The Undocumented Americans

By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.

“Karla’s book sheds light on people’s personal experiences and allows their stories to be told and their voices to be heard.”—Selena Gomez

FINALIST FOR THE NBCC JOHN LEONARD AWARD • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, NPR, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOOK RIOT, LIBRARY JOURNAL, AND TIME

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 health-care 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.

©2020 Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Punk and dazzling and remarkably human . . . like watching firecrackers go off.”—Jia Tolentino

“Brilliant, vivid, tender, furious.”—Louise Erdrich

“A scream and a song . . . a complex, human look at the fabric of this nation.”—Quiara Alegría Hudes

Brilliant, intense, heartbreaking and powerful

Karla wrote her story and her communities stories on her own terms. This is not your typical American Dream or Ivy League story. It is her story of healing, trauma, and survival. It is the story of the people so many refuse to look in the eye and humanize.

Wow

I really enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, cry and boy, it got me super angry. America is allll sorts of messed up. So many people need to read this book.

Required Reading

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio tears the roof off of our damaged preconceptions about undocumented individuals and families in the U.S., revealing the necessary truth and humanity behind real, whole, complicated, neither good nor bad, people. To understand the country we live in, you must understand these stories. "The Undocumented Americans" is required reading for ALL "Americans".

😭

I never write audible reviews, but this book hit me so hard and I cried so many times listening to Karla Cornejo Villavicencio that I needed to share. This is a must-read for any Latinx, any child of immigrants, and maybe even for any American who knows an immigrant.

Open your ears and your mind.

Was good to hear the perspectives of immigrants. They are people, not commodities or parasites.

poignant and impossible to forget

it all hit hard. incredible writing, powerful reflections. I took notes. you should too.

The real deal

Moving, inspiring, catalyzing. This book, it's story, emboldened my activist work on matters of immigration.

Outstanding work of nonfiction

I don't think I've ever read any nonfiction book as vulnerable and raw as this one. I highly recommend it.

Excellent Read

The writing in this book is phenomenal! I also love that it’s read by the author!

So much yes

Reminds me of my mom an how I feel about the struggles of this “dream”