The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life

by Lauren Markham

The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California—fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong.“Impeccably timed, intimately reported, and beautifully expressed.”—The New York TimesNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR BOOK PRIZE • SILVER WINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDGrowing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores—until, at age seventeen, a deadly threat from the region’s brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home they’ve ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, CA. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of teenage life with only each other for support. With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience.FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/BOGRAD WELD PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY“[This] beautifully written book . . . can be read as a supplement to the current news, a chronicle of the problems that Central Americans are fleeing and the horrors they suffer in flight. But it transcends the crisis. Markham’s deep, frank reporting is also useful in thinking ahead to the challenges of assimilation, for the struggling twins and many others like them. . . . Her reporting is intimate and detailed, and her tone is a special pleasure. Trustworthy, calm, decent, it offers refuge from a world consumed by Twitter screeds and cable news demagogues. . . . A generous book for an ungenerous age.”—Jason DeParle, The New York Review of Books“You should read The Far Away Brothers. We all should.”—NPR“This is the sort of news that is the opposite of fake. . . . Markham is our knowing, compassionate ally, our guide in sorting out, up close, how our new national immigration policy is playing out from a human perspective. . . . An important book.”—The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Book Club, Politics, Memoir, Audiobook, Adult

297 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 12, 2017

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another timely read. Two seventeen years old young men, twins from ElSalvador, part of a large, rather poor family, find they are in danger, marked for death. Gangs are notorious, one joins or one lives in fear. Hiding in their house is only a temporary answer. Their older brother, is already illegally in the states, now the twins must join him.

This book, does an admirable job showing the danger those coming here face in their travels. In the detention centers and in trying to achieve s legal status. Already own g large sums of money to the coyotes who brought them here, they need more money for lawyers. The author also dispels many of the false narratives that surround these immigrants. What exactly they get by our government, what services they may avail themselves of, and the difficulty not living in a country where you are not wanted.

We learn of their lives here, their struggles, coming to terms with the fact that they would never again be together with their entire family. Working, going to school, trying to send money home to their struggling family and to pay off their debt. A heavy burden for these young men, who are not alone in this quandary.

In alternating chapters, we learn of the situation in El Salvador, political, violence and the dates of their family remaining in that country. Well done, thought provoking, hearing from the other side, if you will.

Narrated wonderfully by Cassandra Campbell.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I REALLY like this book. It is informative about the situation in El Salvador, about unaccompanied migrant minors in the US and is also remarkably well written.

The author is a journalist, a reporter and an author. She has worked with young migrants at Oakland International High School, located in the Bay area of northern California. The school is dedicated to teaching immigrant kids English. Lauren Markham is writing about what she knows and cares about, and it shows! Anyone can compile a mass of statistics, put it together and call it a book. This book is not like that. In this book, El Salvador’s gang violence is brought close to the reader. What is it really like to be a young migrant alone in a foreign country very different from your own? What horrors have these kids experienced before getting to the US? The book follows the experiences of identical twins. They are seventeen at the start and we follow them for two years. We learn of their family situation and why they had to leave El Salvador. Their experiences become our experiences. Their experiences are made into something you feel. It is the ability of the author to write well that makes this such a good book. The writing puts you there in the events and in the heads and hearts of the twins.

The book concludes with an Afterword and a chapter entitled Methodology. These chapters are extremely important. Without these two chapters the book would be of less value. The author explains how and why she wrote the book. She also summarizes the changes she believes must be made to improve the situation that exists in Central America today and why the US must take action.

The audiobook is narrated by Cassandra Campbell. The narration is very well performed. It is read with feeling, but not overdone. The only reason I have not given the narration five stars is because the Afterword and Methodology chapters are read too quickly. Here I had to rewind many times. These chapters are certainly just as important as the rest of the book.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars Publishing on 9/12/17

Thank you to First-to-Read for this ARC in return for an honest review.

This is an immigration story. The story of seventeen year old Raul and Ernesto Flores - who fled from El Salvador to Texas in 2013. It tells of the harrowing experience of life in El Salvador for these twins - with their uncle trying to kill them - and what their $7000 each bought them in the illegal trip through Mexico and into the United States. It tells of their reunion with a older illegal brother, their loss of confidence in school while trying to learn the English language. It tells of the pull of the gangster life and of young love. The ups and downs, the highs and depressions of accumulating to a life they dreamed of, but barely understood. Rent, food, school, work, sending money home to pay off their coyote fee. It relates the hardships that their family, left in El Salvador, went through trying to pay back the loan shark and keep the farm land they loved and depended on. And throughout everything else the entanglement of the judicial system, trying to become documented so they could remain in the United States.

