete myself, I was hoping for more logistics of the running and details about the waypoints, the communities and the land that they run through. Considering that his role was to run one or two 10-mile segments each day, Alvarez includes surprisingly little about the run itself. Instead, beyond the dysfunction of the PDJ group, the memoir focusses on Alvarez's personal journey and that of his parents.
There are glimpses of beautiful prose in Alvarez's debut but those parts seemed out of place in his documentary-style book. I found the sub-title of the book slightly misleading since there is no other mention of 'stolen lands' except in the sub-title itself.
The Peace and Dignity Journeys continue on and I truly hope that Alvarez's account brings positive attention, stronger infrastructure and peaceful tribal collaborations to the annual event.
July 11, 2021
I found this book to be very stressful and distressing. Our narrator is young at the time, perhaps 19, and the run is frequently incredibly unsafe and ill planned. He is bullied and threatened with violence by other runners and leaders of the run. He is forced to run in all weather (including extreme heat, cold, rain, and storms) without any method of communicating where he is, with no knowledge of the terrain or path, with no water or supplies. He and other runners were running on maybe 2 small meals a day, and ended up starving and horribly malnourished by the end. People frequently had horrible untreated stomach infections; people attacked and tried to abduct one of the women runners. The blatant misogynistic attitudes of the men grated on me.
Our narrator's knees swelled to the point that fluid was cutting off circulation to his lower legs and threatening to cause permanent damage; and yet he pushed on with pain medication to mask the problem against doctors orders, and run leaders still bullied him and calling him weak. Other runners also relied on prescription pain meds they obtained illegally to get through their ~30 miles a day. It was brutal and seemed pointless.
In the end, I didn't understand why the author felt the need to tell me this story. He spoke of "healing" but only harm seemed to be done. He didn't seem to grow or find any deeper answers to his questions. He seemed just as disenchanted with university education and middle class living when he wrote this as when he was 19. The book didn't satisfy or provide a cohesive narrative. It also left a bad taste in my mouth, just feeling like one more space where abusive people were able to prey on vulnerable people, with no one stepping up and stopping them.
Our narrator's knees swelled to the point that fluid was cutting off circulation to his lower legs and threatening to cause permanent damage; and yet he pushed on with pain medication to mask the problem against doctors orders, and run leaders still bullied him and calling him weak. Other runners also relied on prescription pain meds they obtained illegally to get through their ~30 miles a day. It was brutal and seemed pointless.
In the end, I didn't understand why the author felt the need to tell me this story. He spoke of "healing" but only harm seemed to be done. He didn't seem to grow or find any deeper answers to his questions. He seemed just as disenchanted with university education and middle class living when he wrote this as when he was 19. The book didn't satisfy or provide a cohesive narrative. It also left a bad taste in my mouth, just feeling like one more space where abusive people were able to prey on vulnerable people, with no one stepping up and stopping them.
March 29, 2020
The book was interesting to a point. Eye-opening in regards to the apple plant, the workers, the run itself, and many of the people within his tale. But at some point, it ceased to feel like a narrative, and started feeling more like a series of quick journal entries, which didn't have the draw or the emotional impact (for me) as the first part did. The marathon *is* something new to me, so there's that - though in many ways, it sounds ripe for abuse, of the kind Noe experienced, and other kinds as well. Overall, this could be a very worthwhile book for a certain audience, but I feel that there was so much more here that could have been explored.
November 21, 2019
This is an excellent memoir that combines vivid imagery and moving descriptions of the writer's experiences as a first generation American. He tells the story of his family in a powerful way that transports us to a different reality and helps us understand the modern immigration story. He also takes us on a journey throughout the Americas and weaves the lives of other runners into the story. Within the first few pages I was touched and tearing up from the power of real people's stories. There were also moments of levity. The book is honest and doesn't sugar coat what it is to be human. A refreshing and powerful story.
June 9, 2020
Thoughts soon.
October 6, 2020
I feel bad about this but I just wanted so much more detail!
