Across various historical periods, manifestos help orient and organize a group of people around a shared set of beliefs and demands. In this spirit of revolutionary change, we are inviting you to help name our shared expectations for what is required for thriving in a world without borders.

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For the next six weeks, we are asking folks to contribute their own expectations for a borderless world using this form (we will close this form on October 20^th). Your contributions can be in any language and about any aspect of unbordered life that makes the most sense to you.

We will compile your contributions and share them as the first La Cuenta zine later this year.

Some examples:

We demand the abolition of border surveillance technologies.

We demand an end to the policing of people’s movement and the immediate reunification of all families separated by unlawful border policies.

We demand an education that respects the lived identities and perspectives of all people.

What would you add to our growing list?

Contribute to the manifesto

We look forward to reading your contribution to our manifesto.

¿Cuáles son tus exigencias para vivir en un mundo sin fronteras?

A lo largo de diversos periodos históricos, los manifiestos ayudan a orientar y organizar a un grupo de personas en torno a un conjunto compartido de creencias y reivindicaciones. Con este espíritu de cambio revolucionario, les invitamos a ayudar a definir nuestras expectativas comunes sobre lo que se requiere para prosperar en un mundo sin fronteras.

Durante las próximas seis semanas, invitamos a las personas a compartir sus propias expectativas sobre un mundo sin fronteras mediante este formulario (el cual cerraremos el 20 de octubre). Sus aportaciones pueden redactarse en cualquier idioma y abordar cualquier aspecto de la vida sin fronteras que les resulte más significativo.

Recopilaremos sus aportaciones y las compartiremos como el primer fanzine de La Cuenta más adelante este año.

Algunos ejemplos:

Exigimos la abolición de las tecnologías de vigilancia fronteriza.

Exigimos el fin del control policial sobre el movimiento de las personas y la reunificación inmediata de todas las familias separadas por políticas fronterizas ilegítimas.

Exigimos una educación que respete las identidades y perspectivas vividas de todas las personas.

¿Qué añadirías a nuestra creciente lista?

Contribuye al manifesto

Esperamos con interés leer su contribución a nuestro manifiesto.

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Propina

This week we have a simple ask for our wonderful community of readers.

On June 7th at around 3pm the husband of a close and personal friend was taken into ICE custody. The main provider of this family has now been taken from their family and Asly, has become the sole provider for her five children. Times are incredibly difficult, with the rise of state violence against our communities as well as the rise of costs from utilities, rent, mortgages and food. We ask that if you are able to, donate what you can to Asly’s gofundme to help her take care of her kids as she navigates this nightmare.

It is incredibly important that we continue to take care of one another against state violence in any capacity.

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Stay safe, we’ll see you next week.

This week we had the pleasure of speaking with Murad Awawdeh, a father, strategist, organizer, and advocacy expert currently serving as the President and CEO at the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC). The son of Palestinian immigrants, Murad has dedicated over two decades of his life fighting for low-income communities of color across the State of New York. He grew up organizing to stop dangerous and hazardous developments in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and engaging community residents to build power and bring transformational change to their neighborhoods. As the NYIC's Executive Vice President of Advocacy & Strategy he successfully led electoral, legislative, and policy campaigns at the federal, state and local levels, and mobilized hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers at demonstrations against anti-immigrant policies.

In our conversation Murad shares his approach in having open and honest communications in his multigenerational home and offers advice on how to have these difficult conversations and prepare not only our loved ones but ourselves during the rise of state sanctioned violence.

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CHRISTIAN PENA: Hi Murad, thank you for meeting with me today, I’ve been following your work supporting Haitians and Syrians that recently lost their TPS status. It's incredibly devastating and I appreciate your work on this. With these recent events I am wondering what you have learned about family preparedness and how immigrant parents can communicate with their children about what is happening in this moment?

MURAD AWAWDEH: Hi, yes thank you. I think oftentimes when we talk about immigration or when there are conversations around immigration, it’s talked about in this political sense. It’s never talked about in the personal lens. And when we’re talking about it, we often want to explain to people, why what’s happening is wrong or why what’s happening is right. When I’m speaking to my kids, it’s not that right?

CP: Right, you have to be perceptive and speak their language.

MA: Right. I think also right now for me it’s become a safety concern more than ever. I started working here 13 years ago and I would bring my son to everything. If we had a rally he was coming. Over the past couple years I’ve stopped bringing him to work events except like you know celebratory things like our gala or like a victory party.

CP: Was there a conversation around this that you had with your son?

MA: When we talk about the work that I do, you know, to him, he kind of gets it. He knows what it means to want to be safe because he wants to be safe, right? And that is something that we talked about. You know the school exercises that they have to do in schools actually helped me have this conversation with them because he had questions about it.

You know he was saying, “It’s weird that we have to do this. Why do we have to do it?”

So I explained, Well you know sometimes bad things happen. and we want to make sure that even if a bad thing happens we are prepared for what’s to come and that we do everything we can to prevent it from happening.

CP: And you found success in waiting for your child to have a question about something that could then lead to a broader conversation about what we are witnessing and experiencing right now.

MA: Right, I’m not trying to educate them. I want to understand what spurred this topic for them and why they’re asking me about it. And oftentimes as parents, you want to like just give them as much reassurance that everything’s okay.

CP: Oh yeah, it’s our instinct to protect them. I am totally guilty of that sometimes.

MA: I actually stopped doing that, because things are not okay, right? I don’t want them growing up with this false sense of the reality that we live in because that’s not fair for them either. So I think for me as a father and an immigrant rights leader, I see how family pressures can create this world that we’re living in where we feel this anxiety in ourselves and all we’re trying to do is create stable homes for our kids and loving families. That’s our goal.

I want to make sure that they are so loved that when they go out into the world and it beats them down that they know that they are still loved. Like that is my goal in life.

CP: Yes, absolutely. When we talk about this sort of world of anxiety that we are living in as their parents it’s easy and also selfish to shelter them. It’s something that I struggle with but also push through to empower my kids. And that can be very heavy work.

MA: You know, the past couple of weeks I have been struggling with seeing—we just had our fourth death at Delaney Hall.

CP: Yes.

MA: Recently we had two fathers who were murdered, one in front of his kid, the other his family watched his murder on camera. Um, and that shit is hard. You know, it is incredibly difficult. The image of a three-year-old girl in her pajamas witnessing the aftermath of her father’s murder keeps running in my head.

CP: Yes. I mean those men look like members of our families. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that this little girl was wearing Bluey pajamas and my four-year-old son loves Bluey. It’s his comfort toy, and I just can’t get past that.

MA: Yeah.

CP: As their immigrant mother I am walking this thin line of wanting to protect them but also prepare them. And I worry that this anxiety, of is ‘my mother safe after she drops me off at school or is on her way to pick me up’, if that creates even more anxiety that only so many conversations can help them with. And it’s hard not to be anxious right now.

MA: Yeah. I think especially when the headlines are just constantly painful right? Like I first have to process my own fear, anger and rage to be able to be honest with them that this is the world that we are living in. But they are also hearing things at school from their friends through the news. And the thing is, it is not my job to pretend nothing is happening.

It really is about helping them understand what's happening without allowing fear to take over the sense of their own childhood or their home or their belonging, right?

CP: Absolutely. And we can do this by letting them lead us to their question?

