
The Undocumented Americans
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Narrated by:
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Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
About this listen
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation.
“Karla’s book sheds light on people’s personal experiences and allows their stories to be told and their voices to be heard.”—Selena Gomez
FINALIST FOR THE NBCC JOHN LEONARD AWARD • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, NPR, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOOK RIOT, LIBRARY JOURNAL, AND TIME
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.
In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited into the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami, we enter the ubiquitous botanicas, which offer medicinal herbs and potions to those whose status blocks them from any other health-care options. In Flint, Michigan, we learn of demands for state ID in order to receive life-saving clean water. In Connecticut, Cornejo Villavicencio, childless by choice, finds family in two teenage girls whose father is in sanctuary. 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.
©2020 Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Fabulous!!
- By andrea L. on 01-13-21
By: Maria Hinojosa
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Solito
- A Memoir
- By: Javier Zamora
- Narrated by: Javier Zamora
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
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MASTERPIECE of Poetic Prose, Outstanding Narration
- By Mary Burnight on 01-12-23
By: Javier Zamora
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Catalina
- A Novel
- By: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Narrated by: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her own complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world that has no place for the undocumented; her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies.
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Monotone delivery
- By Patricia M Hart on 11-01-24
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Border and Rule
- Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism
- By: Harsha Walia, Robin D. G. Kelley - foreword, Nick Estes - afterword
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Border and Rule explores a number of seemingly disparate global geographies with shared logics of border rule that displace, immobilize, criminalize, exploit, and expel migrants and refugees. With her keen ability to connect the dots, Harsha Walia demonstrates how borders divide the international working class and consolidate imperial, capitalist, and racist nationalist rule.
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What is this?
- By John Gathly on 05-29-22
By: Harsha Walia, and others
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LatinoLand
- A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 18 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana’s life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise twenty percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage.
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If you’re searching for the truth, this may not be your resource. Had children
- By Melissa L. Cook on 09-17-24
By: Marie Arana
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For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts
- A Love Letter to Women of Color
- By: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
- Narrated by: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The founder of Latina Rebels and a “Latinx Activist You Should Know” (Teen Vogue) arms women of color with the tools and knowledge they need to find success on their own terms.
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Must Read for BIWOC
- By Veronica Garcia on 09-24-21
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Dear America
- Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
- By: Jose Antonio Vargas
- Narrated by: Jose Antonio Vargas
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “[T]he most famous undocumented immigrant in America”, tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.
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Varga's story needs to be read in schools!
- By V R. Jasso on 10-12-18
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Chingona
- Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice
- By: Alma Zaragoza-Petty
- Narrated by: Alma Zaragoza-Petty
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Chingona, Mexican American activist, scholar, and podcast host Alma Zaragoza-Petty helps us claim our inner chingona, a Spanish term for "badass woman." Working for change while preserving her spirit, a chingona repurposes her pain for the good of the world. She may even learn that she belongs to a long line of chingonas who came before her—unruly women who used their persevering energy to survive and thrive.
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I was able to connect on so many levels with this book asa 1st generation Latina.
- By Dolores Diosdado on 04-20-25
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Living Beyond Borders
- Growing Up Mexican in America
- By: Margarita Longoria
- Narrated by: Alejandro Ruiz, Kyla Garcia, Margarita Longoria
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, and poetry, this celebrated group of authors share the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican Americans. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today's young listeners.
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Will buy the hard copy to keep forever
- By Anonymous User on 12-04-23
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Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed
- 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora
- By: Saraciea J. Fennell - editor
- Narrated by: Avi Roque, Elizabeth Acevedo, Frankie Corzo, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed, bestselling and award-winning authors as well as up-and-coming voices interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about the Latinx diaspora. These fifteen original pieces delve into everything from ghost stories and superheroes, to memories in the kitchen and travels around the world, to addiction and grief, to identity and anti-Blackness, to finding love and speaking your truth. Full of both sorrow and joy, Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed is an essential celebration of this rich and diverse community.
