Hi, join me as I read The Migrating Warblers. The titular birds have just returned to Texas from their migration in Guatemala. When they return, they relate tales of Central America that they find to be scandalous or gruesome. They recount their experiences in a sort of mangled language that disrespects the region from which they've just returned. The yellow warbler would often claim that she was fine until she hit Brownsville. “Then—wham!” she’d tell her friends. “I don’t know if it’s the air or what, but whenever we pass it on our migration, I have to stop and puke my guts out.” “Indeed she does,” her husband would say, laughing. “An hour or two’s rest is all I need, but isn’t it strange? Not Olmito or Bayview or Indian Lake, but Brownsville. Brownsville every time.” The birds she was talking to would try to sound sympathetic or, at the very least, interested. “Hmmmm,” they’d say, or, “Brownsville, I think I have a cousin there.” From the southern tip of Texas, the couple would fly over Mexico and then into Central America. “My family’s been wintering in Guatemala for as long as I can remember,” the warbler would explain. “Every year, like clockwork, here we come by the tens of thousands—but do you think any of those Spanish- speaking birds have bothered learning English? Not on your life!” “It’s really horrible,” her husband would say. “Well, funny too,” his wife would insist.