December 16, 2019
Álvarez and his family had their dreams come true when he received a full ride to college, a way out of the endless labor of working at an apple factory in Yakima. While at school, he learns of the Peace and Dignity Journey, a run held every four years from Alaska to the southern end of Mexico, stretching thousands of miles. This is a program aids in helping Indigenous people from all nations reconnect to their lands, spiritually and emotionally. To Noé, this was an opportunity worth dropping out for. Álvarez recounts many highs and lows on his run-- severe conditions, friendships, rivalries, and the freedoms the journey has brought him, in every sense of the word. Spirit Run is simultaneously harsh and uplifting, bound to engage and inspire readers across the board.
March 13, 2020
3.5 stars super quick read. Full RTC .
April 9, 2021
This inspiring debut honors immigrant and Indigenous lives as well as the author's Mexican immigrant parents.
Noé Álvarez took leap of faith as self-discovery and opportunity to connect with an empowering community. This memoir is his coming of age journey and especially relatable to everyone who craves a sense of belonging & purpose. I enjoyed listening to the audiobook via my library’s Hoopladigital.com subscription. A particularly vivid moment that stood out:
Chapter 16 “Cougar Country”, alone in a mountainous wilderness a cougar suddenly appears, begins snarling, and prepares to attack. And Noé remembers life-saving advice for surviving animal encounters – thank the animal. He said “thank you” louder and louder until it finally moved away!
Noé Álvarez took leap of faith as self-discovery and opportunity to connect with an empowering community. This memoir is his coming of age journey and especially relatable to everyone who craves a sense of belonging & purpose. I enjoyed listening to the audiobook via my library’s Hoopladigital.com subscription. A particularly vivid moment that stood out:
Chapter 16 “Cougar Country”, alone in a mountainous wilderness a cougar suddenly appears, begins snarling, and prepares to attack. And Noé remembers life-saving advice for surviving animal encounters – thank the animal. He said “thank you” louder and louder until it finally moved away!
February 9, 2021
I am looking forward to discussing this one... I have many disparate thoughts on it. It feels wrong to dislike something that is trying to share a new (and disenfranchised) perspective, but for the middle half of this book I was just kept repeating to myself, wtf?
The first section is about Noe's life growing up as the son of undocumented immigrant laborers in Yakima, WA, and that part is beautiful and evocative. It paints a nuanced picture of the pain vs. pride.
Then he (mild spoiler this paragraph) goes to college, feels completely unqualified, is not doing well in most of his classes (I saw many parallels here to themes from the book "Educated") and learns about the Peace and Dignity Journeys pan-America run, and feels called to participate. And again, so far, so good - and by good I mean understandable, interesting, well-written memoir, etc.
Then he joins the run and this is where the story went off the rails to me. This is taking place in 2004, so not the long ago past.
So, I don't know. There's a Guardian article on the book from last May that includes a (new) quote from Noe saying "If you didn’t want to run, you didn’t have to. Others took on the miles.” but that is not at all the impression I got reading his memoir, and the vibe conveyed of this thing that was supposed to be sacred and activist and meaningful getting mired in these petty but also DANGEROUS conversations really did not sit well with me.
But I must add the caveat that I have no indigenous heritage; had never heard of this run before reading this book; am a very white-privileged woman; maybe I am missing something.
The first section is about Noe's life growing up as the son of undocumented immigrant laborers in Yakima, WA, and that part is beautiful and evocative. It paints a nuanced picture of the pain vs. pride.
Then he (mild spoiler this paragraph) goes to college, feels completely unqualified, is not doing well in most of his classes (I saw many parallels here to themes from the book "Educated") and learns about the Peace and Dignity Journeys pan-America run, and feels called to participate. And again, so far, so good - and by good I mean understandable, interesting, well-written memoir, etc.
Then he joins the run and this is where the story went off the rails to me. This is taking place in 2004, so not the long ago past.