MA: I always start by listening and I want to know what they are saying is being heard. I want them to help me understand what they think their question means and what they are actually worried about. Because adults oftentimes, especially parents, sometimes we give too much information for the sake of feeling like we need to give them the information that they need to understand our thought process, our rationale. And by doing that we are creating more anxiety because they’re like, “well I wasn’t even thinking of that.”

Listening helps me respond to the concern behind the question. And for me, it’s always trying to be honest as much as I can while keeping the conversation as appropriate. Like my son’s 10, he’s turning 11 and I have a seven-year-old daughter. I don’t want to minimize the reality of what is happening. I think that is very important and I don’t want to overwhelm them at the same time either.

CP: In the end we are empowering them and supporting them through the conversation.

MA: The goal is always to provide them with the true facts, reassure them that you know things are hard. You know people struggle and they work through their struggles and they come from a lineage of strong people who have fought for justice and give them the sense that they’re not powerless. The biggest thing you have to to do is make sure that they feel like they are not alone.

CP: I really appreciate your insight Murad. This is incredibly helpful for me and the ongoing conversations I have with my own kids about the current state of our world. Are there tools or a method to preparedness, sort of like the school drills that you mentioned that parents could use and talk to our kids about?

MA: I think the first thing to do as a parent is to prepare yourself. Walk through every horrible scenario that you can think of, right? Start to allow yourself to process some of that so that you are prepared to be able to have a conversation to begin with.

Oftentimes, we forget to care for ourselves. And as a parent, I definitely don’t care for myself as much as I should because it’s like I’m worried about their well-being. I’m worried about them getting the nutrition they need. I’m worried about then getting ready for school and getting them out the door, making sure that their homework is done, all the things that parents are constantly worried about.

I think you have to focus on yourself a little bit here, especially when dealing with something as traumatic as what we’ve been seeing.

CP: Are there things that have helped you process this sort of traumatic reality that grounds you and allows you to be more prepared for these conversations?

MA: One thing that has been helping is having the different generational conversations. My mom’s perspective and what made me lean into organising and advocacy was my mom’s fear when I was a kid and the way she sees her status and where she is now to where she was before. Even in the way that she speaks about it, you hear this immense sense of real deep-seated anxiety that she lived with for so many years. As you are listening to her, you hear her journey as she gets closer to status and then citizenship. She has this like real relief. But she has not forgotten the challenges that she went through.

I think it is important to make room for that perspective. And different perspectives in conversations with your kids. The thing you want to do is ensure that first take care of yourself. Second, think about the conversations you want to have. The third piece is regardless of how this conversation is going to go, your kid needs to walk out of that conversation feeling that they can feel safe asking these questions.

Understand that these conversations will not always be easy and having them together can strengthen the trust between you and your children. And the reminder is that we’re one family and they don’t have to face anything alone and that we’re all in this together.

CP: I appreciate your perspective and thank you for offering a different approach to an oftentimes uncomfortable part of being an immigrant parent to small children. Like I mentioned previously, I have been following your work advocating for children’s rights in immigration courts now that the administration has refused to renew contracts to fund organizations that provide legal help, as well as how devastating it has been for those that have had their TPS revoked. How can we continue to support our communities and your work in this moment?

MA: I think temporary protected status and any other status like TPS for Haitians and Syrians ending a few weeks ago has been devastating. It’s devastating for over 40,000 New Yorkers, over 350,000 people who call this country home. Just imagine your entire livelihood being ripped away from you. That’s the best way I can explain this to people in the clearest of terms. They weren’t the first status to end, right? We saw humanitarian parole end. We saw the parole for Afghanis end. We saw the Ukrainian program end. We saw CHMV end.

The goal of this administration is to de-document as many people as possible. They want to continue this mass deportation agenda that literally, not one person asked for. If you look at the exit polling from the election in 2024 you’ll see that the number one issue with over 40% of support was the economy and specifically the affordability crisis.

They’re not addressing that. They want to keep having a boogyman. The boogyman right now is going to be unfortunately our communities. And I think oftentimes people forget that government is supposed to actually serve the people, not itself. And how in moments that we’re living, does anyone think that this government that is serving right now is serving them right in this moment.

CP: I can’t imagine who actually feels this government is serving them right now.

MA: Right. I often think about what families need right now and there’s a lot of need. There is going to be even more need moving forward. I think what is really clear to me is that we need to continue to put out clear and reliable and accessible information about everyone’s rights, including US citizens, because ICE, which is running around this country lawless and rogue do not care.

CP: No, citizenship no longer guarantees safety.

MA: They have gunned down US citizens in broad daylight and murdered them.

CP: It is incredibly unnerving and now vital more than ever the exchange of information and difficult conversations.

MA: Yeah, I feel like people need to understand what their rights are collectively. Every single person calls this country home. Misinformation also creates an additional level of fear and another layer of it. So trusted organizations play an incredible role in this moment especially in helping parents understand what is happening and make informed decisions for their families. Before TPS even ended we were doing clinics, we were doing family preparedness sessions we were making sure that people across the board felt like they had the information that they needed. The people have to make the best decision for themselves.

As a parent, I have to do that almost every day. As you know, you have to do that for yourself. There are so many different, minimal ways that we can do things. But the real thing that we need is the federal government to take action and actually provide relief and legal protections for the communities who are losing their status. But specifically, there was a Haitian and TPS discharge petition in Congress which passed the House with, you know, bipartisan support and has been stalled in senate, right?

CP: Oh yeah.

MA: That in itself, like if everyone wants to do something to help people who have lost their TPS call your US senator, demand that they actually pass the discharge position for Haitian TPS.

And then the last thing I will say on this is, the organization I lead, the New York Immigration Coalition, has a great set of resources for people to navigate their rights and to learn. Knowledge really is power. I’m not trying to sound corny and my son says that all the time.

Our goal is to really make sure that we encourage anyone looking for more guidance to look at trusted organizations like they can visit our website nyic.org and it’ll bring them to all of our Know your rights information. We have guides to help people understand their rights at home, at work, in the street. Best practices for family preparedness planning because you don’t want to get caught flatfooted and you want to make sure that you know you are prepared in case anything were to happen and making sure that we’re doing the steps that we need to keep our families safe.

CP: There are a lot of people doing good work across the country that is offering support right now.

MA: Exactly there’s an immigrant rights coalition in more than likely in your state.

CP: Thank you Murad. Finally, we like to ask our guests this question at the end of our conversation: La Cuenta is an ongoing exploration of the costs incurred by roughly 11 million individuals in the United States that are labeled as undocumented. If you could bill the US for the cost of being an immigrant in this country what would that bill look like for you?

MA: Pain and suffering right now. For our collective community the equivalent of it is in trillions of dollars. And the trauma that they have put our communities through is insurmountable. The amount of money that they would have to pay for that. People forget that the reason why many of our families had to migrate to the United States was because of failed US policies. People don’t remember that the reason why people had to leave their homes was because of our foreign policy and then coming here seeking refuge and safety or economic, opportunities. So not only are we dealing with past traumas, we’re still dealing with the current trauma that is being waged on us right now with this war on immigrants.

CP: Insurmountable. Thanks again for your time Murad.

MA: Yeah, thank you.

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We are incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with Murad Awawdeh about family preparedness and how we can continue to support and fight for our families in this moment.

To learn more about the work he does and access resources to prepare your family you can visit The New York Immigration Coalition website.

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Let’s keep up the good fight, stay informed and stay safe.

We’ll see you next week.

