There were a lot of great choices on the New Nonfiction shelf at the library during my last trip, but the first thing that ended up in my bag was How Does It Feel to Be Unwanted?: Stories of Resistance and Resilience from Mexicans Living in the United States by Eileen Truax. It's a timely, important read that will expand your knowledge of why so many of our neighbors to the south come here to live and work, why they need to, and the difficulties they face everyday regardless of their immigration status.
Each chapter is dedicated to two or three people who live in the United States who were either born in Mexico or born in the US to parents who were born in Mexico. You'll get to know labor organizers, translators and interpreters, business owners, asylum seekers, US college graduates who can't legally work here, a high ranking police officer, and even a practicing lawyer who remains undocumented. There are stories of triumph, to be sure, but the overall sentiment is more of frustration, anger, and occasionally heartbreak, as in the case of Cirila Balthazar Cruz, who had her newborn daughter taken away from her and placed in foster care, solely because she spoke no English.
Another example:
'In Texas, there have been documented cases of agents stopping ambulances to check the immigration statuses of patients. In 2015, the New York Times reported an account of a Brownsville pediatrician who stated that a child had died en route to Corpus Christi and the parents had not accompanied him because they were undocumented and were afraid to cross at the checkpoint.'
Heartbreaking. And so utterly unnecessary.
Just as Helen Thorpe does in Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, Ms. Truax expounds the complications of mixed-status families, where some members have legal status and others don't. Nine million people in the US share this uniquely frustrating situation, some with no hope of improving their circumstances, living in fear that they or their families will be deported at any point in time and the family member or members with legal status will be left to fend for themselves (as happened to Diane Guerrero, whom you might recognize from such shows as Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin. She details her life story in the book In the Country We Love: My Family Divided). These are agonizing situations, and far too often, there's no good solution for these families. Sometimes there's no solution at all.
This is a heavy book. And if it's heavy to just read, imagine what it's like to live it. Imagine what it's like to flee the country of your birth, of your culture, your language, and your history, because your husband has been kidnapped not just once but multiple times, traveling to the only safe place that offers you opportunity, only to have every door slammed in your face and to hear that you're nothing but a rapist and murderer from that place's president, of all people- even though it was the rapists and murderers you were fleeing. Imagine working 72 hours a week on your feet, only to be called lazy and greedy by people who refuse to even try to understand what you've been through. Imagine the fear you would feel if at any moment, you could be sent to live in a place you don't even remember being, a place where you don't even speak the language. Imagine being a child and having to grow up with the fear of one or both of your parents being sent away; imagine what that would do to your ability to learn, to focus in school. Imagine knowing that even if you've lived 17 of your 18 years in one country, you've gotten straight A's in school, you've earned a perfect SAT score and have unlimited potential for success, that country still doesn't want you. This book, along with the two others I've linked to in this post, will further your appreciation for what Mexican immigrants live with.
I don't think I can do justice to a book like this in such a short review; it's such a necessary read in these terrible times. I'll never fully understand the depth of the struggles faced by the people from Mexico who choose to seek a better life here. For all its issues, my life has been a privileged one; my parents never came close to having to contemplate leaving the country in which they were born. But I'll always keep trying and adding to my understanding; these days, compassion and understanding are imperative, and it's only through embracing not only our own humanity but that of our neighbors- ALL our neighbors- will we truly become that shining city on a hill.
I don't think I can do justice to a book like this in such a short review; it's such a necessary read in these terrible times. I'll never fully understand the depth of the struggles faced by the people from Mexico who choose to seek a better life here. For all its issues, my life has been a privileged one; my parents never came close to having to contemplate leaving the country in which they were born. But I'll always keep trying and adding to my understanding; these days, compassion and understanding are imperative, and it's only through embracing not only our own humanity but that of our neighbors- ALL our neighbors- will we truly become that shining city on a hill.
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