An important read, sharing first-person accounts about living undocumented in the U.S., but I was so stressed out by the hardships, injustice, and worries these individuals have experienced. This book gave me nightmares. The intro by editor Orner and foreward by Urrea emphasize giving a voice to people who are constantly talked about but who are rarely asked for their opinions. ( )

This book experienced a longggg delay between purchase and consumption. Although it was a seriously heavy / depressing read in a lot of ways, I'm glad I finally read it. The opening paragraph of the foreword (by Luis Alberto Urrea) does an excellent job at summarizing why:

"Undocumented immigrants have no way to tell you what they have experienced, or why, or who they are, or what they think. They are, by the very nature of their experience, invisible. Most of us pass them by-- some of us might say a prayer for them, some of us wish they would return to their countries of origin. But nobody asks them what they think. Nobody stops and simply asks."

There's a lot of truth in that, and I think it happens in part because it's easier not to know. There is a lot of human depravity and cruelty recounted in the anthology, and many narratives illustrate how broken our immigration system currently is. If anything, though, I feel like that makes it even more of a moral imperative to listen to those stories. Trying to become less ignorant regarding other people's hardships seems like the very least that I can do.

Anyway, regarding the book itself, it is a very well put together anthology. It was published in 2008, and I wish there was some way to find out what has happened since then in some of the narrators' lives, since you end up fairly invested in some stories. I do have two minor quibbles. The book very heavily favors the narratives of Latin American immigrants-- I think 3 out of the 16 long-form narrators were from the Americas. This may have been to represent the relative proportions of undocumented persons in the US (if that even works out math-wise), but it would have been interesting to hear a few other perspectives as well. The short-form narratives included after every two long-form narratives also occasionally weakened the anthology. Some were just a bit less effective on a narrative basis; in the case of the final one, I feel like it made for a less effective ending to the anthology as a whole. The last two long-form stories are from the perspective of a mother and daughter (who arrived in the US at 2 months and was then 17 years old), and their narratives would have made for a thoughtful and even hopeful ending note to the anthology. Instead, though, they're followed by one of the weaker short-form pieces, and it's just kind of 'oh.' ( )

This is a brilliant first-hand account of illegal immigrants living in America and the human rights violations they have to endure. I constantly found myself appalled at each story - amazed at the abuses these people are forced to undergo.

A must-read for ANY person currently living in the US, and a good read for those from other countries as well. Very eye-opening. ( )