The release date for the English version of 'The Undocumented Americans' by
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is Mar 2020. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
In this intimate and ground-breaking depiction of a country, one of the first illegal immigrants to graduate from Harvard unveils the secret lives of her fellow undocumented Americans.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, a writer, chose to write under her own name about her first experience of being illegal when she was on DACA. She came to the realisation that the tale she had been trying to avoid telling was the only one she wanted to tell shortly after the 2016 election. She then used a Sharpie to write her immigration lawyer's phone number on her hand before setting off on a cross-country journey to share the experiences of other undocumented immigrants and discover the secret to her own.
Beyond the border's flashpoints and the DREAMers' agitation, Cornejo Villavicencio delves into the lives of the undocumented and the uncertainties surrounding her own identity. She discovers that the country's unique, vibrant people are often degraded in the media to the status of anonymous workers or political pawns. Her tales depict the love, enchantment, heartache, craziness, and vulgarity that permeate her people' daily life rather than being submissive or naively uplifting.
We meet the illegal labourers in New York who were hired to help clean up Ground Zero after 9/11 with government funding. We visit Miami's omnipresent botanicas, which provide therapeutic plants and potions to those whose health care alternatives are restricted by their status. We hear about requests for state identification in Flint, Michigan, in order to get life-saving clean water. Having chosen not to have children, Cornejo Villavicencio in Connecticut finds family in two adolescent girls whose father is in a refuge. And throughout it all, the author is seen debating the most important issues related to survival, love, responsibility, and family.
Cornejo Villavicencio blends sensitive reporting and compelling human anecdotes in her blazing, constantly probing voice to reveal incredible tales of resiliency, lunacy, and death. We learn the true meaning of what it means to be a stray from these tales. a temporary item. An hero. an American national.