NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST - One of the first undocumented
immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her
fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and
groundbreaking portrait of a nation.
"Karla's
book sheds light on people's personal experiences and allows their
stories to be told and their voices to be heard."--Selena Gomez
Writer Karla Cornejo
Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being
undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right
after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she'd
tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she
wrote her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand in Sharpie
and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her
fellow undocumented immigrants--and to find the hidden key to her
own.
Looking beyond the
flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo
Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented--and the
mysteries of her own life. She finds the singular, effervescent
characters across the nation often reduced in the media to political
pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential
or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak,
insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her
subjects.
In New York, we meet
the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded
Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous
botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose
status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint,
Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive
life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio,
childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father
is in sanctuary. And through it all we see the author grappling with
the biggest questions of love, duty, family, and survival.
In her incandescent,
relentlessly probing voice, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio combines
sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to
light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through
these stories we come to understand what it truly means to be a
stray. An expendable. A hero. An American.