Activist Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s childhood in Quito abruptly ends when her sister dies and Ecuador\u2019s deteriorating economy forces her parents to make an unexpected choice: to leave their beloved country to immigrate to the United States. The family moves to Queens, New York, where, as undocumented immigrants, they strive to hide their status by working hard, avoiding trouble, and paying their taxes. Jim\u00e9nez spends her teens living in constant fear while simultaneously dreaming of becoming the first in her family to go to college. With the help of a sympathetic teacher, she is accepted into Queens College, where a recent law allows her to pay in-state tuition despite her lack of immigration status. At college, Jim\u00e9nez becomes a talented community organizer, co-founding a national undocumented student\u2013led organization, the United We Dream network. Alongside her peers, Jim\u00e9nez organizes actions that pressure President Barack Obama into drafting and signing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides amnesty to more than a million undocumented youths. During this time, Jim\u00e9nez meets her future husband, fellow undocumented organizer Walter Barrientos, and receives American citizenship. Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s passionately observed and deeply felt memoir is a fascinating peek behind the scenes of the remarkably successful but little-known immigrant rights movement. Although portions of the book read more like a textbook than a memoir, this is, overall, a captivating and strong debut. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Activist Jim\u00e9nez\u2019s childhood in Quito abruptly ends when her sister dies and Ecuador\u2019s deteriorating economy forces her parents to make an unexpected choice: to leave their beloved country to immigrate to the United States. The family moves to Queens, New York, where, as undocumented immigrants, they strive to hide their status by working hard, avoiding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}