This information was well researched and told in a story like setting. It contained a number of facts relating to illegal immigration. It speaks to the "wall" that Trump insists on building. To the hundreds of immigrants that die on their way to what they believe is freedom in the United States. What is left behind when someone immigrates and what is faced at the end of their journey.

If nothing else is achieved by reading this novel, it should be understood that it's not what immigrants are running to, but rather what are they running from?

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

To solve a problem one must understand what caused it and address its root causes. That is a hard thing, requiring work and effort and creative thinking. Why not just make the problem illegal?

We have been trying that and it does not seem to work. "Just say no" to sex or drugs, prison sentences for drug possession, throwing a pregnant teenage daughter out of the house--none of these ever solved anything.

Illegal immigration has become the issue of the day under the present administration. Migrants have been arrested, abused, sent back, and yet more come. Build a wall, we are told, that will keep them out. I doubt it. There is a reason why people leave their homeland and family, and the reasons are rarely trite.

In her timely book The Far Away Brothers , Lauren Markham tells the story of the twin Flores brothers who flee El Salvador to join their undocumented migrant brother in America. We learn about their lives in El Salvador, about their families, the challenges they faced on their journey north, and the multiple difficulties of their lives in the United States.

Markham, who has reported on undocumented immigration for a decade, spent two years researching for this book, plus she draws from her experience working with immigrant students at Oakland International High School. She chose to write about twins to illustrate how each immigrant has their own motivation and individual response to the experience.

In the past the draw to the United States was for economic opportunity and security. Today migrants leave their homes to escape the domination and violence of the gangs who have taken over power. Last year 60,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, most from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--the 'murder capital of the world'.

When one of the Flores twins is targeted by their uncle's gang he decides he must leave to survive, and his twin brother joins him. The boys' family puts their livelihood at risk by offering the their land as security to raise money for transport to the border. They falsely assume the debt can be paid off quickly once the boys get jobs, but the interest blows their debt up to $20,000.

The journey leaves its psychic scars; one twin has nightmares and cannot talk about what he had seen.

To stay in America the boys must be in school, under their older brother's authority. Somehow they must also earn money to start paying off their debt to the coyotes. They are teenagers, too, who are finally 'free' and they don't always handle that freedom well. Readers may not always like the boys, but hopefully they will understand their fears, confusion, and motivations.

The author is not afraid to offer a paragraph on American policies that have contributed to the Central American 'catastrophe', by supplying weapons and by creating free-trade deals that hurt small farmers. Then there is the legacy of large corporations that bought up land for farming, controlling resources and the economic benefits.

As Markham writes, "People migrate now for the same reason they always have: survival." Investment in improving educational and economic opportunities, addressing the root causes of migration, would be a better use of federal funds than building a wall.

I read Enique's Journey by Sonia Nazario about ten years ago. Here is what she had to say about The Far Away Brothers:

“Powerful…Focusing primarily on one family’s struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,…[this] compellingly intimate narrative…keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision….One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey.” —Kirkus

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of us who live in comfortable surroundings in well-ordered towns such as Berkeley, the day-to-day realities of life as experienced by undocumented migrants may be impossible to understand. Most of what we know comes from news reports and occasional exposés about the efforts of the Trump Administration to expel what Right-Wing politicians have insisted we call "illegal immigrants." In The Far Away Brothers, Berkeley journalist Lauren Markham brings the lived experience of two young Salvadoran migrants and their family under a spotlight. The picture she paints is nuanced and moving as well as sobering.

Identical twins Ernesto and Raúl Flores were seventeen years of age when, separately, they crossed the Rio Grande into Texas with the help of coyotes. Though in so many ways their experience is unique, they also stand in for the tens of thousands of young Central Americans who flooded across our southern borders earlier in this decade—and for many of the millions of Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans who now reside in the United States. Nearly all recent refugees from Central America were driven north by the gang violence and official corruption that are now endemic in the region. However, as Markham makes clear, economic motives also loomed large. Abject poverty conjures up visions of prosperity in "El Norte" among many Central Americans, as it does in many other people around the world.