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Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed is a treasure trove of essays and poems.
- By AuthorAnnaBella on 04-04-22
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Relentless
- My Story of the Latino Spirit That Is Transforming America
- By: Luis A. Miranda Jr., Richard Wolffe - contributor, Lin-Manuel Miranda - foreword
- Narrated by: Luis A. Miranda Jr.
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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A veteran of New York and national politics, Luis Miranda embodies the relentless spirit of progress of American immigrants. There is no one on the Latino, New York, and national political scene with the breadth of experience, passion, and storytelling charm of Luis Miranda. In Relentless, he shares a fascinating narrative of his life and career—from his early days as a radically minded Puerto Rican activist to his decades of political advice and problem-solving.
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inspiring story
- By yuli pineda on 12-05-24
By: Luis A. Miranda Jr., and others
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Inventing Latinos
- A New Story of American Racism
- By: Laura E. Gómez
- Narrated by: Joana Garcia
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Latinos have long influenced everything from electoral politics to popular culture‚ yet many people instinctively regard them as recent immigrants rather than a longstanding racial group. In Inventing Latinos‚ Laura Gomez illuminates the fascinating race-making‚ unmaking‚ and remaking of Latino identity that has spanned centuries‚ leaving a permanent imprint on how race operates in the United States today.
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mixed reaction
- By david on 09-24-21
By: Laura E. Gómez
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Impossible Subjects
- Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
- By: Mae M. Ngai
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in US immigration policy - a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the 20th century.
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Excellent introduction to USA immigration
- By David on 03-17-23
By: Mae M. Ngai
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Tell Me How It Ends
- An Essay in 40 Questions
- By: Valeria Luiselli
- Narrated by: Laurence Bouvard
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Structured around the 40 questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear - both here and back home.
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educate yourself
- By keji kujjo on 10-04-18
By: Valeria Luiselli
What listeners say about The Undocumented Americans
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- RapaciousReader
- 04-11-20
Raw, heartbreaking - we can do better by others
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was featured on This American Life on NPR 04/10/2020, she read an excerpt of this gripping account of her life and it was absolutely heartbreaking and raw. It hurt my heart that someone right here in the USA, right this minute is being treated like garbage, less than. Its disgusting and we are not doing enough. This is not the ideal I was serving during my time in the military. We can do more. We must do more. No one is more entitled to this place than anyone else, all humans have the same birthright.
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10 people found this helpful
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- amy iadarola
- 01-04-21
Beautiful and devastating
Everyone should read this book. It’s beautifully written, deeply haunting , and even funny at times. Highly recommend.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-27-20
I loved every part of this book.
excellent book. what a wonderful experience.
I recommend this book to anyone . it's amazing.
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- Raquel Castro-Corazzini
- 03-31-21
Hit me to my core
Loved this book. It was tragic and funny. I enjoyed Karla's corky personality and felt her vulnerability.
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- Anonymous User
- 10-13-22
Everyone should read this!
Such a powerful book. You cannot unsee the truth after reading it. The issues or rather stories in the book affects us all.
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- Lawrence Cross
- 09-18-23
We all need to hear this…
By far, the most intimate, unfiltered reality told in words that are beautiful, gut wrenching and authentic. I am better equipped to understand and do the work that this book has called into action in my own life. Ignorance can only be bliss up to the point of the reveal. This book is a revelation. Thank you for sharing your gift, experience and research. We can not heal or begin to help what we do not know, please keep sharing.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-10-20
poignant and impossible to forget
it all hit hard. incredible writing, powerful reflections. I took notes. you should too.
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5 people found this helpful
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- ElFenix
- 11-21-20
The real deal
Moving, inspiring, catalyzing. This book, it's story, emboldened my activist work on matters of immigration.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Elisa Sparkman
- 05-11-21
Outstanding work of nonfiction
I don't think I've ever read any nonfiction book as vulnerable and raw as this one. I highly recommend it.
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- K.Nicholson
- 10-29-21
Excellent Read
The writing in this book is phenomenal! I also love that it’s read by the author!
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