Referencing a caution James Baldwin offered educators nearly sixty years ago, George Theoharis and John Rogers reflect:

Today, once again, young people are growing up in very dangerous times. There are a host of new challenges that threaten our health, our capacity to manage technological change, and our ability to nourish and protect the land that sustains us all. These perils are compounded by growing assaults on civil liberties and on the norms and institutions of democratic governance.

These words come from the introduction to the powerful new book, Educating in Dangerous Times: A Call to Reenvision Public School in America.

This week, we are offering an exclusive look at a chapter focused on undocumented schooling that La Cuenta’s editors: Christián, Alix, and Antero wrote for Educating in Dangerous Times. Speaking to La Cuenta’s readers, one of the book’s editor’s Dr. John Rogers said:

At La Cuenta, we are excited to share an exclusive look at our chapter and encourage you to look at the powerful contributions in this volume.

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An excerpt from: Beyond Classroom Borders and Undocumented Schooling

by Antero Garcia, Christián Pena, and Alix Dick

We write this chapter encroached by borders we didn’t ask for. We live within the confines of being neither here nor there but, rather, fixed in the imagination of who schools expect us to become. Let us, then, share an extended reflection from Christián that describes undocumented schooling within the bordered hallways of US schools:

I entered kindergarten ravenous for an education that could teach me to read and push me to be in spaces my parents could only dream of for their families and themselves. I came to the US when I was two years old. Until the age of five, I existed in a primarily Spanish-speaking bubble. At six, with my newly formed tongue having just learned English from watching Sesame Street and VHS tapes of Inglés sin Barreras that my mother would blare through the TV while she cleaned and half-listened, the systemic borders that affected other immigrant children like my brother did not seem so apparent to me. While my brother was evaluated for learning disabilities and placed in additional reading classes and struggled to navigate school, I tore through every book in the Junie B. Jones and the Magic Tree House series. I joined band (I played the flute) and choir, participated in student council as treasurer, won a basketball championship with my team of friends, and remained on honor roll consistently from kindergarten through the fifth grade.

I was the perfect immigrant student and the perfect immigrant daughter. My mother would call family back home and tell them that I had taught myself to read and write in Spanish and English and that I was an incredible student. I translated at parent-teacher conferences when the school could not get a translator, and I told my parents how great a student my teachers believed I was.

The language of my childhood and my subsequent entrance into middle school changed the playing field drastically. The culture shifted; it felt foreign and terrifying to me. It was a language that my immigrant parents could not understand, and I could not begin to translate. This new system altered my love for education, and I remained in a fog until I finished the eighth grade. When I entered high school, I began to see the end of an era, the end of my childhood and the push for bigger things: college and a career. It was 2014, and after Barack Obama announced that DACA would be offered to students like me, my parents began the application process as soon as possible. After more than a decade of being a student in this country, I understood for the first time in my life what my Mexican citizenship meant, what being an immigrant in the United States meant. If I was not approved for DACA, I could not go to college or get a job, and the risk of being kicked out of the country I grew up in, the only country I have ever known, would be an ever-looming ghost. The border closed in on me then. Its ghostly hands were palpable in every classroom. In history class, our teacher began discussing elections and passing around voting ballots to everyone who had turned eighteen. I placed it in my backpack and told her that I would fill it out at home while the class worked on theirs for the rest of sixth period. In English class, when we went to the computer lab for the period to fill out FAFSA applications and look for scholarships, the border seemed to grip its greedy fingers around my throat until I felt suffocated by the weight of a future that felt fleeting and unreal.

All of my labor, my hard work, suddenly did not matter. My GPA took a turn for the worst. My parents did not let me join sports, like tennis, badminton, or softball, because I did not have medical insurance and could not get the required physical to even try out. I spent a week preparing an application for a program that offered college courses and credits at a local community college. When I was called by the program and asked to come in and fill out additional paperwork, I had no way to get to the college because my father was at work and my mother could not drive. I wonder now if my lack of a Social Security number would have prevented my admission, even if I had found a way to get there.

We offer this extended description of Christián’s schooling experience to highlight the many, often overlapping ways that the borders of schooling shaped her freedoms and the ways undocumented schooling threatens all members of our schooling communities.

Understanding Undocumented Schooling

The personal details of undocumented schooling vary family by family in their vagaries. Christián’s experience highlights key themes of exclusion, miseducation, and punishment created by US borders. Her narrative makes clear that schools writ large reinforce the US colonial project of the past two hundred and fifty years. Let us clarify. The problem isn’t the dehumanizing experiences of undocumented students, parents, or even teachers. Awful as these experiences may be, they are the by-product of how borders orient the social, physical, and pedagogical geographies of schooling. Even more damning, these borders are ostensibly fictitious–though this chapter is rooted in the real consequences of their enforcement. The lines of delineation, making one land mass more American than another are not “real” in any god-ordained or physical way. As the late David Graeber neatly summarized, “There’s all these imaginary lines drawn around the world with not so imaginary weapons protecting them.” And yet, the boundaries that arbitrarily deem one person more “legal” than another are tools for schooling and orienting whose identities count in schools.

The symbolic representation of borders, of US enclosure, creates the conditions that allow the US to justify its perverse treatment of an undocumented citizenry. This is not a unique phenomenon of historic mistreatment of a general group of people or of a particular period of US history. The story of undocumented schooling is as old as the intertwined systems that capture and dispose of the Black and Brown bodies dreaming in the US today. State-building, mass public education, and the prison industrial complex intersect on working-class communities. While these systems are not new, we are seeing new ways that borders are harming people of all ages today. It is this experience of undocumented schooling that we plan to reenvision in the second half of this chapter.

Borders assert the legitimacy of some, but not others, on one side of the demarcation line, and, in so doing, they powerfully shape the experiences of school-aged children and their families.

Though the border operating around the US is a constructed phenomenon, it is an idea that enacts very real power. The idea of the border influences the operation of school curriculum, legal and social services available within most cities, relationships to authorities and prison systems, and a cultural climate that conveys a consistent message that undocumented families serve at the behest of labor exploitation in this country. Family life and schooling, then, are bordered at every turn.

Today, through relationships with technology companies and billions of dollars funding nationwide deportation efforts, the identities of young people in bordered school settings are treated as illicit, illegitimate. Undocumented individuals experience a schooling that reinforces harmful borders through the pedagogical enforcement of colonial instruction; linguistic restriction in many “English only” learning contexts; carceral partnership that finds agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within and around schools; financial aid restrictions that often prohibit individuals from moving into higher education institutions; and broader cultural exclusion through the customs and practices that reinforce Eurocentric lessons for learning and celebration. In short, the stories like those Christián shares are not an anomaly or a by-product of US borders. They are the intended outcome.

Each day in schools reasserts a bordered definition of the United States in the consciousness of students and their families. Through the policies, curriculum, and structural conditions within and around schools, US public schools remake America, a civic enforcement of assimilation, restriction, and compliance. To be clear, our emphasis on the ways that borders configure schooling is not a claim about the permanence of this system, but of its potential malleability—a possibility for radical transformation—fomenting in classrooms, schools, and their surrounding communities.

Reenvisioning Undocumented Schooling Toward a School System Beyond Borders

Because of the dizzying nature of what bordered schooling does for all transnational students, regardless of “legal” status in this country, it is not sufficient to identify singular policies to eradicate or adjust. Like other forms of systemic racism, the interlocking aspects of educational policy, cultural practices within schools, and curricular choices demand a reenvisioned school system that works toward alternate forms of academic progress and relationships within communities.