As I read about the often horrific circumstances that confronted the Flores brothers over the three-year span described in the book, I couldn't help but think about the sharply contrasting experience of my father's parents, who emigrated from Russia early in the 20th century. Their lives in the shtetl where they had lived, plagued by repeated pogroms, were at least as difficult as those of the Flores twins in El Salvador. Also, it was no easy feat for them to make their way through the vastness of the European continent and then across the Atlantic in steerage. But the welcome they received at Ellis Island, though decidedly chilly, was in no way comparable to the repeated violence and official hostility that met the Flores brothers both on their way and after their arrival.

As the author makes clear, the massive migration of young Central Americans to the United States is, in a large sense, the consequence of US policy in the region throughout the 20th century, but especially in the 1980s. In El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala alike, our government actively supported local efforts to stamp out local insurgents in the name of anti-Communism—murdering tens of thousands of peasants in the process. Large numbers of young men fled to the US to escape that violence. Many succumbed to the lure of crime and were imprisoned in California. There, in prison and on the streets of Los Angeles, the most violent gangs that victimize Central America today were formed (Mara Salvatrucha, or MS13, and Barrio 18). Today, these gangs are enormous, multinational criminal enterprises. They're responsible for an outsized body count in our cities and a major share of drug trafficking in the US today. In a real sense, then, we're paying the price of our government's intervention in Central America in the last century. And so are tens of thousands of migrants from the region.

The Far Away Brothers is Lauren Markham's first book, but the Berkeley author and journalist has been writing fiction, essays, and journalism for several years. The book is based in part on her work at Oakland International High School since 2011, where the Flores brothers attended classes on and off, and more generally on her "thirteen years of experience working with, interviewing, and reporting alongside thousands of refugees and migrants like the Flores twins."

After reading The Far Away Brothers it's difficult to see how today's "illegal immigrants" are in any substantive way different from the Irish, Chinese, Italians, and Jews who made their way into the US in the nineteenth and early twentieth century..

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story deserves so much more attention that it has gotten. Lauren Markham was working in a California school when she came across the Flores twins (names were changed), who found themselves forced to leave their piece of rural El Salvador because a local gangster (a relative, in fact) turned against them. She has a fine sense of the deep and varied emotions they and their relatives felt in the United States and El Salvador, of the strange and often cruel intricacies of the American asylum system, of the pain that being poor in either country imposes on a family, especially among members who may never see each other again. Her portraits of family members and places in both countries sound authentic, the piety and devotion of the parents, the raging emotions, hormones, and devotion to social media (which gets them in great trouble) of the younger members, the enormous pressure of gangs place on boys in El Salvador, the desperate, unrealistic reliance of the poor relations in the old country on the less-poor children who have made it across. The Flores twins have at least a route to staying in the country, having arrived (barely) as minors, while an older brother, having worked diligently for years, has none. The most gripping portion of the book is the recounting of the twins' journey to the United States, which is many of the themes that migrants often suffer but do not always care to reveal: more than the deprivation, the hunger, the thirst, the shoes and clothes that fall apart on the way, the corpses, but the violence and rape. Markham brings this all together with a fine eye for detail and an understanding of the contradictory impulses and emotions not just between the members of the family, but within each of them. She has a fine sense of the policy implications without every becoming didactic or polemical. But there is no mistaking that what has happened in Mexico and Central America is a deep and disturbing tragedy, one funded by drug money from the United States, authored by gangs created by deportees from the United States, inflamed by weapons exported from the United States, and rooted in the United States' policy, funding and military training in the region during the eighties, when El Salvador assassinated archbishops and nuns with impunity and Guatemala almost exterminated at least one Mayan tribe. Yet these refugees, fleeing violence with virtually nothing, many of them women and children, are what the well-fed, very comfortable, extremely well-protected President and Attorney General, and their many retweeters, fear. What fools some mortals be.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very timely story focuses on the travails of twin 17-year old brothers escaping from the gangs and violence of El Salvador to "go north". Their older brother (their "far away" brother) had crossed over about 7 years earlier and had managed to pay off the ~$6K that he owed to the coyote who accompanied him on the journey. The price has gone up, and the twins each have to pay $6-7K. Their large poor family can't raise that kind of money, so put up one of their plots of land as collateral. The payment doesn't make their journey any less harrowing; the coyote actually disappeared and left them on their own for part of the difficult trip. When they arrive at the border, they are kept in the border camps for a while until they can sort out the paperwork and arrange with their older brother to taken them in. They move in with him in his San Jose apartment, but the transition is far from smooth.

