Nonfiction Book Discussion

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

We read a variety of contemporary nonfiction and meet monthly for discussion in person and virtually via Zoom. September's selection: The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

For more information, contact discussion facilitator Becky Clark at rclark@aurorapubliclibrary.org. Copies of the book are available for checkout at the West Branch circulation desk.

Join us virtually here.

Book description:

The Undocumented Americans: A Homecoming by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

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.  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. (publisher description)

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