The Jaguar's Children

Hector is a young Zapotec fleeing Mexico with friend Cesar, a biotech researcher. The two men pay to be smuggled across the border by unscrupulous "coyotes," concealed in the tightly sealed empty tank of a water truck packed with men, women and children. Abandoned by the smugglers in the desert, they are left to die, their only lifeline Cesar's phone. When Cesar slips into unconsciousness, Hector reaches out to the one name with an American code--AnniMac--which becomes his lifeline to the world as he reveals what has brought him to this place, taking us back to an older Mexico; to the lives of his Zapotec grandparents and their traditions; to the mystery behind the jaguar icon left to him by a mysterious archeologist; and to the power of the ancient corn myth. As legends fuse with the terrifying present, the dangers Cesar is fleeing become grippingly apparent: his research was threatening to expose the country's largest manufacturer of genetically modified corn, set to impose economic and cultural genocide on the native population. Finding the courage to survive is critical, even as hope dwindles.