So, I don't know. There's a Guardian article on the book from last May that includes a (new) quote from Noe saying "If you didn’t want to run, you didn’t have to. Others took on the miles.” but that is not at all the impression I got reading his memoir, and the vibe conveyed of this thing that was supposed to be sacred and activist and meaningful getting mired in these petty but also DANGEROUS conversations really did not sit well with me.
But I must add the caveat that I have no indigenous heritage; had never heard of this run before reading this book; am a very white-privileged woman; maybe I am missing something.
Read
February 18, 2020Noé grew up in Yakima, Washington, alongside his mother who worked in an apple-packing plant. As the son of two Mexican immigrants, he knew he was lucky to receive a scholarship to attend college, but a year into his program he is having a hard time fitting in and figuring out what it is he wants to make of himself as a first-generation Mexican American. This is a theme that will carry throughout the book, with no definitive ending, but along the way, Alvarez does a great job highlighting why this space of indecision, of opportunity, and of longing for connection and a place to fit in IS the immigrant story.
At 19, Alvarez discovers the Peace and Dignity Journey, which is a movement by Native American and First Nations people meant to create cultural connections across the Americas through marathoning. He drops out of school as he realizes this is something he needs to do, and he begins his journey in Canada, where he runs along side individuals of a whole array of Native and Indigenous backgrounds and experiences. The journey takes him through all kinds of terrain, experiences of hunger and thirst and exhaustion, as well as land that has been stolen by colonizers and turned to profit at the loss of original culture, tradition, and pride. Throughout the marathon, he not only finds himself being pushed to his physical, mental, and emotional limits, but he faces being kicked out of the race over and over -- which fuels his determination to fight harder, until the moment he knows he wants to end.
When he finishes his race through Mexico and lands in Guatemala, Alvarez boards a plane and heads back home. He doesn’t have any answers, but he has found passion and connection with the land and the people of the land.
What makes this book special is there’s actually very little about the race itself -- something I could have read so many more pages on. Instead, woven into the runs are Alvarez’s anecdotes about his parents, about his home life, about the ways he’s lived what could be seen as a classic tale of a Mexican-American immigrant’s life. It’s a short read, but it’s packed with so much heart and soul, along with a tremendous sense of desire for finding one’s place in space and time, while understanding that being a person who isn’t white and privileged and living on stolen land in a country that isn’t his own makes finding oneself fraught and complicated.
Readers wanting a story of an immigrant, of the child of Mexican migrants, will do well with this memoir. The ways it ties into Native American history and culture, too, adds a whole layer of complexity that’s necessary to better seeing immigration through a wide, thoughtful, and nuanced lens. Likewise, the marathon itself is a fascinating event and one I know I want to read a heck of a lot more about.
At 19, Alvarez discovers the Peace and Dignity Journey, which is a movement by Native American and First Nations people meant to create cultural connections across the Americas through marathoning. He drops out of school as he realizes this is something he needs to do, and he begins his journey in Canada, where he runs along side individuals of a whole array of Native and Indigenous backgrounds and experiences. The journey takes him through all kinds of terrain, experiences of hunger and thirst and exhaustion, as well as land that has been stolen by colonizers and turned to profit at the loss of original culture, tradition, and pride. Throughout the marathon, he not only finds himself being pushed to his physical, mental, and emotional limits, but he faces being kicked out of the race over and over -- which fuels his determination to fight harder, until the moment he knows he wants to end.
When he finishes his race through Mexico and lands in Guatemala, Alvarez boards a plane and heads back home. He doesn’t have any answers, but he has found passion and connection with the land and the people of the land.
What makes this book special is there’s actually very little about the race itself -- something I could have read so many more pages on. Instead, woven into the runs are Alvarez’s anecdotes about his parents, about his home life, about the ways he’s lived what could be seen as a classic tale of a Mexican-American immigrant’s life. It’s a short read, but it’s packed with so much heart and soul, along with a tremendous sense of desire for finding one’s place in space and time, while understanding that being a person who isn’t white and privileged and living on stolen land in a country that isn’t his own makes finding oneself fraught and complicated.