Knowing that the pragmatics of a school system divorced from state-sanctioned borders can feel impossible, let us start with and agitate around familiar language within the immigrant rights community: sanctuary. In the lead-up to past anti-immigrant efforts during the first Trump administration, myriad cities, states, and municipalities including school districts labeled themselves as “sanctuary” locations, committing to not collaborating with federal immigration enforcement efforts or organizations like ICE. Sanctuary has played an important—even if often symbolic—role in recent efforts to maintain the rights of immigrant communities in the current contexts of federal legislation. A sanctuary, by definition, is a space of refuge; it speaks to retreat from everyday life to heal or restore to a healthier state of being. However, while this metaphor and the policies it enabled in recent years has been a useful counter-response to anti-immigrant policies, sanctuary is not a solution to bordered and undocumented schooling contexts.

Instead of seeking refuge from everyday life, unbordered schooling demands restructuring space and everyone’s sense of freedom within it. Building on these possibilities, we raise the anarchist-articulated construction of “temporary autonomous zones” as a rudimentary blueprint for how schools might be configured. A temporary autonomous zone recognizes that no space or governance is always enforced and in-place: “There are always temporary cracks and fissures, ephemeral spaces in which self-organized communities can and do continually emerge like eruptions, covert uprisings.” In recognizing that autonomy relies on mutual agreement rather than happenstance circumstances, Graeber’s work has pushed toward “provisional autonomous zones” as a means of organizing, suggesting that spaces need only be as temporary as the needs and efforts of those who inhabit them. Indeed, in his own organizing efforts, Graeber’s leadership with the Occupy movement in the 2010s illustrated how bodies of people can govern and organize beyond the articulated rules of the state.

If bordered schooling is about restriction and control—of one’s body, mind, tongue, and navigational possibilities—an unbordered approach to schooling does not withdraw into a realm of sanctuary. Rather, parents, students, and educators, together, can maintain schools as sites of community-defined freedom and individual self-actualization. If we treat classrooms as opportunities for micro governance, what happens to student perceptions of dignity and self-worth? How might the “provisional” autonomies that educators can empower in their classrooms lead to a broader sense of civic imagination in the broader world?

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Educating in Dangerous Times is filled with nearly two dozen chapters focused on various aspects of schooling today, please check it out. And if you’d like to learn more, there is an online book launch for Educating in Dangerous Times next week:

Please join us for the national book launch on Zoom on Tues Aug 25 at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST. Book launch will include an introduction to the book, the esteemed authors, being in community during this dangerous times, and fabulous raffle prizes.

      Register for the launch here

We’ll see you next week.

This week we return with another poem from Ana on migration and the perpetual nostalgia of leaving a place behind. A place changed after crossing borders, after border crossing and time have changed you.

Mi nombre es Ana, soy inmigrante; no salí de mi tierra por decisión, sino más bien porque no tenía otra opción. Soy la menor de cinco hermanos de los cuales ya he perdido tres.

Tengo una profesión soy abogada, pero mi pasión es por la vida humana, por la naturaleza y los gatos… amo el despertar de cada día y el poder llegar a la noche y dar gracias a la vida porque ha sido una oportunidad más.

Actualmente soy solicitante de un documento que me diga que puedo vivir de forma segura en un país extraño, pero me ha brindado una comunidad y amigos sinceros. No son muchos, pero son suficientes para compartir mis días.

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UNA LUZ ENCENDIDA

Ana

Cuando migras, sin la intención de olvidar, 
Cuando te vas sin la intención de dejar, 
Cuando huyes sin el ánimo de marcharse, 

Porque te marchas sin dejar un pueblo, una familia, una vida, 
Sales de un lugar, pero sin apartar tu corazón, de esa ciudad, de esa casa, de una vida
Partes para iniciar un viaje, pero no terminas de llegar... 

Nunca eres de aquí porque te prohíben pertenecer, 
Pero tampoco eres de allá pique estás obligado a no regresar


Cómo regresas, si allá no te espera más que olvidos, ausencias, carencias y
desobediencias, 

¿Cómo te quedas si te persiguen, te humillan, te acorralan, te hace esconder quién
eres...? ¡Hasta te matan!

Hay lugares que nunca volveremos a habitar, a visitar, a sostener, pero en esos lugares, en algún rincón, hay seres luminosos que nos deja una luz encendida. 

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Muchas gracias a Ana, por compartir su experiencia y poesia con nostoros.

You can read Ana’s other poems here:

We’ll see you next week.

This week Claudia Rojas shares a third poem from her poetry manuscript, Kite Line to Form I-485. Her manuscript explores navigating life under temporary protected status, as a woman, a daughter and an immigrant from El Salvador.

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Why Write?

Claudia Rojas

I protest because nuestra gente
are dying, and I write
because mainstream news
doesn't have any words, 
and if something isn't reported, 
is it even happening?

I write because yo soy
and though my hips don't dance salsa
my brown
skin calls me hermosa
and don't you ever, 
ever let anyone 
let you believe in ugly. 

I write because my heart is 
73% ocean
and sometimes I hurt so much my ocean is a tsunami


No one                      nadie
prepared me             me preparó
for this                       para este
body.                           cuerpo. 


I write because a congressman once 
told me he doesn't care
about people 
like me. 
I write because most days
a congressman's inaction 
and opposition about immigration 
is saying those same words

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Claudia recently attended a book talk for Avocado Dreams: Remaking Salvadoran Life and Art in the Washington, D.C Metro Area. Claudia’s poetry is cited in this history book by academic Ana Praticia Rodríguez. You can learn more and read the book from the University of Arizona Press. Another great way to read the book is through the public library, and if it’s not yet available near you, suggest a library purchase.

We’ll see you next week

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We return this week with the second, and final part of our interview with author, Reyna Grande.

If you missed the first part you can read it here:

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CHRISTIAN PENA: In the essay, Stitching My Mother Tongue, you write about the uncertainty you felt in your own identity as an immigrant girl being forced to speak American or risk living on the margins. Being bilingual can often help us step in and out of two worlds and help ground us in our identity, as I experienced in my own girlhood. Unfortunately, that is not often the case and it can actually be traumatic.

REYNA GRANDE: That’s a nice point that you made about how there’s a version of yourself that speaks Spanish and there’s a version of yourself that speaks English. When society makes you feel ashamed of the version of yourself that speaks Spanish, you begin to reject that version of yourself. And you try to do as much as you can to distance yourself from that version.

And so that speaks to what I went through as a kid where I was made to feel ashamed of that version of myself that was a Spanish speaker, that was an immigrant, brown girl. And so I started to not only reject my language, but also me. That part of me. It took me a long time to reframe that and to realize the harm that had been caused because of that language trauma and to try to walk myself back to my native tongue and back to myself, that version of myself.

When I was at UC Santa Cruz, that was really for me, the beginning of finding my way back to Spanish because my teacher, that I write about in A Dream Called Home, Martha Navarro, she was just so good at constantly talking about us not being ashamed, to not be ashamed of how we speak, to not be ashamed of where we come from. She was constantly given us these pep talks because it wasn’t just me, but it was her whole classroom. We all came into her classroom feeling all this shame about not speaking Spanish correctly, our “broken Spanish,” and she was so good at just instilling in us a lot of pride. I want to credit her for that because she put me on a path of embracing my Spanish and trying to learn it. Now, I speak Spanish much better than when I was a teenager.

CP: Wow, that is incredible. It makes me feel so much better about my own journey with Spanish.