The boys move with their brother into a cramped, crowded apartment in Oakland (more affordable than San Jose), and enroll in Oakland International High School, where the author is on staff. They have little English, and little knowledge of how anything works in California. They both take part-time jobs, and after a split with their brother move into a room in a house together and are responsible for all of their expenses. It is hard to send money home to pay off the debt, with grows at a usurious interest rate of 20%. They find a low-cost attorney to help them navigate the immigration courts. They get robbed and beat up, and miss too much school; but they still feel that they are lucky to be here in the U.S. away from the gangs, poverty and violence back home.

The book is well researched and written. Focusing on the plight of just these 2 boys and their families, both in the U.S. and back in El Salvador, gives the story a very human and emotional core, while covering in a more general way the challenges faced by all immigrants. The situation in their home country is truly dire, and it is abundantly clear that just "building a wall" isn't going to solve the immigration problem. Immigrants are risking their lives now to get into the U.S., and the wall will be just another of the many obstacles that they seek to overcome. This, and similar works, should be required reading for anyone in our government seeking to craft a truly humane and just immigration system.

[Kristina V · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting story (the only reason I kept reading), but the writing was very bad.

3 things annoyed me the most:
-Way too much unimportant statistics (made it seem like a research paper, at times)
-No ending at all
-Too many unnecessary & boring dialogs, details etc

[Katy O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Crown Publishing for this free review copy!
*
Heartbreaking. Timely. Required reading for anyone looking to better understand the reasons that so many Central American citizens are fleeing their home countries to come to the United States. The book is deeply researched and focuses equally on both sides of the border.......if any person can read this book and not be deeply sympathetic to refugees looking for a safer life in the US, my heart aches for that reader's lack of humanity. Not a fast read. Not an easy read. But a necessary one.
*
NOTE: This book was published in September 2017 and as we all know, immigration policy in the US has changed since then. Please take that into account while reading and don't let it impact your opinion of the overall story/issue.

[Gurveen Kaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 stars)

The Far Away Brothers is an account of the horrific life led by thousands in El Salvador. It's about the issues and dangers lurking in and around the region and how the only option left for, what seems like, safety is to flee and make a new life for oneself on an alien land. But does fleeing put an end to the miseries?

Families are left separated and broken. They are forced to face injustice and ill-treatment towards their kin and themselves. The area, ruled by gangs, has only violence and death to offer. So does the fleeing.

I was completely clueless about what these people go through until I read this book. Now, I carry a perspective of and great fear for their lives. When did humankind shrink to such a low?

The immigrants have lost almost everything they've ever lived for, their family, home, livelihood - everything. They're forced to travel to alien places, another dangerous route, in hopes to restart their lives. But instead of meeting people offering a hand to help or shelter, they face even more cruelty and violence. Many lose their lives, are raped or robbed off anything that was essential for them to survive the longest journey of their lives.

Many of these are as young as, or even younger, than the Flores twins - seventeen. And unaccompanied. t's hard to even imagine children as young as them to first, face violence in their homeland and then all alone in an alien place.

Markham, who has experienced and studied a great deal about undocumented immigration for a decade, spent two years researching for this book. She draws her experience from working with immigrant students at Oakland International High School. She chose to write about twins to share stories about how each immigrant has their own feelings and lessons from their stories and how they've been impacted.


As for my reading experience, the writing style is good and gripping. However, I would've enjoyed (for lack of a better word) it more had it been a slightly less descriptive. Having said that, the author was able to paint a real picture of what the protagonists were going through and it did change a lot of things for me for good.

My Blog: Times of Gee

Thank you Blogging for Books and Crown Publishing for a copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

[Dara · Rating 4 out of 5]

With all the talk about Trump, The Wall, and immigration policy, this book really reminded me that we can never just focus on the political side of a human issue like this. I don’t feel like I know what the answer is but I think we all need to keep our eyes open to the people and the reality of their suffering. As I sit in a relatively upper class world with few significant problems, I am reminded of how lucky I was to be born where I was. Not necessarily more deserving. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of this. Following these twins and getting to know their families, friends, and people who helped them was insightful and real. People don’t just want to leave their homes, families, country or culture. They have to for survival. The risks are unbelievably high. Death, rape, abuse is a given, even expected. Yet you have kids like these, trying not once, but often 7-8 times and getting caught, deported, suffering, but then going right back to try again. Their families are thousands of dollars in debt from trying to help them escape. Then on the other side, the U.S. dollars spent is exorbitant. Often going to private companies that are making tons of money. I was glad to hear about the schools, social workers and lawyers that try to help. However, the challenges they face with these kids is extreme. This problem is so far reaching. It’s small minded and maybe insane to think that more wall is the answer. Markham does a great job at personalizing this issue. She gives you a view of the varied nature of immigration and all its parts. It is so relevant. I am frankly surprised that this doesn’t have a broader readership yet.

[Cynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some years I lived in Kingsville, Texas, part of the Borderlands area. Often the Department of Immigration agents were respected to their faces and despised behind their backs. The agents could never win any popularity prizes. Sometimes they found illegal immigrants who already dead or those too sick to survive. Other times the agents deported those running for their lives, sending them back to misery or death. The children found (fewer in those days) were often just warehoused, living out a state of limbo or worse. Those who do merge somewhat into the main society, how well are they merged? The merged immigrants must addrress both issues of the old home and of the new home. If the Department of Immigration agents were winning no popularity contests with locals, how many fewer with the illegals, particularly the children.

We see these concerns played out in The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life. We see a variety of different types of immigrants--adults and children; men and women; those cared for by their handlers and others disrespected. We follow a El Salavadoran family as various family members decide how to cope or deal with socio-political problems in their community. Some will stay. Some will emmigrate. For none will the decisions or results be easy.

What might have made life significantly easier? Someone mentoring the two teenaged twin men we particularly follow. The twins were not prepared for a consumerist society, navigating between needs and wants. Had they had a little help in financial choices for even 1 full year, some serious consequences of being dumped into and being lured by consumerism might have saved their family still in El Salvador some financial difficulties and saved the twins' and their familiy's financial frustrations. Maybe an organization such as Catholic Charities or other agencies that already help those with mental challenges to manage their federal monies might expand their services

Social Awareness Increased. Social Frustration Increased.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Illegal immigration and border control has recently been a hot topic in the U.S. The influx of undocumented and unaccompanied minors has increased. What are these children risking and enduring to come to the U.S.? Markham has given us a human element to add to the discussion.

Markham has recreated the story of teen El Salvadoran twins who came into the U.S. illegally. We find out about the civil war in that country, gang violence, the pressure to join a gang, and the kidnappings for ransom. We find out the threats against the twins and their desperation to go north to find a safe future. We learn about the cost of the coyotes, parents going into debt to provide a future for their children. We follow the teens north in their dangerous journey and their struggle to find their way in a new country.

This book has provided much insight into why children are coming north, searching for a better life. Their life back home is horrible. Some cannot even take a bus ride without fear of being robbed. Others are merely looking for a place to live where they do not have to fear being killed.

I recommend this book to readers who would like to understand the circumstances behind some of the illegal immigrants coming into the U.S. and the struggles they face when they arrive here. This is not a heartwarming success story. It is a story of survival.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Far Away Brothers is a moving story about twin boys from El Salvador and not only their journey to the US, but also their life once they got there. Lauren Markham's writing of Ernesto and Raul Flores’s stories has moved me to think differently about the country we live in, my own life and opportunities, and how we view immigrants of all kinds.

    As someone who has been born and raised in the US, it’s difficult to see every single aspect of this country. Raúl and Ernesto however, through their journey to the North and life afterwards, have changing perceptions of America. While still in El Salvador, their family was poor and their community was ravaged by gangs. They viewed the US as a place in which you could become anything and anyone no matter where you came from.“The North offered everything...success, belonging, respect, something better,”(pg 40). When the twins made it to the States, their view of the country began to lose its luster. They moved in with their brother Wilber. That in itself was the source of many issues. Not only did the twins have to go to school, they also had to get jobs. They were responsible for helping Wilber pay the rent and paying off the debt it took their family to get them to the US. Also, like all siblings, Wilber and the twins fought about many things, leading to both of them eventually moving out and getting their own places. All this mounted onto the haunting memories of their struggle through the desert led the twins to dig themselves into a financial and emotional hole. They were failing classes in school, harming themselves, and getting into unstable relationships. It got to the point that when their sister, Maricela, started to think about coming to the US, the twins thought she would be better off in El Salvador. Once the twins paid off their debt and got their green cards however, they started to feel much better about their life in the States. They had a clean slate to start over, both in school and in the workplace. Raúl and Ernesto once again saw the opportunities that America had to offer them and had hope for their futures. The stories of Raúl and Ernesto show their dramatic perceptions of the US and how they changed in just a few short years. It has shown me both the good and the bad parts of this country, both the truths and the lies that so many people believe. Being an American, you are constantly hearing just one thing about the US. You're taught the American Dream, that you can go to college, that you can be successful in life. You are told all of these things and so easily believe them. Not only is it harder for immigrants to achieve this dream, in some circumstances, they may not even believe in it a any more.

