Jason De León authors book on human smuggling

Soldiers and Kings, Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling, Viking Press, is the latest book authored by Jason De León, director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and professor of anthropology and chicana/o and Central American studies at UCLA.  

Described as “an intense, intimate and first-of-its-kind look at the world of human smuggling in Latin America,” the book is a “heart-wrenching and intimate narrative that revolves around the life and death of one coyote who falls in love and tries to leave smuggling behind.” While doing his research, De León was embedded with a group of smugglers moving migrants across Mexico over the course of seven years. 

De León is executive director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and a 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. 

According to a review in The New York Times, “much of (the book) is devoted to strikingly candid oral history.” The book is available on all major platforms and is available as an audiobook read by De León.