Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings

by Reyna Grande (Editor), Sonia Guiñansaca, Viet Thanh Nguyen (Foreword)

" "Wide-ranging yet consistently affecting, these pieces offer a crucial and inspired survey of the immigrant experience in America." " – Publishers Weekly "[These contributions] touch on so many different facets of the immigrant experience that readers will find much to ponder... [and] experience how creative writing enriches our understanding of each other and our lives." – Booklist Introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen A unique collection of 41 groundbreaking essays, poems, and artwork by migrants, refugees and Dreamers—including award-winning writers, artists, and activists—that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today. In the overheated debate about immigration, we often lose sight of the humanity at the heart of this complex issue. The immigrants and refugees living precariously in the United States are mothers and fathers, children, neighbors, and friends. Individuals propelled by hope and fear, they gamble their lives on the promise of America, yet their voices are rarely heard. This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate—now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia—towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders. Created entirely by undocumented or formerly undocumented migrants, Somewhere We Are Human is a journey of memory and yearning from people newly arrived to America, those who have been here for decades, and those who have ultimately chosen to leave or were deported. Touching on themes of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, politics, and parenthood, Somewhere We Are Human reveals how joy, hope, mourning, and perseverance can take root in the toughest soil and bloom in the harshest conditions.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir, Essays, Short Stories, Anthologies, Biography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2022

About the author

Reyna Grande is the author of three novels, Across a Hundred Mountains, which received a 2007 American Book Award; Dancing with Butterflies, which received a 2010 International Latino Book Award, and A Ballad of Love and Glory, which was a Los Angeles Times Book Club selection in 2022. In her memoir, The Distance Between Us (Atria, 2012) Reyna recounts her experiences as a child left behind in Mexico when her parents emigrated to the U.S. in search of work, and her own journey to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at the age of nine. Its sequel, A Dream Called Home, was published in 2018. Her latest book is Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings, an anthology by and about undocumented Americans.

Reviews

[Kelsey (Kelseylovesbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, Somewhere We Are Human felt disjointed to me - and in fairness, I'm not sure how a collection of individual experiences that are all so short could easily connect together. Since these are short essays, I often was left wanting more; it felt like I was just starting to hear someone's personal story, then onto the next.

Somewhere We Are Human does excel at sharing an intersectional immigrant experience, especially within the LGBTQIA+ community. There are some clearly talented writers within the book, and I hope to see longer stories from them in the future.

[Nnenna | notesbynnenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a beautiful collection of essays and poems written by undocumented or formerly undocumented people living in America. I listened to this on audio and I thought the narrators did a great job. I really appreciated hearing all these different perspectives on what life is like as an undocumented person. The complex emotions and family situations. The constant worry about your status and fear that the life you’ve built will quickly be taken away. This is a necessary book and I’m glad it exists.

[Justice McCray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and topical curated collection of essays shedding light on migrants in the US from a diverse range of backgrounds, cultures, identities, and experiences. Stating that “it’s easy to get in this country” or even that “it’s hard” does not begin to give space for the complexity of what being an immigrant (documented or undocumented) means. This is potent, eye opening, and a testimony of humanity.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening! A must read!

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving anthology of the myriad experiences of American immigration in our time. There is no way to read these words and not marvel at the creativity that runs through all these individual works. This is not an anthology that is easily read in one sitting. The book as a whole stayed with me for quite awhile after completion. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a powerful and eye-opening glimpse into the immigrant experience. It's a compelling and important read that fosters empathy and understanding—one that I believe many people should take the time to explore.

Popsugar reading challenge: A book where the main character is an immigrant or refugee

[Daniela Godreau · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Before driving away, he told you to remember the struggle and sacrifice it took to get here. That everything he’s done has always been for you, which every child of immigrants knows is code for a debt that you never asked for and will always remain h payable.”

[Justine Cucchi-Dietlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this for work, and it was not a good time. I likely would have DNF'ed this if I could have.

[Alex Flynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

wasn’t expecting it to be poetry too but it was a pleasant surprise

[Neelam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering insight into the complexities and constant anxieties as a consequence of labelling humans as “illegal” for existing, for surviving. Would be amazing to have a UK version of this published.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of essays, poems, and artwork on the experience of living undocumented in the US today. Deeply impactful. Highly recommend.

[Isa Nowacki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Each story or poem offered a new perspective. I learned so much.

