The Undocumented Americans

The book opens in the aftermath of the 2016 US election in which voters elected Donald Trump to be president. The author makes it clear that this moment—and Trump’s time in office—was an extremely stressful and dangerous time for undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Trump’s brand of Republicanism had already been demonizing Latinx immigrants and promising to ramp up southern border security and deportations. The author recounts the general panic and anxiety among her immigrant friends, family, and associates.

The author also reveals some facts about herself and talks about the origins of this book project. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio attended Harvard for her undergraduate education and started publishing essays about undocumented immigration while in college. Agents approached her about a full-length book, but she did not accept such a proposal until the Trump presidency. The author says that she “had read lots of books about migrants and […] hated a good number of the texts” (xv). The depictions of migrants did not reflect the experiences and complicated humanity of Villavicencio’s parents (Ecuadorian immigrants who moved to New York) or any immigrants in any more complexity than their status as laborers, “sufferers or dreamers” (xv). She committed herself to writing a truer and fuller account of the lives of undocumented Americans beyond simplified categories and the best-known stories that shape mainstream Americans’ perceptions.