Readers wanting a story of an immigrant, of the child of Mexican migrants, will do well with this memoir. The ways it ties into Native American history and culture, too, adds a whole layer of complexity that’s necessary to better seeing immigration through a wide, thoughtful, and nuanced lens. Likewise, the marathon itself is a fascinating event and one I know I want to read a heck of a lot more about.
December 23, 2020
I wanted to like this book. I'm from Yakima and have visited many of the places the author passes through. Parts, mostly the parts about logistics of the run or descriptions of the natural areas, are ok. More parts are overly dramatic.
"My back breaks as I bend over the vicious fruit line, which cuts menacingly across the warehouse floor, just as I am cut off from the land and my people." That's not an exact quote but is close to how the author writes.
"I bring a dictionary, convincing myself that all the books in the world are contained in it's pages." That is a more exact quote. There are so many eye-roll inducing lines like this.
The book also ends, not with the end of the spirit run as one might expect, but with a series of random stories. It's as if the author was dedicated to having an even 40 chapters and he tacked on a few random ones at the end: a fishing trip with dad, some night he went to a bowling club, and a random laborer's story of being underpaid at a job.
"My back breaks as I bend over the vicious fruit line, which cuts menacingly across the warehouse floor, just as I am cut off from the land and my people." That's not an exact quote but is close to how the author writes.
"I bring a dictionary, convincing myself that all the books in the world are contained in it's pages." That is a more exact quote. There are so many eye-roll inducing lines like this.
The book also ends, not with the end of the spirit run as one might expect, but with a series of random stories. It's as if the author was dedicated to having an even 40 chapters and he tacked on a few random ones at the end: a fishing trip with dad, some night he went to a bowling club, and a random laborer's story of being underpaid at a job.
June 12, 2021
This book is at its best when it's explaining the interpersonal relationships of all the runners involved, and how their identities inform those relationships. Álvarez nicely balances anecdotes into the narrative of his life/run that comment and reflect upon one another really well. I appreciated the honesty with which Álvarez goes about relating the hardships of this journey. This isn't a book about someone finding the key to themselves and living happily ever after, nor is it the story of social mobility. The focus here is on the spirituality of running, and the story of a young indigenous person discovering the language of his people and of running in conjunction. It's a microcosm of larger conflicts and tensions felt between indigenous nations throughout the Americas. It's about how this country and economic system are designed to keep people like Álvarez within a set socioeconomic class—the fact that the book ends with this open ended concern is a necessary truth.
My biggest problem had to do with a sense of distance between the narrator and the events being described at times. While this is probably a result of the book being recollections of events that happened almost 20 years ago, I think some more focus on the physicality of running would have helped here. The spirituality that is described within this book is a physical experience, and as a runner I was glad to see it represented. However, Álvarez doesn't seem to interested in discussing the act of running itself so much as the life that surrounds running. The spiritual aspects of running are experienced during it, in the rhythm that is created by your feet and the growing sense of exhaustion amidst nature. There's a beautiful kind of transcendence within this that I wish had been better represented. I had a similar problem with the Peyote trips that were described, as here too there isn't really an explanation as to what happened and how it changed him/informed his thinking. Still, these criticisms come from a runner who has his own spiritual connections to running, so I do not think I can speak to how another would describe this experience. Ultimately, I just wish there was a little more here. I think there's a belief in modern memoir writing that less is more, but given the immensity of this book's subject matter, I think length would have helped flush out more and would have complimented the theme of running well. But I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in running, indigenous and Latinx idenitity, leftist literature, and related topics.
Here is a gorgeous section on the concept of running. Showcases well the humility it brings one, and ties that into anti-capitalist ideology really well:
"The motion of running to me meant a defensive act, one that arose from the fear and desperation of a vulnerable people who were running as a means of survival... To recognize its healing aspects, while also not overlooking the detrimental effects of it, like forced migration. It is a complex relationship.