[Michelle B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to be critical of this book because the subject matter is important and I’m glad to see the American immigrant experience being spoken and written about but I couldn’t love this book. I didn’t appreciate much of the poetry and the stories which could’ve been the strong point felt uninteresting. There are thousands and thousands of immigrants with surely more interesting stories. To be fair I didn’t read the whole book. The world is full of too many great books to spend too much time with stuff that doesn’t speak to me.

I’m thankful to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book.

[Dylan | itsthelymanlibrary · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 30%. I appreciate what this was trying to do, but it was trying to hard or not trying hard enough, I’m not sure which. It’s largely poetic works, which for me didn’t work. Maybe this is a me problem. But it felt really disconnected and like the authors were trying to encapsulated an entire complex experience in a page.

To be fair, I LOVED the essay by Azul Uribe. I really loved it.

Thank you net galley for the advanced copy.

[Sara Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of essays and poetry written by migrants and refugees newly arrived to America. In our world today, our minds are focused on the political debate regarding immigration that we lose sight of humanity and forget about the people behind the issue. This collection is a must read for everyone! These stories and essays are inspiring, while others are truly heart-breaking. In the end, you take with you a deeper understanding of life and what really matters.

*Thank you NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The stories, poems, and artwork in this anthology address this paradox wherein America represents itself as the land of “new beginnings” but is also a place that is so demanding of its newcomers that they must think, “Somewhere we are human.” If America is great, then why is the humanity of anyone in question? Why must anyone long for their own innate humanity, one that is denied by some and even by many?"

Such a rich, heartbreaking, uplifting compilation of voices. I work with undocumented folks nearly every day, a little less than before, but with more depth, and I appreciate the artists of their countrypeople showing us the heart of their experience. It is a honor. I don’t know the answers to any of the questions, but I care, and I will stand with them, and listen and learn.

The path we took from Colombia through México and into the US follows the Mississippi River flyway—a migratory route famous for its lush deltas, rivers, and marshes. This region’s waters—the Angry River, the Mississippi, the Gulf—hold knotted histories of flight and escape. In the mid-1800s, Black captives used the Rio, the “bird paradise,” as a site of fugitivity. Which really means that: even before I was born, even before you were born, Black people were making pathways for our safety.
JENNIF(F)ER TAMAYO, PERFORMER, POET, REIMAGING NARRATIVES OF QUEER, UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS

Conception After Janel Pineda’s “In Another Life”
The migration never happened but somehow you and I still exist.
Like desert rose, we know only the memory of crystalline petals
and not the tumbling of betrayal that created

us. Forget the almost gunned-down pregnant woman, the jealous wife,
the caldo de res. There is no bus to the maquiladoras.
There is no border. There is no drowning. There is only

ocotillo and tortillas hechas a mano…This poem somehow still exists.
It is told in my mother’s native songs and she makes worry
dissolve like lime in warm honey, throat

refreshed and free of silence. You and I do not leave each other
across the border, grasping angrily at each other’s heart
in search of stay. We meet in the grassy fields

by Lago el Rincón, my arms overflowing with mojarras
del Siroco and Vicente Fernández tapes, and together
we graze the clouds passing

We watch sunset fall over Naica we call our own and
don’t fear its stripping. Our laughter echoes across
the surface of the lake, one where we don’t fear our finding.

We do not have to hide here. We do not have to hide anywhere.

fei hernandez. They/them, born in Chihuahua, MX, raised in CA, trans non binary visual artist, writer, healer.

WHEN I DREAM OF MOTHER(Land)
…
It is December/Right foot stepping
off a plane & left foot searching
for Ethiopia/My face scratched/
Lung bruised by the icicle gust/
My mind still stretched around
my mother’s round hips, letting
my cedar cheeks melt into her cinnamon skin/
Hoping to hear my mother’s voice ask
Leje metah? My son are you here?
…
12 hours working becomes 8/
Less than minimum wage becomes a salary/
Lunch or western union becomes both/
Buses become buying a car/
I’m completely alone becomes I have family here/

& still my case is pending/
& still my town gathers for coffee/
& still my mother makes fresh injera/
& still I miss my mother/
& still I’m dreaming/

What can be better than a motherland?
Sings me to sleep.

GIRUM SEID MULAT, originally from Ethiopia, poet, founder and president of the Ethiopian Arts Society in NA.

