The Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama is the only stretch of the Pan-American Highway that is not a highway. Instead, it is a dangerous area of jungle filled with swamps, wildlife and rivers. It is also a major part one of the world’s migration routes. This means that the area is made extra dangerous due to criminal gangs, traffickers and other human predators populate and profit from those who traverse it. A late friend of mine used to hitchhike and hustle rides from California to Brazil every winter in the late 1970s and 1980s. When he talked about his journeys, he always mentioned this stretch of land as the one place he would take a boat; sometimes he had the money to pay for a spot and other times he would convince a boat captain to hire him on for a week or two as long as was able to get to the other side of the Darien Gap. Needless to say, his tales told of adventures well outside middle America’s experience and comfort zone.

Journalist Belén Fernández’s new book, The Darién Gap: A Reporter’s Journey through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas, is also a tale of adventures well outside of middle America’s experience and comfort zone. It’s also a critique of the role US capitalism plays in maintaining, exploiting and intensifying migration from South America to its neighboring continent to the north. Indeed, Fernández’s reportage makes it quite clear that the main........

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