The Guardians (2007) is a novel by Ana Castillo, a major voice within Chicana literature. Castillo received an American Book Award for her first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986), and has since published many works of critically acclaimed fiction, essays, and poetry including Sapogonia: An Anti-Romance in 3/8 Meter (1990) and So Far From God (1993). Castillo is best known for an experimental, genre-bending writing style and for her contribution to Chicana feminism, which she termed “Xicanisma.” Castillo’s works explore the intersection of gender, social, racial, and environmental justice through their depictions of everyday life in Mexican American communities. In The Guardians, she analyzes the US-Mexico Borderlands region’s complex politics of identity, and her writing evidences insight into the way that Indigenous, colonial (Hispanic), and Anglo (white) traditions have shaped the experiences of and interactions among the area’s population groups. Like much of her writing, The Guardians delves deeply into themes related to immigration, identity, religion, family, community, and belonging and evidences a commitment to depicting social and environmental activism in the Borderlands.

This guide refers to the 2008 paperback edition published by Random House.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss sexual assault, abduction and human trafficking, murder, torture, and femicide. Additionally, the source text contains dated language for Indigenous peoples.

Plot Summary

In chapters that alternate between passages narrated by Regina, Gabo, Miguel Betancourt, and El Abuelo Milton, Castillo tells the story of Regina and her nephew Gabo, residents of the fictional New Mexico hamlet Cabuche, which is nestled in the Franklin Mountains just north of the US-Mexico border. At the beginning of the novel, Regina is a teacher’s aide in a local school and is raising Gabo. Their family is scattered throughout Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico, and many of the characters in the novel have crossed the US-Mexico border multiple times. Regina crossed many years ago and went through the process of getting her “papers.” Gabo and his father, Rafa, have spent more time in Mexico than in the US, and they are not yet legally allowed to live in America. Gabo lost his mother to a failed border crossing several years prior and still mourns her death. His father, who recently attempted to re-cross the border, has gone missing, and the family fears that he has fallen victim to violence within the cartel he hired to guide him across the border.

Gabo is 15 years old, is devoutly religious, and recently decided to enter the priesthood upon graduating high school. He is kind and conscientious and does well in all his classes. Regina knows that Gabo is worried about his father, and when she receives a call from the coyote who smuggled Rafa across the border demanding money for his release, she enlists the help of her friend and colleague Miguel to find him. Miguel determines the address of the coyote, and the two set off to demand answers. The coyote refuses to reveal any information, and the two leave without any of their questions being answered.

At school, Gabo befriends Jesse, who is connected to a local gang with ties to the Mexican cartel that Regina thinks might be involved in Rafa’s disappearance. She and Miguel reach out to Abuelo Milton, who has lived in El Paso for much of his life and has friends on both sides of the border. The three of them continue to try to find Rafa, but unbeknownst to Regina, Gabo is also looking. Through Jesse, he meets Tiny Tears and El Toro, other members of the local Los Palominos gang. They go to see the same coyotes whom Regina and Miguel visited but find out nothing. Afterward, Gabo is picked up by the police along with El Toro. He lies to the officers so that he will be released into El Abuelo Milton’s custody rather than his aunt Regina’s.

Against the backdrop of a still-unsuccessful search for Rafa, Miguel’s ex-wife, Crucita, goes missing. She is one of many women who has disappeared recently in and around the border area between Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. Law enforcement’s resources have been stretched thin by this epidemic of disappearances and femicides, and Regina, Miguel, and El Abuelo Milton realize that they must find Crucita themselves. They are sure that the same group is responsible for both Rafa’s and Crucita’s disappearances, and they continue to comb the area’s underworld for clues and information.

In a dramatic conclusion, the police, Regina and Miguel, Gabo, and several Los Palominos gang members converge upon the coyote’s house. There, they find Crucita and Gabo’s friend Tiny Tears being held captive in the home. Tiny Tears, who, along with Crucita, has spent the past month drugged and subjected to sexual abuse, fatally stabs Gabo with a broken shard of glass. Tiny Tears and the coyotes are arrested and tried, and Regina learns that they killed Rafa. She also finds out that Tiny Tears recently gave birth to an infant whom no one in her family wants, and she decides to raise the baby herself. She christens her Gabriela after her slain nephew Gabo, and she hopes that she can stop the cycle of violence for Gabriela.