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. —Miriam Adeney, Kingdom Without Borders (2009)

(Years later, you will finally understand the message behind DACA and Advance Parole, both of which are exercises of prosecutorial discretion by the Executive Branch. Discretion: The US government can establish arbitrary age limits and guidelines to determine who is considered a human being. You have been dehumanized for so long that you glossed over this form of control and violence. One that denies you your full humanity—the right to make mistakes and to redeem one’s self without the threat of incarceration or exile. One that drives a wedge between you and your fellow im/migrants because DACA comes at the expense of other im/migrants with prior criminal convictions.)
ANGEL SUTJIPTO, born and raised in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur; confounder of AMPLIFY(HER) for undocumented womxn from Asian diaspora

you insist on my native tongue and I think of fish mint and its facetious echo as it rolls off my tongue a façade of an ocean growing alongside my father’s picket fence I think of survival I think of the necessity to be near water, and with it, the many faces breaking through the viscous names of bác and dì undulating waiting to be called I think of their voices struggling for clarity a codex stolen for joy grief and family
T. Lê is a Vietnamese American poet and artist.

Within your first few days, you’ll learn about the Christian doctrine of discovery, which justified European colonialism and genocide against Indigenous peoples by claiming that colonizers had authority to seize lands from and vanquish non-Christians. This incredibly racist and immoral doctrine was adopted into law in Johnson v. McIntosh when the Supreme Court held in 1823 that the “savage tribes” had no authority to convey their land without the approval of the US government. As bizarre as this decision is, it’s even more bizarre that this decision has never been overturned.

My time in law school had taught me that lawyers are gatekeepers to specialized knowledge, which we use to increase our value. I had hoped that when I began practicing law, I’d be able to transmit some of this knowledge to immigrant communities, thereby empowering them. But direct legal services, I learned, were depressingly unsatisfying. I was representing low-income immigrants who had been through hell, but I quickly realized that practicing immigration law requires upholding its racist tenets—an insistence on humiliation and victimization as the primary modes through which you can request forms of relief.

In our warped immigration system, the whites slaughtered Indigenous peoples and manufactured their citizenship on the basis of manifest destiny, before creating categories of inadmissibility and deportability. The rules are different for the rest of us. We must beg to have a home, despite every reason we need to stay.
Unlike the presumption of innocence in the criminal legal system, in removal proceedings, you must admit guilt to even ask for many forms of immigration relief. You will end up kneeling before the government in some kind of a hybrid between a very high-stakes college admissions essay and a confessional. Then, you tell the judge some variation of “my shithole country isn’t where I want to live so I will tell you the most invasive details of my life and beg to prove my worth.”
RAZEEN ZAMAN, a south-east Asian immigrant who grew up in Queens, and works as an immigration attorney.

you can’t remember the last time you felt unafraid. four years of trump have brought nothing but nightmare-tinged sleep; images of black people devoured in a sea of water cannons, rubber bullets, and riot-geared police have left you staring into the dark of your room at 3 a.m. gasping like a fish. when biden’s win is confirmed, you spend an hour on the phone with a good friend, another queer black migrant, talking about the joy you’re trying to locate within yourselves. “we’ve won this battle in the midst of an intractable war,” they say in response to your question of “what is worth celebrating in this moment?” together, you celebrate the black women who mobilized georgia and the black people who crammed into voting booths in pennsylvania to turn red swaths of the map blue. you laud the black people everywhere who spilled onto streets in protests months and years earlier, hoisting up black lives matter banners and signs. you give yourselves permission to rest in preparation for the next battle.
OLA OSAZE IS A TRANS MASCULINE QUEER OF EDO AND YORUBA DESCENT, WHO WAS BORN IN PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

Between gasps, I try to understand this migrant, transient, fluid body
I don’t know who I am,
or where I am

Somewhere in an uncharted galaxy,
I am stuck in an eclipse
Like Hathor, I bridge the boundaries
Between the cosmos and earth without interruption
…
I move purposefully tearing down the walls
Shaking off the pestering flies murmuring curses to me
Disrupting my sacred path

You don’t belong anywhere and nowhere is home

Sometimes I’m in a crowd with other creatures who are lost
Sometimes I find myself alone in the desert once more
…
Kaleidoscope of epiphanies
A road map of moments where I was led to darkness
Where others learned to fear my transformations…

How my eyes become a telescope into the sun’s spirit…

SÓL CASIQUE IS AN UNDOCUMENTED CREATIVE WITH THEMES OF TRANSFORMATION AND THE BEAUTY OF BEING, CREATING, AND IMAGINING BEYOND THE LIMITS OF COLONIALISM.

