Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land

In this New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, 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 , Secw pemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O'odham, Seri, Pur pecha, 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 fear--dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion--but 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, and--against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit--the dream of a liberated future.

Author: Noe Alvarez
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 03/02/2021
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.80d
ISBN13: 9781646220533
ISBN10: 1646220536
BISAC Categories:
- Biography & Autobiography | Adventurers & Explorers
- Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional | Indigenous
- Sports & Recreation | Running & Jogging

About the Author
NOÉ ÁLVAREZ was born to Mexican immigrant parents and raised working-class in Yakima, Washington. He holds degrees in philosophy and creative writing from Whitman College and Emerson College, respectively. He studied conflict analysis, peacemaking, and conflict resolution at American University and in Northern Ireland, received a fellowship at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, and researched U.S. drug policy, military aid, and human rights issues in Colombia's Putumayo jungles. He lives in Boston, where, until recently, he worked as a security officer at the Boston Athenæum.