RG: Yeah. Now, I really love being able to work on the translations of my work. I spent the entirety of las week reviewing the Spanish manuscript for A Través de Cien Montañas, my first book that I published 20 years ago, because it’s being published in Mexico for the first time ever.

CP: Congratulations, that’s amazing!

RG: Thank you, yes I’m very excited. They sent me the manuscript so I could review it one last time before it goes out. When I was reading through it I was able to catch things like typos, clunky sentences, or when there were some accent marks missing. I really surprised myself. To have the ability now to be able to see when a sentence is clunky or when a verb is wrong or the word choice is not correct, I don’t know I just feel very proud about that. Proud about reclaiming my mother tongue, and about getting rid of that shame. My daughter graduated high school last week and she got her diploma with the seal of biliteracy from the state of California on it. When I saw her diploma, it just made me so happy.

CP: That’s just wonderful to hear. Reading your essay, The Storyteller’s Daughter, and the conversation of those two essays between you and your daughter made me very emotional. Personally, I feel like this is the heart of Migrant Heart. This mending of the wounds you shared with readers in your previous work, sort of happened here in this conversation. It was beautiful.

RG: Thank you. The essay that my daughter wrote, was a last minute thing that I put in the book. It wasn’t there until the very end when we squeezed it in there and it was because she wrote it for her college application and I didn’t know about it until my son’s girlfriend mentioned the essay.

CP: Oh my gosh you didn’t know about it?

RG: I didn't know about it. I said, “What? There’s an essay about me and I haven’t read it.” So then I asked my daughter to send it to me. When I read it, I got so teary-eyed. I asked her if I could put her essay in my book because I felt like these two essays were in conversation with one another.

CP: It was truly wonderful. There is a lot of playing with form as we talked about, I loved reading the Menopausal Almanac and reading about you in the middle of the night with the slugs in your garden. what helped you move out of your comfort zone?

RG: Because I love lyric essays, and braided essays, I’ve always wanted to write essays like that. To just let go of the traditional structure or rules of essay writing and push past those boundaries and see what comes up. To try different things. So I stared with horror story, giving myself permission to write it as a braided essay where I was exploring vision loss or distorted vision and using my corneas as on braid and then weaving in the rest, the politics, the way this country has a very distorted vision of its immigrants. I was also taking a playwriting class and so that inspired me write another essay using what I was learning in my playwriting class.

With the Menopausal Gardeners Almanac, at first I was writing it as a braided essay, but then I thought, “Well, If I’m going to call it an almanac, then I should put it in columns so that it looks like an almanac.” I needed to change it visually, to play with it some more.

Then when I wrote Dictionary of a Father’s Death, I decided I couldn’t write it in a traditional structure because the year that my father died, I remember only snippets of it. I wish I had kept a journal, but I didn't. I had these different memories that were kind of fragmented and then I realized, you know grief is very fragmented. Grief is not linear. There is no beginning, middle or end when it comes to grief.

I began experimenting with this piece and trying to find words that could define my grief. Asking myself, what are the words that I can use to define how I feel about my father dying. I had some poems, or more like prose poems that I wrote about ten years ago, with the words Dandelion and Cast Iron so I had a few words I could begin to build this sort of dictionary of my grief with. Slowly working my way through words, A, for the alcoholism because essentially it’s about my father’s alcoholism right. The dictionary was created that way, slowly and experimentally.

CP: A serious journey of experimenting and so many moving parts to putting together some great work.

RG: Yes, so many moving parts.

CP: I have one final question for you. La Cuenta is an ongoing exploration of the costs of individuals labeled undocumented in the US. We’re sort of tallying these costs right. If you were to put together a receipt tallying the costs of being an immigrant in this country, would you have a clear number, or a list of items. What does that receipt look like for you?

RG: The cost of distance. There’s the physical distance, the emotional distance, and the distance created by language when children learn English and then the parents don’t. The distance created by education. My siblings and I continue with our education and our parents only had an elementary school education. When I went to university, that created a huge distance. There is the socioeconomic distance now between me and my mother. The distance between you and your homeland, between you and the community you left behind. That version of yourself that you left behind too. Then there’s the distance between you and US society here.

CP: It’s hard to reconcile with that distance. We are sort of always thinking about the homes we left behind, our parents’ pueblo and what could have been.

RG: Perpetual nostalgia.

CP: Yes the perpetual nostalgia of being an immigrant in the US. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Any writing advice for the dreamers, the storytellers, and writers out there?

RG: Embrace your voice and write for yourself. When you first sit down to write, it should be for you, when you think it is ready to be published, think about the reader. When you’re thinking about the reader, when you are first creating, you immediately start by censoring yourself. If you can begin by writing just for yourself it leads to more authentic and honest writing.

And finally, revise, revise, revise. And just when you think you’re done, revise one more time.

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We are grateful for Reyna’s incredible work. If you would like to read more from her, Reyna has written several memoirs illuminating the complexities of being an immigrant in this country as well as beautiful fiction novels. See the list below for some of our favorites!

Across a Hundred Mountains

Dancing With Butterflies

The Distance Between Us

A Dream Called Home

A Ballad of Love and Glory

We’ll see you next week.

This week we are excited to share the first part of our incredible conversation with award-winning author . Reyna’s body of work such as her celebrated memoirs, The Distance Between us, A Dream Called Home and her debut book of essays Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I can’t Forget, powerfully illuminate the complexities of immigration, family separation, pursuing the American Dream, and the ongoing-exploration of what it means to be an immigrant in this country.

In this first part of our interview Reyna shares what led her to write her first book of essays and what the writing practice can be when one decides to make space for happiness alongside sadness.

The first time I came across Reyna Grande’s work was reading an excerpt of her book Migrant Heart: Essays About Things We Can’t Forget, on ’s newsletter, La Historia Uncovered. The Queen of Misery, tugged at some central part of my being. In this excerpt, she explores whether processing memories through writing might have led to the commodification of her pain as a woman and immigrant writer. She writes, “I ask myself, Have I commodified my suffering? Have I pigeonholed myself as a writer who writes in “the genre of victimhood”? Where is the line between self-reflection and self-exploitation?”

La Historia Uncovered

An Excerpt from Reyna Grande's New Book.

My friend Reyna Grande and I often exchange early drafts of our writing. We give each other feedback, and I feel lucky to witness her process and read her work before it becomes a published book…

Read more

4 months ago · 15 likes · 6 comments · Julissa Arce Raya

Reading this excerpt shifted something in me as an immigrant woman and writer. I have never shied away from the aesthetics of sad girl prose and stream of consciousness writing, or the heavy excavation of one’s suffering. This work has been my lifeline, as Reyna wrote in this essay, and to be confronted with such a reflection prompted a similar untangling of my own practice.

First, I had to get my hands on every book ever written by The Queen of Misery herself to understand her. I read Reyna’s work ravenously and out of order. I read Migrant Heart in a matter of days, devouring her essays about being an immigrant mother to U.S. born children. I stood in front of the stove frying tortillas for tostadas, crying while holding the book in one hand and tongs in the other reading Eva’s essay, The Storyteller.

I read The Distance Between Us where Reyna captured the voice of herself as a girl so raw, visceral and beautiful. The image of her running across the border with her father and siblings still vividly plays in my mind and as the dark desert night comes into view I try to imagine my own crossing with my mother and brother when I was two years old. Then I read a Dream Called Home and traveled with her to college where I witnessed this great writer growing into herself and writing herself into her Dream Home. As summer in the concrete desert of Phoenix entered its hottest days my kids and I holed up at home with the a/c whirring 24/7 and I worked my way through Reyna’s diverse body of work. I chronicled this journey on instagram sharing pictures of the books I was reading or listening to, with some of my favorite quotes, memes for comedic relief, and to express my emotional reactions to them. A seismic shift began to happen within me as an immigrant. The work of being a writer became even more important to me.