The song “La Jaula de Oro” (The Golden Cage) captured my father’s reality as an immigrant parent—the price that he paid for his dream to give his children a better life. Did he ever regret bringing us to this country? There were times when he did. But if he could choose between having us live in the stark poverty of our hometown or live in the US, though it meant watching us go to a place where he could not follow—succumbing to assimilation—I know he would always choose the latter.
In Migrant’s Time, the present can’t exist; everything must be understood as happening always in the past or menacing from the future—that is, always at the moment of Return.
César Miguel Rivera Vega Magallón, formerly undocumented Mexican queer poet.

“This essential and moving anthology serves to humanize the dehumanized. The people who walk through these pages not only survive, but flourish; not only cross borders, but demolish the concept of borders; not only break down stereotypes, but build bridges, whether of language or steel. Even the title itself presents a challenge: if somewhere we are human, then everywhere we are human—even here, even now.” —Martín Espada, poet, essayist, translator, editor, and attorney

[Clairette · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a great book for discussions. If you can get through the victim-mentality, there is a lot of worthwhile material in here.

This is a collection of art, poems, and essays that each offer a snapshot of what it is to have migrated to the USA from the global South. Each piece is by a different person so we get the perspectives of 35 individuals who are similar in that they have all lived in the US undocumented, but they are varied in country of origin, race, gender, and sexuality. Certainly this covers a diversity of experience.

I picked this up after reading The Sympathizer and North to Paradise, two migrant stories that I recommend and are ambivalent about how great the promised land is. I wanted more. But I wasn't looking for something this raw.

This book is emotional. About a feeling of not belonging (feeling foreign?). About love and longing for grandma's house. About the trauma of uncertainty. About the heartache of being a multicultural family. About disappointment when the thing you longed for turns out to not be as great as you expected. About feeling that it "must be nice to be white." These emotions are universal (for whites it isn't "must be nice to be white" but I assure you every person can list several circumstances they would prefer over what they were born into). These emotions are not special to undocumented people.

The victim aspect is played too strong especially in the first half of the book. When we overstay our VISAs we are in a place against social and legal norms. Fact of life in this era. Maybe we didn't know all that would entail, but this certainly didn't happen to us (unless we are a child) and it would be true in the US or anywhere else. But maybe the US somehow asked you to come and live undocumented? (That's not rhetorical, maybe it did and the US needs to change the immigrant promise story it hold onto.)

What is special about this book is that it highlights a dissonance: although American exceptionalism proclaims the US to be the "land of immigrants," the US demands a lot from immigrants. It isn't the land of milk and honey where being yourself is good enough, or where having a dream and putting in the hours is all that is needed to achieve whatever you desire. Or where all immigrants are welcomed with open arms. That is the mythological USA. The real USA is a land of immigration quotas (like every other country) and where if you have a dream, put in the hours, have a basic understanding of the law, are lucky enough to avoid violent racism, and of course have a little luck/pluck of the more generic variety, you CAN move up. Could that happen in X your country of origin? Was the chance worth all the sacrifice? Probably only if you succeed, like all high-stakes gambles.

The US is imperfect, highlighting aspects for improvement is vital work. This collection is often a complaint rather than constructive criticism, yet it's about feelings, so I don't think it could be anything other than thought-provoking.

-----

I found the story of lois-soto lane most sad. The Black father broken by America. And that by Razeen Zaman the most compelling.

[Ji Eun · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of us, immigrants, undocumented. Myself who was 15 when I flied over to the US. That of my family who had high hopes and dreams and idealism. It is a story of my Korean immigrants who came to the US searching for something better. It represents our “boat people” refugees, and similar and countless others seeking less chaos and some stability in their lives. It emblems African Americans who were sold as slaves in search of more equal treatments, better jobs, better opportunities. Our Latin American brothers and sisters who smuggle in search of better pay, and better life for ourselves and for our families. It symbolizes our Asian beautiful women and daughters and sisters who fly over as mail wives, or human trafficked in sex trades.

The disjointedness of these collected essays, poems, and arts shows the trauma we live with; our memories are scanty and few and don’t flow as we would like, as normal people do, and whose privileged lives cannot fathom. We are considered and treated as outsiders. We go through so much ism’s and our body painfully remembers the score.

It is my story, my tears shed.
It is our stories and our sleepless nights, nights of waking up crying, heartbroken and angry.
Our voices get louder, because we have always been invisible and we were never listened to or taken seriously.
It is the story of us. ❤️🙏

==========

Finished it. So Fucking Good.
Thank you for compiling this book.
I ship it so badly.



