They were a hard-working family that wanted to make an honest living for themselves and their future generations; yet, for the Aplin family, their desire to live out the American Dream was anything but times of happiness. In the new book, A Prey for the Enemy, author Annie Aplin recounts the tragic saga to befall her family when they took part in the seafood industry in small town, Seadrift, Texas. After a tornado devastated the family farm in Georgia, the Aplins and their seven children decided to enter the seafood industry in Florida. Noticing the seafood market was better in Texas, the family moved to Seadrift and saw their investment in the market thrive. That is until they dealt with the massive influx of Vietnamese fisherman after the fall of Saigon. Tensions continued as the family noticed, and even caught, the fisherman stealing out of the family’s traps, but the struggle took a fatal turn when six fishermen shot and killed Annie’s brother, Billy Joe, after he confronted them about their threatening actions toward the family. Six months later, after even more threats were sent to the family, Annie’s sister and brother-in-law, Josie and Dale, turned up missing and were later found dead. One would think that such clear, malicious actions would be properly punished by the government, but the Aplin family found the opposite happen, as the local government said there was nothing they could do and the media portrayed their story with lies and deceit. A Prey for the Enemy is Annie’s call to action to the government and American citizens everywhere that what happened forty-one years ago, in 1979, shouldn’t continue to happen today. Yet it still does, and Annie still fights for justice and change to happen for immigration laws and regulations so her family didn’t die in vain.
