Where are voices of our immigrants?

When Francisco Cantú, author of the new book “The Line Becomes a River,” joined the Border Patrol in 2008, his mother asked him what on earth he was thinking.

“It’s a paramilitary police force,” his mother, who’s the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, says in the book.

Her young, idealistic son responds: “Think of it as another part of my education.”

Considering the protests, threats, and general fury Cantú’s book appearances have provoked in the Bay Area and around the country, it’s safe to say that his education is very much ongoing.

On Feb. 19, Cantú was scheduled to give a reading at Green Apple Books on the Park in San Francisco. On Feb. 20, he was scheduled to give a reading at East Bay Booksellers in Oakland.

In the days and weeks beforehand, employees at both bookstores reported receiving furious emails, tweets and phone calls from pro-immigration activists, writers, and citizens who didn’t want a former Border Patrol agent (Cantú left the force in 2012) to have a sympathetic platform for his work. Activists had disrupted two of his previous events, in Pittsburgh and Austin, Texas.

This left the local bookstores in a bind.

On the one hand, as East Bay Booksellers owner Brad Johnson said, “It’s not on us to set the terms of the discussion.”

On the other hand, they had to consider the sentiments of the community, the safety and concerns of their employees, and the reality that — in today’s impossible political climate — we’re all responsible for setting the terms of the discussion.

Green Apple Books on the Park chose to hire security for the Feb. 19 event. They turned it into a “signing” event, instead of a reading, where Cantú would speak individually to participants about their concerns.

When I showed up around 7:25 p.m., none of the two dozen or so curious bystanders was speaking to Cantú. Everyone was all waiting, somewhat grimly, for the main event.

At 7:30 p.m. a group of about a dozen people strode into the store. They stood in a large circle and began to read stories: there were stories of migrant abuse at the hands of the Border Patrol, stories about unarmed African Americans who died at the hands of law enforcement, stories about a minor character in Cantú’s book, who the activists said had a different life than the one depicted.

One of the activists shouted at Cantú, who stood in the circle with them. After about 15 minutes of their stories, he crouched in a squat, near the floor, and remained there until the end.

When they were finished reading, the activists passed out a fact sheet from No More Deaths, a human rights organization in Arizona.

I walked up and asked if they were with an organization.

One man spoke to me: “We’re just anti-racist activists,” he said. “There’s no organization.”

I asked if anyone was willing to give me their name. No.

When they left the bookstore, they knocked over a shelf of books and told Cantú not to show up in Oakland. (East Bay Booksellers, which canceled the event, will host a panel about border violence in the weeks to come.)

All of this for a book which — whatever you think of its author — is in no way anti-immigrant.

“I stand with migrants,” Cantú told me. “This book is not a defense of the Border Patrol. I was trying to understand the issue more deeply. Violence was normalized in that work. You very quickly forget who you are. I hope the book leaves enough space for the reader to make their own decisions.”

Having read “The Line Becomes a River,” I can tell you that it doesn’t leave one with the sense of the righteousness of U.S. immigration policy or the institution of the Border Patrol.

“The Line Becomes a River” isn’t “Scarface,” it’s “Serpico.”

Cantú describes the desperation and dehumanization of the migrants he encounters. He describes the Border Patrol’s ugly actions (among other things, he confirms news reports that agents destroy migrants’ food and water in the desert). He describes his own psychological unraveling at the ways he has perpetuated injustice. By the end of the book, he has left the force and is working to help the family of an undocumented friend.

“I thought I’d face criticism from the right,” Cantú said. “Instead, it’s been from the left.”

It would be so easy, and so lazy, for me to condemn the activists. I could say they were attacking the wrong people (which is true), and to say they need to focus their energies on ICE, Congress and all the others who are harming immigrants in this moment (which is also true).

For there is one point on which the activists are absolutely correct — it’s still shockingly rare to hear the voices of the undocumented immigrants who are most affected by our policies. With few exceptions, they don’t get the chance to publish books, to give readings, to explore their conflicted feelings in front of an audience.

Yet the overwhelming feelings I left the event with were grief, sadness and uncertainty.

I would like to believe we’re not powerless to stop the country’s dark, anti-immigrant turn. What I saw on Feb. 19 makes me wonder.

Caille Millner’s column appears Saturdays in Datebook.