The Flores brothers’ stories has also led me to think differently about my life and the opportunities it holds for me. I am so blessed to live with parents who love and provide for me. When the twins moved in with Wilber, they had to start paying for rent and their debt. This on top of school became a mountain of stress for Rail and Ernesto. Wilber became their guardian, but as brothers, he and the twins got into arguments that caused rifts in their relationship. I am almost the same age Raúl and Ernesto were in The Far Away Brothers, and these are things I've never had to think about. I can't even imagine having that many responsibilities at once. I’ve always known that there are kids who have to balance these things on a day to day basis, but reading The Far Away Brothers makes that fact so much more real. It really makes you realize that yes, there are actually people out there who are living like this. For me, it's not just something that people talk about anymore, it's something that I realize actually happens to thousands of people.

Finally, The Far Away Brothers has changed the way that I view immigrants. We constantly hear the same stories and and ideas about immigrants. For instance, a generalized idea is that immigrants are coming to the US for a better life. Yes this is true in most cases, but what is actually pushing these people out of their beloved home countries? “... No one wanted to leave their home, their parents, for no good reason,”(pg 170). In the Flores’ case, the fact that America would provide a better future for them wasn’t enough, because going to the North cost not only money, but in some cases your life. In order to get to the States, the twins’ lives had to be threatened. The gangs in El Salvador eventually leaked into their family. Their own uncle threatened to kill them, driving Raúl and Ernesto to make it to America. This also brings to light the sheer determination that immigrants possess. Simple walls or laws put in place will not stop them from journeying here. “People migrate now for the same reason the always have: for survival. The United States can build a wall, dig a two-thousand mile trench, patrol with drones and military grade vehicles and machine guns, and put thousands more guards on the border. Desperate migrants will still find another way,” (pg 271). Ernesto knew this and wrote, “The police officer and the government they can not stop the children to cross the border, every children know that it’s dangerous, but they want a better life for them, and for their family,”(pg 177). The Far Away Brothers proves that immigrants are determined not only to find a better life in the US, but also to escape the problems in a home country that they love.

In conclusion, like Raúl and Ernesto, my perceptions of America have changed and grown to fit a more global perspective.The Far Away Brothers has taught me about immigrants, myself, and how we all fit into this country.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is a well told story that weaves a narrative of two brothers into the larger picture of the unaccompanied minor crisis from The Norther Triangle, and El Salvador more specifically. I really felt connected to the story and that I was learning a ton about whats going on, and more importantly, why.

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

America, sing me a dream,
how you kissed The Flag and let out a scream.

Same old immigrant tale,
turnstile through INS,
brand new experiences, in awe,
the pull between old and new countries,
it ends badly, heroically, all of it unremembered.,
brothers they ghost, ghosting.

Chris Roberts, God Today

[Julia Keizer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel tells the journey of immigration from El Salvador, for three older sons of the Flores family. It goes into details of why they had to send their first son and then following him a few years later, their twin sons. It gives details of a country in economic and political turmoil overrun by gang violence. 

This was my first Blogging for Books novel that was sent to me from Crown Publishers. I was excited to read it because they asked me, and I wanted to try more documentary type books and this one appealed to me because of the journey and intrigue surrounding immigration into the United States. Especially with the conflict from Mr. Trump and his WALL. 

The main story is about the twins, 17-year-old Ernesto and Raul and their struggle through El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, into Texas. It then goes into immigration details following their court dates and school life, and the general day to day things that we take for granted, but is so much harder for immigrants, even legal ones. 

I had a hard time pushing through this novel. There were a lot of numbers and facts and it felt more like a research paper, opposed to a story about the journey of immigration by the twins. The main story of the twins is moving and sad, but I felt the research side of it took away from their powerful story.  At the end, Markham explains that she is a journalist, and for me, it explained why it felt more like a journalism piece. Something suited for National Geographic. It was well written and thorough.

Although (for me) there are too many facts and numbers I felt it is a current book and an intriguing story. Markham shows that she did her research and reported what she saw and learned in her two years of researching this book. She even went into details of their mental health and the struggle of dealing with that on top of everyday life. I have a better understanding of why immigration happens through Mexico from Central America. 

Overall I found this novel to be an honest and enlightening documentary type novel of the process of immigration from beginning to end. I can see this book being used by students needing research for papers, or other authors needing facts for their own novels. 