==================
P.s.:

I never had my own room until entering ma med school at the age of 32.

When Caucasians, one Indian American, my Asian church friends, Tufts school admin look at me “like why yo acting so po? Why not get yo screwed-up dirty smelly teeth fixed?” “You were privileged; you never had to work work because yo parents provided everything for you”

When Latinx children from my volunteering days back at the School on Wheels stared at me like “why you talkin Black”? “You not one of us, look at the nice car you drivin”

I identify with so many un-privileged persons living in this world with no bedrooms of their own, who have to work factory jobs, whose stories are shared in “Some Where We Are Human”

Just like Erika Sanchez in her “Crying in the Bathroom” (read her Introduction & Crying in the Bathroom), I am always searching & waiting for the perfect happy endings.

Our sense of self were violated long time ago and we, the traumatized, live with existential thoughts every second.

Because we share our identities and collective voices. 💜💜

traumatized persons like my family, never had the luxury of having anything of our own including our own bedrooms.

Even though we may have a lot of materials at this time in our lives, we are hungry for more, eager to work, to learn, and to keep going, in order to find our place.

We will never feel secure, as we have never been accepted.

As we were always judged and treated as outsiders.

As we are treated now.

Please be respectful to my loving, lovable family ❤️❤️

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Reviewing for audiobook)

"Somewhere We Are Human" is a great book as for Americans as we contemplate the future of immigration. Are we demanding that immigratnes become "Americanized" or do we open our arms, accept them, and welcome them into the U.S. This book is a collection of stories from many individuals, many of whom are LGBTQIA+, and their difficulty or failure to integrate into the American society.

I think it's always important to listen to voices, especially those you don't normally open yourself to hearing. This helps expand our capacity to be empathetic and to consider the journey in someone else's shoes. The book calls out not only our government, but our society and perhaps the reader.

I found it uncomfortable to listen many times due to the questions it made me ask myself: am I part of this system, am I complicit? Can I at least be empathetic enough to listen and to consider? I even got annoyed at one point with so many LGBTQIA stories, but then are they a larger fraction of the immigration population? Are other countries so inhospitable that they would come here?

I think it's irrelevant whether you WANT to read the book and these stories. I think, when you're ready for a tougher read, you should read this book as you would any classic. (I'm not suggesting you read this book when you're having an awful spell. Go for a comfort genre on these days. It took me a while to be able to approach this book.)

Would definitely recommend for Latinx heritage month and observe that most of the stories were representing this community. There was a handful of other stories from various backgrounds, but this felt like the prevailing motherland represented.

I gave three stars because of the audiobook narrators not always feeling like it was a good match for the author and his/her/their story. I also felt there's opportunity to represent other immigrant communities in this book.

[Vi Son · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore this book. Imagine you’re walking through a local art exhibit displaying works by and for migrants /refugee and dreamers—vignettes rich-lived experience. This was the impression I felt after finishing “Somewhere We Are Human”. The book is a mosaic of short stories, poems and few art work that illuminates around the theme of diaspora, acclimation, race/class/sexuality (and list goes on). However, the pacing and rhythm of the book did felt disjointed at time for me. I had to remind myself that these are short stories from different writers and so the expectation of theme and structure will vary more so then reading a book from a single author (again not much of a fault of the book but rather my lack of experience reading a collection piece). With that said, as someone who identifies as a refugee, I felt seen after reading this book. Mentions of immigration status, the constant anxiety of “white gaze”, to the power dynamic of “front-desk gatekeepers” (DMV, hospital, employers, government establishment) all felt too familiar to me. Important read of the collective resilience👌

[Susie Derkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This heartfelt book is an anthology of migrants who left their homeland in search of a better life and some to reunite with their parents who made the daring leap. Some expressed living in constant fear of being discovered undocumented; parents/a grandparent/single parent working many jobs to feed their families and afford higher education for their kids. Others still live with pain, guilt, and regret leaving behind loved ones, culture, identities, language in exchange for a new home, the promise of America where the roads are 'paved with gold'. This is what my father told me when I was 6 years old before immigrating as a student. This book deeply resonated with me because of the many sacrifices my father made when he left his homeland (when translated in English means "The Big Road") and brought us over when green cards weren't so difficult to obtain. This book made me appreciate everything he did for us leaving "The Big Road" for one that is paved with dandelions.

