num_pages: 240
description: 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 No lvarez 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 lvarez 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 Den Secwpemc Gitxsan Dakelh Apache Tohono Oodham Seri Purpecha and Maya runners all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own lvarez 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 feardangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lionbut 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 lvarez forges a new relationship with the land and with the act of running carrying with him the knowledge of his parents migration andagainst all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spiritthe dream of a liberated future.
language: English
title: Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land
publisher: Catapult