Then one afternoon in June, I met with Reyna over Zoom for an interview to discuss her book after several weeks of being nose deep in her work. I spent a week and a half developing questions and trying to hype myself up for the interview. It would be the first time I interviewed an author by myself. Even when I got the opportunity to speak with Angelica Vanessa Villareal, a literary legend, about her book, Magical Realism, I was a co-interviewer. After Antero’s brief introductions he left the zoom. It was just me, the open doc of questions on my desktop, and The Queen of Misery herself, Reyna Grande.

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CHRISTIAN PENA: Hi Reyna, My name is Christián. I’m a writer and the editor for La Cuenta. It is so nice meeting you.

REYNA GRANDE: Yeah, thank you so much. It’s nice to meet you too.

CP: I am so excited to talk to you today, thank you so much for taking the time. I was at your author talk at the ASU museum a few weeks ago and got to hear you discuss your debut book, Migrant Heart. I have been reading your body of work the last few weeks and this book is very different. I love the way you played with style and genre. During that author talk at ASU, you briefly discussed this leap into writing a book of essays for the first time and playing with form and style. I would love to hear more about that process and how this book came to be?

RG: Well thank you so much. I wanted to write another memoir, but I didn’t want to do it like the last two memoirs, which were written in a more traditional and chronological style. I wanted to focus on certain moments in my life. I wanted to explore different topics and different themes without the book feeling disjointed and that led me to personal essays. Every year or so I am asked to contribute an essay to an anthology. And so I already had about ten essays I wrote over the course of a decade and these essays became the basis of the book proposal and it allowed me to think about other themes and topics I wanted to explore. I have always admired essayists and although I felt a bit intimated by attempting to write them, I felt the best way to learn how to write good essays was to just start writing them.

CP: So glad you took that leap! Through your amazing body of work we get to witness your voice in the many phases of your life through memoir and your work of fiction. You have been incredibly vulnerable and honest in your storytelling throughout this work. In the first essay of Migrant Heart, Queen of Misery, you reflect on how writing has been tied to your suffering and what a lifeline that has been for you, but also wrestling with the desire to write with joy. What have you learned about this delicate balance of remaining authentic to your voice, but also being mindful of writing with joy?

RG: I’m thinking about Ocean Vuong, I quote them in the book and I really like that approach that they talk about–embracing both, right. Embracing your joy and your sadness. I mean joy and sadness go together and you don’t have to pick one or the other, you can live in both. And that really resonated with me. I want to embrace that because I do want to stop constantly fixating on my trauma because that’s not healthy, but it’s also unrealistic to constantly feel joyful.

Right now I still tend to lean more into my sadness. So I am working toward finding a balance. And one thing that has really helped me is to write it out. Writing out my emotions. My writing has really helped me to do that because I can process both the joy and the sadness together in this practice.

CP: It’s kind of hard to ignore the emotions that surface while writing. You talk about this process of excavating parts of yourself when you’re writing. It happens sort of organically in this process and I also can’t imagine trying to ignore surfacing emotions.

RG: I was just thinking about this yesterday, where its like…Well, as a writer its good to know that you’re really good at one thing. And what I am really good at is writing about misery. And maybe it’s okay to just embrace that.

CP: I’m a sucker for the work of a sad girl, a queen of misery. I want to read about the emotional landscape of women and women embracing all of their emotions and personally–especially misery. And I really resonated with your essay about trying to stay true to that but also the challenge and desire to move toward a more balanced writing practice where multiple emotions can exist.

RG: Right, yeah. I cannot reject my sadness. It is a part of me. As human beings we tend to fluctuate. There are many downs, but also ups and now I am just trying to avoid having too many downs and invite other emotions.

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We are incredibly grateful for Reyna Grande, for the powerful body of work she has created and for joining us for a conversation on writing and storytelling. If you haven’t already we encourage you to get your copy of Reyna’s debut book of essays Migrant Heart: Essays on Things I can’t Forget.

We’ll see you next week.

Editors Note:

Last week we shared our thoughts on the shooting and killing of Lorenzo Salgado Aruajo, a Mexican father, husband and community member that was stopped by ICE on his way to work and was killed. On Monday morning, just a few days after Lorenzo was murdered, ICE agents shot and killed a Colombian father, husband and community member, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. ICE agents rammed into Johan’s vehicle and then approached him with their guns drawn. They then shot him alleging that the ICE agent felt he was in danger. There are videos circulating online of the agents pulling Johan’s limp body out of his vehicle and shackling him. Last week, I made a point to speak about Lorenzo’s death as I experienced it as an immigrant in this country. There are plenty of news outlets that are reporting on the deaths of our community members. We do not need to continue to read about their gruesome deaths to understand what is happening. There are videos we bear witness to as well. Something that has been especially difficult for me to read are the constant mentions of the “legal status” of the men killed in the name of the state.

I’ve read comments and mentions of their being in the country “legally” in TikTok videos and news articles alike in some twisted effort to humanize them to the public, and maybe their intentions are good. Maybe they want to remind people that as long as you are black or brown, your “legal status” is not a guarantee of safety. Citizenship has always only meant white men and the white people that serve them. Not us. But this language during a time of deep hatred for the undocumented and immigrant communities is harmful.

“He was here legally.”

“He did it the right way.”

I want to remind our community of undocumented immigrants that you deserve to live. You deserve to drive to work, to drop your kids off at school, to go to the grocery store—without fear of being murdered on the street. Your worth is not based on whether you are here legally or not, on whether you have the paperwork to prove that you are a citizen of the United States or not. “The right way” is quite the paradox for a country built on stolen land, on the backs of the forced and cheap labor of black and brown bodies.

He was here legally.

You are a human being.

And like Ana writes in this week’s poem, surviving, resisting and assisting one another in times of hate is an art form. If you are able to take to the streets and protest the deaths of our neighbors please do so. Let’s get active.

In my city, community is out in the streets in 110+ degrees!

This week we share this poem by Ana, an asylum seeker who left her country in search of a better life. You can read the first poem she shared with us and learn more about her below:

Ser Extranjero en Tiempos de Odio

Ana

No sé es extraño cuando amas la vida igual que los demás en el mundo, 
No se es ajeno cuando te comprometes a ser parte de una comunidad
No se es forastero cuando la mano amiga o tu mano sirven para construir
Como el orden y la ligereza son equilibrio, 
ser extranjero en tiempos de odio es como ser: 
lluvia en tierra sedienta, aire que ventila el ambiente y renueva la faz de un nuevo moment de la historia...

Resistir, asistir, y sobrevivir es un arte que no es de muchos, pero se vuelve imperante
en los tiempos de odio...

En tiempos de odio no basta la ternura o la mirada triste que suspira en el viento; hace falta el paso firme que se vuelve sustento. 

En tiempos de odio es mirar al que está asediado y cargar con su herida, sin robarle su fuerza ni anularle la vida, más bien ser parte de la denuncia y la exigencia justa. 

Propina

Muchas gracias a Ana por compartir sus poemas con nosotros. Es arte como el de Ana que mas se necesita en tiempos de odio.

