Concrete martyr. (Political Booknotes).

THE SHORT SWEET DREAM OF EDUARDO GUTIERREZ by Jimmy Breslin Crown Publishing, $22.00

THE STREAM OF MEXICAN workers flowing over America's southern border has always caused mixed reactions among U.S. citizens. As part of a nation of immigrants, many Americans have expressed deep sympathy for the plight of poor, illegal aliens and strongly believe in their right to work hard for a better life within our borders. On the other extreme, some have greeted their arrival with the panic and fear illustrated by the ranting Patrick Buchanan, who views the foreign-born population as a cultural challenge, if not an outright crisis. But generally, the most common reaction produced by the millions of illegal Mexican workers now living among us is: nothing. They remain largely invisible, cleaning our pools and building our Wal-Marts, but their stories remain unknown and mostly ignored.

In his new book, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, Jimmy Breslin has attempted to change all that by putting a face on the country's estimated 8.5 million illegal immigrants. The Pulitzer-winning Newsday columnist's latest offering got its start in late November 1999, when a 21-year-old Mexican construction worker, Tomas Eduardo Daniel Gutierrez, died when a building he was working on collapsed and he plunged, headfirst, three stories to drown in a pool of concrete.

Gutierrez's death caused a minor media flurry and was just as soon forgotten. Breslin, at work in his Newsday office, heard of the incident and immediately recalled Pietro di Donato's novel Christ in Concrete, a 1939 cult classic about an Italian immigrant laborer crushed slowly to death in a construction accident. Breslin was struck by the similarities and rushed to the scene. Gutierrez became Breslin's near-forgotten martyr, rescued from obscurity to symbolize the struggle of an invisible workforce, demonized by lawmakers yet fueling the American economy with its cheap labor.

The famous Irish-American newspaperman, renowned for his interview with John Kennedy's gravedigger, reconstructs Gutierrez's life, describing the dangerous passage he made from the dusty and impoverished town of San Matias in central Mexico to a Brighton Beach apartment sardine-packed with Mexican expatriates. The account of Gutierrez's life, painstakingly pieced together, begins with a childhood spent dreaming of America's riches and ends with a casket flown back to his family.

In telling Gutierrez's story, Breslin presents a scathing critique of a flawed system in which a corrupt builder, son of a Hasidic rabbi, is allowed to continue his construction projects, despite repeated mishaps, thanks to his fundraising ties to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. This longstanding alliance between the New York political establishment and the Hasidic community, which traded some of its political support for the blind eye of the building inspector, is what ultimately brought about Gutierrez's death.

While Breslin is at his best describing the tragedy inherent in illegal immigration, he is less effective in suggesting what should be done about it. He convincingly argues that attempting to halt the thousands of Mexicans who undertake the treacherous journey every day is "utter foolishness." But while an open border seems markedly in accordance with the free-market ideas of the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing such unregulated movement of labor creates a host of problems that Breslin fails to address. Breslin also tends to lose himself in details, devoting entire sections to skin pigmentation, the perils and profits of drug trafficking, and the political rise and Mafia connections of Giuliani. These tangential sections add color to the story, but just as often leave the reader bogged down in seemingly unrelated diatribes. Breslin's cold fury seems to leave no stone unturned; perhaps some were better left in place.

While Breslin was writing his book, President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox were in the midst of discussions about granting legal status to many undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as well as loosening border restrictions. Bush's amnesty proposal would have given Mexican workers legal residence, letting them demand higher wages, freedom to return to visit their families in Mexico, and eventually to receive the benefits of the Social Security fund to which many of them contribute. Then came September 11, and the idea was hastily pushed off the table. Breslin's book serves as a needed reminder that the issue cannot--and should not--be ignored for long.

AVISHAY ARTSY is a Washington Monthly intern.