Spirit run : a 6,000-mile marathon through North America's stolen land / Noé Álvarez.

Warehouse white noise -- The "Palm Springs of Washington" -- Ganas in Carver Country -- Getting out -- Walla Walla walkabouts -- Cold feet -- The arrival -- Tree noodles -- "Indian time" -- La Cruz de Campos -- Glacier dip -- Washington gray -- Goldendale -- An X-Man -- Apache medicine -- Cougar country -- City-slicker natives -- Tlaloc in L.A. -- Southern fire -- Main in the maze -- Running the wrong way -- The devil's coffin -- El chapito -- Deer runners -- Chihuahua -- Touch of treasure -- The rebirth story -- Nayarit -- Mangoes -- Santo coyote -- Hardware store -- Weaving words -- The flying men of Teotihuac⡮ -- Descending eagle -- Oaxaca -- Zapatistas : rebel country -- Acteal -- Guatemala -- Old orchard -- Today.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez 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, Álvarez 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 Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O'odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez 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, Álvarez 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.