If anyone would like to share their art with us we encourage you to reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.

We’ll see you next week.

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I have been trying to write this all morning but grief makes it difficult to put together the proper words to describe the anger and the sadness. So I apologize for the unusually late post.

This week ICE shot and killed another member of our community. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a Mexican national who resided in the United states for 35 years. He was a father, a husband, and a community member that created job opportunities and made this country a better place. He did not deserve this heinous violation of his human rights.

In this moment, we grieve with Lorenzo’s family, his wife, and his three sons. We grieve together for the brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers—members of our collective family we have lost to state sanctioned violence. And we hold space for our rage, our sadness and our fear of living in a country where they can kill us on the street for simply being black or brown and trying to make it to work.

We can’t give up. We owe it to our neighbors and community members to work toward a better world for us all, because a better world is possible.

I did not intend on writing a full page description of what happened to Lorenzo or what his family is undergoing at this time. There are countless news channels and social media pages covering this story.

I simply wanted to acknowledge our collective loss, and the disorientation that I know we all feel at this time.

Con mucho amor y todo mi corazón.

-Christián

Propina

If you would like to read more about what happened read this article on PBS or check out this post by Channeldraw below. Take of yourselves and one another.

We’ll see you next week

This week, we are sharing the penultimate storytelling prompt for the Testimonios de Esperanza project. An overview of the project can be found here.

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For this month’s activity, we have two steps:

First:

Take five minutes to build or draw a campground that would feel joyful or special for you. Use any objects around your home to make this space come to life.

Tómate cinco minutos para construir o dibujar un campamento que se sienta alegre o especial para ti. Utilice cualquier objeto que tengas en casa para dar vida a este espacio.

Next, we’ll use this campground as our canvas for world-building:

Describe 3 or 4 things that make your community or campground or town unique.

What makes your space joyful and safe?

If possible, create an icon or symbol representing each of these descriptions.

Describe 3 o 4 cosas que hacen que tu comunidad, campamento o pueblo sea único.

¿Qué hace que tu espacio sea alegre y seguro?

Si es posible, crea un ícono o símbolo que represente cada una de estas descripciones.

If you missed any of the previous activities from Testimonios de Esperanza, you can get caught up here:

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As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, The Cost of Being Undocumented just turned one! Alongside celebrating this date, we are thrilled to announce that the book is now available in paperback and includes a new foreword reflecting on the changes that have transpired since the book’s release.

We’ll get a closer look at the book’s paperback version in the coming weeks, but if you haven’t read the book, this is your opportunity.

We’ll see you next week.

We return this week with the second installment of Claudia’s poetry series from her poetry manuscript, Kite Line to Form I-485. Her manuscript explores navigating life under temporary protected status, as a woman, a daughter and an immigrant from El Salvador.

A Note From the Author:

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow Haiti and Syria to lose their TPS designation points to a larger failure: Congress members and past presidential administrations have had 20+ years to push forward legislation that would protect immigrants. The ruling impacts the legal strategy for other countries with TPS and is a call for us all to resist together.

If you missed the first poem Claudia shared with us you can read it here:

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Losing Words

Claudia Rojas

Some days, words
make me sick
how they mock
the chatter dentro de mí.
Language is
the thud of dictionaries
that fail me,
the misplacement burns my tongue
like the jalapeño
tucked into a bite I spit out.
¿Qué Latina can't take a good burn?
Ask me again que tengo cólera.
Words are show-offs
I can feel them dentro
not settling right
in my mouth. I can't find my words.
Throw me a lifeline.
When I want to have
the words, las palabaras empalagan. 
There's a threshold
to my sweet tooth.
Some days, I can't translate
my murmuring or remember
the different ways
of hablemos.

Propina

We are incredibly grateful for Claudia’s art and her words. We must resist together and build a better world for us all.

Claudia performed poetry and hosted a collaging workshop for Refugees International’s Courage Together event in Washington DC, on June 18th, 2026. To honor Refugee Week, Refugees International also launched a digital art exhibit from community submissions and artist partnerships. Visit the Courage Together exhibit online.

We’ll see you next week.

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This week we are celebrating one year of The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning with America’s Inhumane Math by our co-founders Alix Dick and Antero Garcia. The Cost of Being Undocumented has flipped the traditional narrative about the economics of immigration, offering a numbers to dollars account of what it means to be undocumented in this country. Through Alix’s story we bear witness to the cost of migration and how it shapes us, and the moments of triumph that arise through community work, art and storytelling. Building off of this mixture of empirical research and vivid storytelling, Alix and Antero launched La Cuenta as an attempt at expanding the voices shaping conversations around immigration. We honor one year in print and celebrate the journey, and the sacred literary space that all of you have helped La Cuenta become. Congratulations to Alix and Antero, thank you for your work and contributions to our community. We’d like to also thank you, our readers and contributors, for your support and for entrusting us with your stories, your words, and your art.

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Note from La Cuenta’s co-founder and author of The Cost of Being Undocumented, Alix Dick:

The costs of writing a book are innumerable

One of the many things writing a book has taught me, is it has made it most clear how easy it is for people to assume and judge.

Many people have questioned why the book is not more successful right now. They don’t always understand the reality of what it means to write and speak openly about issues you deeply believe in while living them dangerously in real-time. It is challenging to share the message of this book while also trying to keep myself and the people who support safe.

There is a cost to speaking up when you are on the front lines of the issues you are writing about. Many people see the finished book, but they do not see the fear, the sacrifices, the risks, or the careful decisions made along the way. I’m far from safe. However, the never ending desire to bring light to my community doesn’t allow me to stay quiet.

I am incredibly grateful for everyone who has supported this work. Every reader, every conversation, and every act of encouragement means more than most people will ever know.

When I first started this book I thought that showing people data and research would change their minds about the harmful narratives portrayed about immigrants by the media. However, nothing in my book can change someone who’s been brainwashed to hate. Today, my desire is to encourage my immigrant communities to not allow the system to erase us. To dare to believe we deserve dignity.

Regardless of my present circumstances, I remain hopeful for a better future for immigrants and for myself.

I continue to pay the cost of being undocumented every single day. I’m still chronically ill and dealing with the costs of health and many other issues I write about in the book. And yet I also continue to prove that I am just as deserving of opportunity, dignity, and a second chance like everyone else.

I know people have mentioned how hard it was to get through this book but I describe the reality of millions of people. Your attention to this matter creates the change we need. I am believing in better days, louder stories, and happier books. For now, let’s keep the conversation and faith going.

My immigration status does not define my worth. It does not determine my potential. Like so many immigrants before me, I keep moving forward with the hope that one day our humanity will matter more than the paperwork this country says we do not have.

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We are giving away two books in honor of The Cost of Being Undocumented turning one! Share this post and comment “Happy Birthday!” and we will send the lucky winners the paperback of the book.

We’ll see you next week.

This week we are excited to share a poem written by Ana who has left her country not by choice but for necessity and is currently seeking asylum in this country. She shares with us that she is the youngest of five brothers, three of them have passed. She is a lawyer and is passionate for humanity, nature and cats. She loves waking up every morning and being able to reach the end of the day and give thanks to life, because it has been one more opportunity at life.

Sobre la Autora

Mi nombre es Ana, soy inmigrante; no salí de mi tierra por decisión, sino más bien porque no tenía otra opción. Soy la menor de cinco hermanos de los cuales ya he perdido tres.

