Book No. 14 of 2021
Absolute stunner of a book that, despite tackling a topic that seems heavy and thorny, captures the joy and humanity of its subjects. There are moments of hope and levity just as there are also flashes of rage which does not attempt to disguise itself (which feels, oddly, like a relief).
I love how Villavicencio does not try to recast her subjects so they fit the mold of the “perfect immigrant” narrative, and in fact she states outright that she has no interest in perpetuating the mythology that immigrants must be perfect in order to deserve empathy, nor does she want to put immigrant “resilience” on a pedestal. Her main thesis is that everyone is human and deserving of basic rights and humanity—a basic concept that often gets lost in policy and media debates about why people should be afforded rights.
Villavicencio gets into topics I wouldn’t have thought of, including that of the world of “alternative medicine”—she points out that herbal remedies, often fetishized for their exotic power, are a luxury for the privileged (who still have access to modern medicine) whereas they are the only choice for an entire population of people who cannot afford proper healthcare. She also addresses the endless exploitation of labor (an American tale as old as time) and the ugliness of generational trauma.
Similar Reads
The chapter on Staten Island reminded me indelibly of NK Jemisin’s The City We Became.
The reality of disasters (particularly in Hurricane Katrina and 9/11), who actually does the helping, and who gets helped, reminded me of Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell.
I was also very much reminded of the many immigrant narratives I’ve read, which at this point are too numerous to be named here.