Running is a rhythm connecting me to the wind, the water, the woods. it is about 'belonging to the land'—a value deeply held among Native communities. It's about performing the gesture that reminds us that there is always something bigger than us and to respect our environment. It calls on us to defend the land like we would defend our very own mother, and understand that we can never own it. I learn this in the act of digging my toes into the earth as I run barefoot through nature, attuning myself to vibrations bigger than myself. To run over the land is to run with attention." (138).
My biggest problem had to do with a sense of distance between the narrator and the events being described at times. While this is probably a result of the book being recollections of events that happened almost 20 years ago, I think some more focus on the physicality of running would have helped here. The spirituality that is described within this book is a physical experience, and as a runner I was glad to see it represented. However, Álvarez doesn't seem to interested in discussing the act of running itself so much as the life that surrounds running. The spiritual aspects of running are experienced during it, in the rhythm that is created by your feet and the growing sense of exhaustion amidst nature. There's a beautiful kind of transcendence within this that I wish had been better represented. I had a similar problem with the Peyote trips that were described, as here too there isn't really an explanation as to what happened and how it changed him/informed his thinking. Still, these criticisms come from a runner who has his own spiritual connections to running, so I do not think I can speak to how another would describe this experience. Ultimately, I just wish there was a little more here. I think there's a belief in modern memoir writing that less is more, but given the immensity of this book's subject matter, I think length would have helped flush out more and would have complimented the theme of running well. But I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in running, indigenous and Latinx idenitity, leftist literature, and related topics.
Here is a gorgeous section on the concept of running. Showcases well the humility it brings one, and ties that into anti-capitalist ideology really well:
"The motion of running to me meant a defensive act, one that arose from the fear and desperation of a vulnerable people who were running as a means of survival... To recognize its healing aspects, while also not overlooking the detrimental effects of it, like forced migration. It is a complex relationship.
Running is a rhythm connecting me to the wind, the water, the woods. it is about 'belonging to the land'—a value deeply held among Native communities. It's about performing the gesture that reminds us that there is always something bigger than us and to respect our environment. It calls on us to defend the land like we would defend our very own mother, and understand that we can never own it. I learn this in the act of digging my toes into the earth as I run barefoot through nature, attuning myself to vibrations bigger than myself. To run over the land is to run with attention." (138).
March 21, 2024
Admirable but heart wrenching.
July 26, 2020
I truly appreciate the journey and purpose of the author’s memoir. Ultimately, it left me wanting more, which means I’ll be doing more research into the topics he addresses and the cultures he mentions. It feels a bit unfinished, which can be the pitfall of memoir. Worth reading! 4 stars
October 25, 2020
Spirit Run // by Noe Alvarez
This is a title that I have been looking forward to for a while but am now struggling to organize my thoughts about. The blurb had me excited about learning about immigration and the First Nations/Native American movement from a new angle, connecting with the land through running. The beginning of the book was very much like I expected: We learn about his experiences in the work force and about his family with a lot of focus on his parents. I learned a lot about the industry and inhumane practices, about the poverty that so many immigrants struggle with and the unfair treatment of them by the citizens of a country that would not exist were it not for the many immigrants of the past and the present.
But the deeper I got into the story, the more I struggled with it. I found myself taking a lot of breaks from it and dreading coming back to it. The group of runners was not what I expected at all, especially with the name Peace and Dignity Journey. I loved learning about their rituals and thoughts of connecting with the land, but peace and dignity seemed far from their reality within the group itself. I also started to miss the deep reflections that I enjoyed at the beginning of the book when he spoke about the issues in society and with immigration. I do appreciate how personal he got about describing the way hunger, thirst and pain drove everybody to their limits, but at numerous times, that suffering just felt unnecessary when looking at it from the outside; the consequences of petty and immature behavior sometimes.