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I would like to thank #CrownPublishing and #NetGalley and Blogging for Books for this copy of The Far Away Brothers By Lauren Markham in exchange for an honest review.

[John Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated The Far Away Brothers for its attempt to shine a light on the issue of immigration to the U.S. from El Salvador in a very human way with its portrayal of how the economic distress and gang activity in the country impacts individuals. Markham paints a vivid picture of the experience of crossing Mexico and entering the United States, interactions with the immigration bureaucracy here, and how immigrants struggle with the culture of the U.S., or at least how these two immigrants—twin brothers from El Salvador now living in Oakland—faced those challenges.

What fell flat for me is that the Flores brothers rarely felt like fully fleshed out people to me. I can't say I believe that Markham really knows them and their experiences and thoughts that well, or if she does, that she was able to convey them. Something about the brothers remained very flat for me—more like they were portrayals of two generic teenagers, albeit ones facing unusual circumstances, than truly unique individuals.

I also couldn't shake the uncomfortable question about why was Markham telling their story. It's not her experience and when she does appear in the pages interacting with the Flores brothers (she taught at a high school they attended), it almost feels awkward—why is she here, I wondered? It appears from her Notes at the end of the book that she struggled with the same question. After much deliberation, however, she "finally came to the conclusion that it was appropriate to write this book." Well, OK then.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Current, breathtakingly relevant, tragic, hopeful...
Ms. Markham immersed herself in the Flores brothers' lives on a personal level and in a broad worldview spectrum. I didn't just get their story but the stories of thousands who are fleeing the most horrific lives, trying to get to the United States. I've been far removed from this, living in the frozen north, only reading the newspaper articles that pop up on Twitter; I'd be ashamed, but it gave me a very clean brain with which to read this book.
You MUST read this.
I need to read it again.
You may get angry. Your heart will absolutely ache. You'll hold your breath, then whisper "Oh, please, please...". You'll cheer (and everyone on the bus will wonder why)! You'll turn to the person next to you, wherever you are, and say "You MUST read this!!!"
Then hand it to the next person....
Who will hand it to the next person....
And action for change and compassion will begin.

This was a Goodreads giveaway; a splendid piece of writing that I had no trouble giving five stars to. It's not political, it's humanitarian.
You MUST read this.

[Mandy Klehr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway. Lauren Markham expertly narrates the story of the twin Flores brothers' journey to becoming Americans. We follow their tale from when they depart El Salvador to when they enter the US and are shortly thereafter caught by border patrol. The story of the Flores brothers is not unlike what many immigrants experience and calls attention to the social and economic problems many face in Central America. Well researched, The Far Away Brothers is interlaced with Markham's travels to Mexico and Central America, seeing the gang violence and crises that drive whole families to leave their homes to fight for their lives. Immigration reform and policy are a contentious topic in the US, maybe even more so now, and I think this book gives a good perspective that some may choose to ignore.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.49 stars. Thoughtful and well-written, I would rate this book 4 stars but for a monotonous sameness in the prologue and the last few chapters. The early and middle chapters and the interludes were very good to excellent.

Markham depicts the challenges of life in El Salvador and also travel to the USA, with the help of coyotes, very effectively. Here the pseudonymous Flores family provides the drama both in Central America and in North America. The everyday struggles and dangers in both places are occasionally numbing. I often alternated between wishing for a good result and wanting to lecture the family members on basic economics.

The book is copyrighted in 2017 and covers the early months of the Trump presidency.

[Susan Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well researched & written, this book tells the story of twin brothers who fled to U.S. from El Salvador as unaccompanied minors. Gives a very human face to what these kids face that makes them leave their families, & their families pay often untrustworthy coyotes to take them on a hazardous journey. At times I was frustrated with the choices the boys were making but they were only teenagers & with no parental guidance! But reading this in today’s political situation was rather depressing- we’re not even trying to help, just “build a wall.” Like that’s going to fix all these problems. (Library)

[Angela Juline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the book in the beginning...so informative and captivating. Considering it is a true story, it doesn't seem fair to say it got boring. But, I think the writing fell off a bit.

