Pick Up The Undocumented Americans Conceived By Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Distributed In Digital Version

you to the publisher for the free review copy

“I am not a journalist, Journalists are not allowed to get involved the way I have gotten involved, Journalists, to the best of my knowledge, do not try to change the outcome of their stories as crudely as I do, I send water. I fight with immigration lawyers, I raise money. I make arrangements with supernatural spirits to stop deportations, I try to solve shit the way an immigrants kids try to solve shit for their parent because these people are all my parents, I am their child, if I wasnt their childand I was their childI should be patented and massproduced and distributed to undocumented immigrants at Walmarts.
I am a professional immigrants daughter, ”

The United States makes life impossibly hard for undocumented immigrants, Either you will be familiar with these challenges and see yourself or your family and friends in these pages or you will be enlightened to the reality that many face.


Getting a drivers license in some states, health insurance, obtaining clean water, facing the threat of being deported at any moment, being able to retire with dignity or having any financial safety net are just some of the daily struggles that this book shines a light on.


Karla, one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard, gives a piece of herself to each of the people she interviews, and to readers of this book.
You can feel her exhaustion and rage in each page, She has created something here that is really special,

An incredible, unforgettable /book, Preorder, read, and share this book as much as you can,
Best book in this new month ofthat I have read, Brilliant, sharp writer. Funny, edgy, quick, irreverent, and conflicted,

Sharp, incisive, piercing points, Dazzling.

For example, that there could be brown Latinx whose loss was way more personal than for a white person, but simply is not culturally acceptable.
Youll have to read for yourself,

Or the super heartbreaking vignette of drowned homeless who tried to save a squirrel or chipmunk, . . the humane face of the marginalized,

Peter, Javier all stand out for me, As well as her own complex history, Did she ever say at what age exactly she left Ecuador Her maternal great grandmother saved her mother, and the irony of her own grandmother saving her.


Does a great job in showing how there

is no clearcut, black and white at viewing this very very prescient topic.
They arent a bill number these are human beings,

I too thank the however many benefactors she had, all of whom helped catapult her to Harvard and Yale, In her introduction to The Undocumented Americans Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes:

On the night of thepresidential election, I spent a long time deciding what to wearI wore a burgundy velvet dress with a sheer lace paneling, a ribbon in my hair, and a leopard print faux fur coat over my shouldersI would not be ushered to an internment camp in sweatpants.


Cornejo Villavicencios book is both political and highly personal, mixing memoir with her collected stories of other undocumented Americans like herself.
She claims she is not a journalist, writing Im no Ronan Farrow but her reporting journalistic or not is excellent and committed, taking a different path from many that have been explored since Trumps election.
Her stories are not focused on the border crisis, Instead she interviewed undocumented Americans who did/cleanup, those dealing with the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, those seeking alternative medication for uninsured illnesses, and the ageing population, beaten down from years of manual labor, and facing a future without health benefits, social security although many paid into it and little to no savings.
There are stories of hope and love, but many of the stories are heartbreaking, resulting in my feeling not only sad but angry.
In the end, however, it is Cornejo Villavicencios winning voice that makes this book so special, She is vulnerable, empathetic, often funny and, well, a little kick ass, My only criticism is the book is slim, I wanted more and was not ready to part with the author,

Soreturning to the Introduction, Cornejo Villavicencio concludes with:

y hermanxs, its time to fuck some shit up,

I think she accomplished that, in her own unique way,



edit: after reading and reviewing this yesterday I came across Louise Erdrich's GR blog of the book, I love and respect Erdrich so I'm sharing, A better review than I could ever possibly write, sitelink goodreads. com/authorblog The parts of this book that are actual research and facts and stories about undocumented Americans are very interesting, but interwoven into it seems to be the memoir of an angry, immature, self aggrandizing narrator.
The narration swings from rage to entitlement to bravado it seems willing to call anything a micro aggression ie, the complaint that Mexicans have to dialto call home from the US otherizes them Please.
After reading the introduction I just couldnt take this book seriously, and unfortunately reading the first third did not redeem it, Powerful work of new journalism, Highly recommended. I'll be honest and tell you that I read American Dirt earlier this year and fell victim to the The Undocumented Americans's sensationalized storyline.
Sometimes as a white man, I don't understand my privilege as much as I should due to also being a gay man, When I heard that Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was coming out with a nonfiction book with real life accounts of undocumented people sharing their journey and struggles, I knew that I wanted to read these stories.
As a New Yorker, I tend to believe that my ideals tend to gravitate towards more accepting and sympathetic when it comes to the topic of America's undocumented population, but I know that no matter what I believe, I still need to learn more.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio doesn't have all the answers in The Undocumented Americans and she doesn't claim to have them.
This book is unapologetic, raw, and compassionate, I read it in one sitting, There are so much love and eloquence in this discourse which the author exposes the injustice and discrimination of undocumented Americans,

The United States has always had a complicated, dependant, and abusive relationship with its southern neighbors, especially in the current political climate.
Its treatment of those who chose to cross the border for asylum or better opportunities is unsympathetic and vulgar,

This novel seeks to break the popular and very false stereotypes of South Americans being lazy and stealing Americans jobs, In reality, they often work very hard, with minimal pay, doing jobs that no other Americans want to do, And yet, they have to deal with condescending attitudes as if being born in a different geographical location makes them less of a person.
Without proper papers, undocumented Americans live in constant fear of deportation, They do not receive social resources despite contributing to society,

The author documented two national disasters in recent memory from the perspective of undocumented Americans: The/attack and the Flint water crisis.
It is heartbreaking to learn that undocumented Americans who risk their own lives during the attack on the twin towers are denied social and health services and resources.
In Flint, when auto manufacturers stopped production because the water quality was so bad it would erode machine parts, citizens who drink the water every day were the last to find out.
The public notices do not take into account the actual demographic, and some people only found out when they talked to their families in Mexico on the phone.
There will always be a double disadvantage for documented Americans in difficult times, Their status made them especially vulnerable because they could not receive help and resources as members of society,

The US has a history of ingrained racial divide, not only with its neighbor in the south but also with its AfricanAmerican population and recently China.
Discrimination and exclusion create problems in societies that affects everyone, Understanding undocumented Americans start with understanding their plight and sharing their voices, It could be the first step to improving the lives of citizens,

This piece of writing is most eloquent and persuasive and belies the discordance in the authors identity and experience of being a Harvard graduate and paperless at the same time.
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