I think every immigrant in this country knows that you can eat English and digest it so well that you shit it out, and to some people, you will still not speak English.
So says the Ecuadorian-American author and Harvard grad whose 2020 account of immigrant hardship was nominated for the National Book Award in nonfiction. In profiles that Publisher’s Weekly hailed as incandescent, she crisscrosses the country interviewing Latinos as they chase the American dream by queuing up for day labor, cleaning up Ground Zero, burning out in the restaurant industry, and banking on herbal medicines to in lieu of healthcare. Whether reporting on the role-reversals inherent in parent-child relationships where only the latter are fluent, or interviewing the Flint, Michigan mother of an infant with lead-poisoning contracted from the tap water during pregnancy, Villavicencio combines the detached eye of a reported with the understanding of a survivor who was abandoned by her parents as a toddler only to rejoin them later and try to make sense of it all.
The immigrants she writes about are all around us, from the line at Target to our gardening center and doctors’ office: the dreamers and their parents of all ages. Do yourself and them a favor by reading this captivating and short [185 pages] book. As one who teaches English as a Second Language to adults, this account is dear to my heart, as it was stories such as those recounted here that inspired me to write my own collection, World Class: Poems of the ESL Classroom when I was new to the job.
To hear a brief author-read excerpt, click here, –but first a trigger warning for language. She’s F___ing angry on this page, and her words carry the same kind of punch you can find in a rant by Native American author Sherman Alexie. And who’s to blame them, really?