[Emily Goode · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Far Away Brothers tells the story of identical twins Enersto and Raúl Flores (names changed for their protection), who immigrate to the US from El Salvador, after Ernesto finds himself on the wrong side of a gang in their country El Salvador. We follow them through their lives growing up to their their journey across the Rio Grande as unaccompanied minors smuggled into the US with the aid of a coyote, and on to Oakland, California where they reunite with their older brother who illegally immigrated a few years previously. Their story gives a human face to immigration and helps the reader to understand why someone would risk so much to illegally immigrate. Intertwined with their story are many facts about immigration, US policy, and the culture of El Salvador. The author, Lauren Markhan, is a writer/journalist who has worked in the field of refugee resettlement and immigrant education and met the twins while working at Oakland International High School where they were enrolled. She traveled for two years throughout the US, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, interviewing the extended Flores family and getting a glimpse of the journey the twins and others like them endure to try to make it to the US. She also researched extensively and pulled information from her work as a journalist to add facts relevant to immigration to the book. All of this culminates in a fascinating book that in part reads like a novel, although it is not, and also is extremely informative.

[Cristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super depressing read, appropriate for the topic, but too much like reading the news. I did appreciate the statistics and political context, but the best parts were about the boys and their family members. The author has worked with the Oakland International HS for years and met the immigrant teens there and asked if she could tell their story in a book -- she'd been writing news stories about immigration for years, so is the right person to tell it from a journalist's perspective. In defense of the American Dirt controversy, it is NOT told by the people it's about. But it feels very true and real and that is valuable. She follows the boys from their days in El Salavador where their famiy members are also gang members threatening to kill them, to their parents putting their land up against a loan for $7K/each to get coyotes to take them across the border, to their capture just over the border in TX, and their time in an immigration center. They struggled in El Salvador and they struggled in the US. It's a hard book, but the topic is super hard. I read it for my SF book club; wouldn't have chosen it myself.

[Carly Friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book that I think everyone must read this year!

Markham did an excellent job describing the lives of two immigrant teen boys, Ernesto and Raul. They are twins who traveled from El Salvador to join an older brother in California to escape crippling poverty and gang violence. The book covers their life in El Salvador, the dangerous trip to El Norte, their time in temporary immigration detention centers, and their transition to life with their brother.

Many important topics are covered, including the forces driving people to leave Central America, the dangers of the passage to the US, the conditions in detention centers, the broken immigrant legal system, and the difficulties the educational system has in helping these youth.

I really felt for Raul and Ernesto. I love how Markham also dug deep into the lives of their other siblings, including their parents, older brother in the US, and younger sister in El Salvador. I didn't want the book to end so I could find out more about the lives of these two youth.

Highly recommended!

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father was an immigrant and I spent my career teaching immigrant children from all over the world. I thought I understood the difficulties of families leaving their homes and and culture behind. But, we have entered a whole new reality with children traveling alone and entering a very hostile country. The author is an Oakland teacher (my home) who wrote about 2 of her students. Although she changed names and identities to protect them, she told their stories in great detail. As teenagers, living on their own, they pushed limits and toyed with dangerous activities. The trauma of their journey and the guilt they felt about abandoning their family exacted a great price on their mental health. The stress they were under often felt unbearable. Somehow, they survived and are in the process of becoming responsible Americans. I congratulate Lauren Markham on telling a story that needs to be told.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true story of 17-year-old identical twin brothers who leave El Salvador and come to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors. It follows the boys as they navigate the system and establish a life in the U.S. as well as that of their brother, who had come before, and their family back in El Salvador. We learn about the challenges of being an undocumented minor, the immigration system, making the trip to the U.S., struggles adjusting to life, challenges of fulfilling obligations back home as well as the challenges of living in El Salvador and reasons many people leave. As she narrates their stories, the author intersperses information about the system and immigrants throughout the book. It puts real people and their stories into one's information about immigration. I didn't want it to end and want to know more about what happened to the boys/young men now and their family.

[Gordon Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, like Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey offers an up close and personal account of what young immigrants go through to reach the United States. Unlike Enrique's Journey though, Markham spends almost as much time with the family that gets left in El Salvador as she does with the twin migrant brothers. The result is a more comprehensive picture of the gains and losses on embarking on the journey to El Norte. With incredible detail and empathy, Markham lets you see the pain and suffering, as well as the hope for a better life. A deeply moving and informative read that will forever change the way I look at immigration.

[Ely Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who works with refugee and unaccompanied minors, I really appreciate this book. This true story of the two brothers is authentic and gut-wrenching, which gives the reader a solemn but honest look into the lives and perspectives of those who make the dangerous journey from home to the “North”. This story is not all too cheerful —the two brothers go through A LOT— but through the pain and suffering, real joy takes shape as the small moments of generosity from minor characters of the book leaves an impact felt throughout the entire story.