[Emily Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read given the current political climate in the US. I started reading this by renting from the library digitally and all 3 county library systems I have cards for have since removed this book from their catalog.

This book gives a voice and platform directly to people who are so often overlooks and whose voices are not heard. Having migrated myself, I found myself in tears on more than one occasion. The content is relevant, highlighting multiple communities in the US that will continue to face challenges in the coming years. For anyone who does not regularly interact with these communities, this is an excellent resource to start a personal journey of growing in understanding and empathy. Of being able to look through a window into a world so different from perhaps their own.

[Christine (Queen of Books)]

Somewhere We Are Human is a powerful anthology bringing together stories from the undocumented and previously undocumented. It's mostly comprised of essays and poems, though there also are a few pieces of visual art. Each entry is followed by a brief bio (single graf) about the author.

The range of voices is impressive. I appreciate that the editors held an open call, in addition to seeking specific contributions. Some of the poems and a few of the essays didn't really land with me, but I assume that's because I am not a regular poetry reader.

An unexpected treat of reading this collection was learning of many authors I'd like to read more from.

Thank you to Harper Via and NetGalley for a free e-arc of this title for review.

[Joy Carrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very illuminating book about the real difficulties immigrants to America face in a country that more often than not is neither welcoming nor inclusive. Told through essays and poems, it becomes clear that undocumented immigrants are plagued by fear of discovery, knowing full well the capricious nature of the immigration system and the barriers it puts up to the hope of ever becoming a citizen. Fear of deportation is present in everyday life. The only reason I gave this 4 stars is because the poetry was often hard to understand, but that is because of my own ignorance since I have no frame of reference to relate to it.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Libro.fm for allowing me to listen to an ALC of this important collection. There were some pieces that I connected with more than others. A few of my favorites were: "Not of Their World" by Julissa Arce because it reminded me of her book Someone Like Me; "Insider-Outsider: Unlearning My Legal Education" by Razeen Zaman who discussed her internal conflicts as an Immigration Law Attorney; "Body of Work" by Oscar Vazquez who discussed his inspiration from President Obama who was the commencement speaker at his college graduation; and "Undocumented Success Story" by Barbara Andrea Sostaita who told her story of being an undocumented migrant from Argentina.

[Rebecca]

I didn't finish this for two reasons. 1. It's an adult book, and I have too many piles of kids'/YA books to get through. 2. Sadly, I'm a philistine. A lot of what I did listen to (as an audiobook) was either poetry or I thought it was poetry, and I don't have the patience that poetry requires to really understand all its nuances and meanings. Sadly. The essays I did listen to were poignant and personal, and certainly stories worth knowing about. I also missed included artwork, since I was listening to audio. Thanks to Libro.fm for the free educator's copy of the audio.

[JL Salty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe because of the audio? Could not see the art, the poetry was sometimes hard… but I appreciated all the stories and opinions. More writings on the “side” of appreciation and … success would have been good : that perspective was touched, and I personally know it’s out there. A more balanced view of the suckiness of American policies and the potential of American life would have been good.
Rating: pg
Recommend: jh and up, esp any looking to know more about the US migrant / immigrant experience; the majority of the stories come from a left-aisle, progressive political perspective.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am in tears and in awe at the resilience of my community. A community that I once wished I didn’t belong to because of how hard it is to be brown skinned and undocumented in America. Because of the mental and emotional damage you take on when you watch your friends grow up and lead normal lives and you can’t get a job or a drivers license. These stories made me feel heard, they made me feel seen, they showed me I am not alone and I am a part of a vibrant and creative and resilient community that I have grown to become insanely proud of.

[Steph spero · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ I really thought a lot of the works in here were vulnerable, honest, and valuable to read. Some authors spoke about how grateful they were to come to the US and to have a “better” life but a lot of them spoke about how they didn’t ask for this, and the trauma they dealt with for years after due to migration was haunting. It really was eye opening to read different perspectives from LGBTQIA+ immigrants from all over the world. Every work is different and the book doesn’t flow, not that it should and it can’t given the art. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. It was eye opening.

[Nicole Korczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for work. This is a collection of poems, essays, and other materials written by migrants to America, many of whom are POC. The authors come from a variety of countries and family situations, and there's a spectrum of people who have or have not received documents, who did or did not return to their home country, and who did or did not even want to be in the US. The authors really show their situations to be relatable and worthy of outrage and action. Reads like fiction, thankfully.