This might be an issue about incorrect expectations, but I was honestly expecting a book that would be inspirational and maybe even show us a way forward, but instead it was mostly depressing and I never really felt a sense of closure. Alvarez told us about the multiple degrees he completed after finishing the run, but I did not really see the point of getting those and spending hard earned money on them since it seems like he did not actually use them to his advantage. I do hope we get to hear more from him in the future and see where this experience takes him.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a title that I have been looking forward to for a while but am now struggling to organize my thoughts about. The blurb had me excited about learning about immigration and the First Nations/Native American movement from a new angle, connecting with the land through running. The beginning of the book was very much like I expected: We learn about his experiences in the work force and about his family with a lot of focus on his parents. I learned a lot about the industry and inhumane practices, about the poverty that so many immigrants struggle with and the unfair treatment of them by the citizens of a country that would not exist were it not for the many immigrants of the past and the present.
But the deeper I got into the story, the more I struggled with it. I found myself taking a lot of breaks from it and dreading coming back to it. The group of runners was not what I expected at all, especially with the name Peace and Dignity Journey. I loved learning about their rituals and thoughts of connecting with the land, but peace and dignity seemed far from their reality within the group itself. I also started to miss the deep reflections that I enjoyed at the beginning of the book when he spoke about the issues in society and with immigration. I do appreciate how personal he got about describing the way hunger, thirst and pain drove everybody to their limits, but at numerous times, that suffering just felt unnecessary when looking at it from the outside; the consequences of petty and immature behavior sometimes.
This might be an issue about incorrect expectations, but I was honestly expecting a book that would be inspirational and maybe even show us a way forward, but instead it was mostly depressing and I never really felt a sense of closure. Alvarez told us about the multiple degrees he completed after finishing the run, but I did not really see the point of getting those and spending hard earned money on them since it seems like he did not actually use them to his advantage. I do hope we get to hear more from him in the future and see where this experience takes him.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 3, 2021
I was fully prepared to love this book, and I am really disappointed that I didn't.
What I expected this book to be: a memoir of meeting all of these different people and interacting with all of these different cultures and learning about them. I thought this book would be a hard-hitting look at, well, the stolen lands of North America, perhaps with some hard takes on colonialism, marginalization of native peoples, etc. I expected to feel deeply about the other people on the run, to learn more about them and to connect in a way with their purposes and lives.
What I got: none of the above.
Don't get me wrong, there were some definitely poignant parts. I felt deeply for the relationships the author had for his parents, who were both Mexican immigrants and working themselves to the bone to provide good lives for their children. I think that these were the best part of the books.
Unfortunately, for running over five thousand miles and meeting lots of different indigenous peoples from lots of different cultures, these experiences were rarely discussed. I barely felt like I knew the other runners on the journey, and most of them came across as selfish jerks who wanted to bully the new people on the run to make themselves feel better. If someone wants to read a book that would heavily discourage them from ever taking part in this marathon, this is the book for them. Honestly, this run sounded like all sorts of a mess - disorganized, poorly planned, and with TONS of fighting and bullying.
This book is, well, brief. And I felt like I didn't get to know any of the others on the run, except perhaps the bullies.
Meh. I'm really disappointed in this book. It could have been many things, but in the end, I didn't feel like it accomplished much of anything.
What I expected this book to be: a memoir of meeting all of these different people and interacting with all of these different cultures and learning about them. I thought this book would be a hard-hitting look at, well, the stolen lands of North America, perhaps with some hard takes on colonialism, marginalization of native peoples, etc. I expected to feel deeply about the other people on the run, to learn more about them and to connect in a way with their purposes and lives.
What I got: none of the above.
Don't get me wrong, there were some definitely poignant parts. I felt deeply for the relationships the author had for his parents, who were both Mexican immigrants and working themselves to the bone to provide good lives for their children. I think that these were the best part of the books.
