decorative art on the Pan-African Connection website
Logo for the Pan-African Connection website

Pan-African Connection

Bookstore and Resource Center

The Undocumented Americans By Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

$26.00

Description

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.

SEE LESS
READ AN EXCERPT

Reviews

There are no reviews yet.

Be the first to review “The Undocumented Americans By Karla Cornejo Villavicencio”
100% secure checkout with Stripe and Paypal

Need to contact us about something? Reach out, we’d be happy to hear from you.

4466 S. Marsalis Ave
Dallas, TX 75216

Monday Closed
Tuesday 11AM–7PM
Wednesday 11AM–7PM
Thursday 11AM–7PM
Friday 11AM–7PM
Saturday 10AM–7PM
Sunday 1–5PM

Copyright 2022 Pan-African Connection Bookstore and Resource Center