Unfortunately, for running over five thousand miles and meeting lots of different indigenous peoples from lots of different cultures, these experiences were rarely discussed. I barely felt like I knew the other runners on the journey, and most of them came across as selfish jerks who wanted to bully the new people on the run to make themselves feel better. If someone wants to read a book that would heavily discourage them from ever taking part in this marathon, this is the book for them. Honestly, this run sounded like all sorts of a mess - disorganized, poorly planned, and with TONS of fighting and bullying.
This book is, well, brief. And I felt like I didn't get to know any of the others on the run, except perhaps the bullies.
Meh. I'm really disappointed in this book. It could have been many things, but in the end, I didn't feel like it accomplished much of anything.
Read
March 21, 2020Noé Álvarez’s Spirit Run is a brief recounting if his marathon with other Indigenous runners in the Peace and Dignity Journeys, a run to pull together communities, to connect with the land, and to grow and heal as individuals while setting feet to the ground from Alaska to Panama. Set against the background of a childhood spent with his undocumented parents in Washington state in a community of labourers, and his eventual scholarship and entry into the hostile world of post-secondary education, Álvarez found the run at a crossroads in his life, and it clearly profoundly shaped him in so many ways. I most loved his description of himself on the land, truly what a journey. I also appreciated his honesty about some of the dysfunction and bullying on the journey - it was apparent that those experiences loomed large and are still unresolved for him. What was missing for me in the book was more of the relational piece between Álvarez and the other runners - who was he close to, and who were they as people?I think that this was probably somewhat limited by these being stories that were not Alvarez’s to tell, which I understand, but I wish that if the book hadn’t been able to go outwards to those that ran alongside him, that he had dug a bit deeper into his own emotional journey on the run. While the book brought me alive into what it means to truly appreciate the territories upon which we set our feet, I didn’t feel that I ever truly got to dig all the way into the soil of this book. Thank you @netgalley for the ARC, opinions are my own.
March 4, 2020
Spirit Run, a debut memoir by a gifted storyteller, is simultaneously harrowing and heartening. It is a narrative of pushing a body beyond the breaking point with fluid-filled knees the size of melons, knees that respond to their plight with knives of pain. It's a story of jogging loose new insights and old memories with each footfall. It exudes a strong sense of place, both the landscape to which he is anchored by childhood experience and those through which he passes on his mega-marathon of discovery as a young man. It delineates the struggle to accept and then celebrate one's wholeness, with all its authentic imperfections and perceived shortcomings. This memoir also gives those of us who grew up white and middle class insight into the damage to one's identity formation -- not to mention one's physical safety and bodily integrity -- incurred by growing up "other," whether from being a member of a non-dominant ethnic/racial group or the social underclass. Noé Alvarez is a gifted teacher as well as a skilled writer.
March 26, 2021
This is one of the only books that I have read cover to cover in a couple hours. His writing is absolutely amazing - I was not able to put it down.
However, I struggled with the fact that his experience was so negative on the run. I never felt like he came to any really significant breakthroughs or "ah-ha" moments during the run which was painful to witness. Additionally, it was sad to see how poor the comradery was between the runners - as well as how poorly he was treated by the senior members of the group.
As someone who is also from Washington and of Mexican heritage - I initially started off the book really inspired to do something similar to Alvarez as I also love running. But his entire experience seemed so negative that I felt completely disheartened to do anything like it by the end of the book.
Once again, the actual book was fantastic. But it made me sad to see that he is still running in search of himself many years later never was able to gain that sense of closure from what was supposed to be an enlightening journey.
However, I struggled with the fact that his experience was so negative on the run. I never felt like he came to any really significant breakthroughs or "ah-ha" moments during the run which was painful to witness. Additionally, it was sad to see how poor the comradery was between the runners - as well as how poorly he was treated by the senior members of the group.
As someone who is also from Washington and of Mexican heritage - I initially started off the book really inspired to do something similar to Alvarez as I also love running. But his entire experience seemed so negative that I felt completely disheartened to do anything like it by the end of the book.
Once again, the actual book was fantastic. But it made me sad to see that he is still running in search of himself many years later never was able to gain that sense of closure from what was supposed to be an enlightening journey.
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