Tengo una profesión soy abogada, pero mi pasión es por la vida humana, por la naturaleza y los gatos… amo el despertar de cada día y el poder llegar a la noche y dar gracias a la vida porque ha sido una oportunidad más.

Actualmente soy solicitante de un documento que me diga que puedo vivir de forma segura en un país extraño, pero me ha brindado una comunidad y amigos sinceros. No son muchos, pero son suficientes para compartir mis días.

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A vuelo de pájaro

Ana

Como los pájaros...

Te quedas sin un árbol que sea tu hogar, migras, el clima te somete
a cambios, migras, la tierra tiembla y se transforma, migras, por
el odio de otros, migras porque no eres bienvenido, migras...

Pero el pájaro, solo o en bandada, migra por un mundo mejor, 
sobrevivencia o estilo, camino, o destino, migrar es como llevar el
hogar en el pecho, pero una incertidumbre en los pies...

Así como lasa aves de especies especiales migran, aprendes a llevar
lo que llamas hogar en las alas, a confiar en el especial instinto
que te guía incluso cuando no tienes ruta, brújula o mapa que te
oriente...

Migrar es aprender en la pérdida, en la nostalgia, en soledad, pero 
con otro idioma a decir Yo puedo, Yo quiero, Yo seré y apretar en
el corazón el amor de tus seres amados que no abrazarás más. 

Ana also shared the English version of her poem you can read it below.

As the bird flies

Ana

Like birds...

You are left without a tree to call home, you migrate, the climate subjects you
to change, you migrate, the earth trembles and transforms, you migrate because
of the hatred of others, you migrate, because you are not welcome, you migrate...

But the bird, alone or in a flock, migrates to a better world, survival or
style, path or destiny... migrating is like carrying home in your chest, but an 
uncertainty on your feet...

Just like the birds of special species migrate, you learn to carry what you call
home on your wings, to trust in the special instinct that guides you even when 
you have no route, compass or map to orient you...

Migrating is learning in loss, in nostalgia, in solitude with another language
to say I can, I will be, and to hold in your heart the love of your
loved ones whom you will never hold again. 

Propina

Estamos muy agradecidos por haber tenido la oportunidad de compartía este poema de Ana.

We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share Ana’s poem this week.

Ana encourages us to check out the MICA project. And if you can, support their work by donating to their cause.

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We’ll see you next week.

This week we are very excited to share an essay written by writer Mario Volta exploring the human conditioning as a formerly undocumented person through the work of training his puppy Zev.

About the Author:

Hi, my name is Mario. I lived in the US from the age of 2 but have recently relocated back to Mexico after living in the US for 35+ years. I began writing as therapy exercises for dyslexia. I grew up in Pasadena California and now live in Puerto Vallarta Jalisco with my wife and dog. I ride motorcycles, write poems and train dogs. I write about undocumented-ness, I think a lot about the philosophies and psychology of growing up undocumented. I’m on social media as @undocuseries, I began the project as a way to document the process of relocation. I’m one of the moderators of ONWARD, a volunteer run support network for relocated dreamers. Currently I’m working on a podcast that should launch this fall. Along with a couple of other projects currently in the works.

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I recently moved to Mexico with my wife and our dog, whose full name is Zev Love X Dilla Doom the Supervillain. Named after late-great rapper MF Doom, with a hint of homage to J Dilla sprinkled in. We call him Zev for short. Which has been an interesting thing to explain to Spanish speakers, and not something I ever thought about before having to deal with it.

“Que lindo, como se llama tu perro?”

The boy is a stud if I do say so myself. He has been an icebreaker, conversation starter, and a deflection for the more serious topic of why someone would move to Mexico and leave the great US of A behind.

“He came on a plane?”

Is what always gets them. A well travelled mutt. The boy was born in California and had more documentation than I ever did, I always liked to joke. I think it’s his size that catches people’s attention and of course his demeanor. I started training him at 9 weeks. All the dogs bark at him and he never bothers to even look at them, that’s another attention catcher. A lady that has a water purifying business whose dog always barks at Zev, apologized for her dog, said it embarrassed her and I jokingly replied that it’s maybe because our dog doesn’t speak Spanish.

They ask, “How did he learn to do that?”

I want to tell them that it was easy, that it’s a matter of repetition. I want to explain B.F Skinners theory on operant conditioning and how it’s been debunked. I would love to explain Jaak Panksepp’s science of emotions and how he coined the term “Affective Neuroscience” and came up with the 7 blue ribbon emotions which are the seven primary, subcortical neural circuits; Seeking, Rage, Fear, Panic/Grief, Lust, Care and Play, that are shared by all mammals which drive basic survival and emotional behaviors.

The way Zev is trained is all SEEKING through PLAY. I taught him to be curious and brave, the reward is the effort in understanding him, it’s the relationship we’ve built, it’s the way he knows he can communicate and be understood. It’s that he understands his name, yes he is conditioned to respond to his name and that takes treats and dog training strategies but he’s allowed to be a dog. He is allowed to feel RAGE and thunder storms make him feel FEAR and he feels PANIC. But he feels CARE. He is trained the way I wish America trained me. With the patience that can shift our emotions be it dog or human. A dog in PANIC or RAGE can never activate its SEEKING system, a dog that can’t activate its SEEKING system will not fetch, will not PLAY. A human stuck in GRIEF cannot CARE will not PLAY. These systems are not just feelings but mechanisms of specific parts of the brain. I just don’t have the linguistic dexterity to explain it in Spanish.

I want to explain that in the United States of America as an undocumented immigrant the dollar doesn’t come as easy as is seen on tv. I learned to train dogs when DACA was in litigation, when I was under threat, when the renewal was once again delayed and I needed to survive. That I stumbled on these concepts because stability collapses, when I was looking for answers to feel better, to reign in my panicked emotions. When I needed a back up plan. When my world was crashing down and I needed to roll with the punches. I don’t want to explain what an I-9 is or what a stamped othered social security card is or what working under the table is. So when they ask how I learned to train dogs, I say he came that way.

Zev, roll over! And he does. And I don’t explain anything else.

I think of the paradigm of quality a lot. The way things are versus the way things seem. I don’t know that as a formally undocumented person that I have a choice. Specifically as a returnee. The perspective of things change. I don’t know why I fought to feel like I belonged where I never did. I don’t know that I could have thought that way while just being, while dealing. Lately my sadness has been about the wasted time, the regret of falling for the American propaganda. Something that I couldn’t help, I hate that I love Mexico not because I love Mexico but because I didn’t know I should. It’s a weird thing to actively be in the process of recovery from a Stockholm syndrome sort of daze, the door is unlocked, the gate is open, our path is closed. We renew and ask for permissions, USCIS emails are like Pavlov’s bell, we are the classically conditioned dog salivating for our reward. They say jump, we ask through which hoop. They set the hoops on fire and we ask if we have to wait 2 years to do it again, I’d love to do it a little early. When did the dream become a conditioned nightmare and how did we accept it?

The metaphysics of quality

Quality or value cannot be defined because it empirically precedes any intellectual construction of it, it always exists before it can be taught or thought of descriptively or academically it’s the perceptual experience only found in the present. The algorithm of my old life follows me and I can’t help but think of DACA, I think of dog training, I think of the quality of freedom and the perception of it all. I don’t know if the quality of my life has improved but I know I smile a lot more. I ask myself if what I left behind was quality. If normalized anxiety equals happiness, if the American dream consists of dancing on egg shells, I don’t know the answer.

I know that the rooster crowing makes Zev’s head twist, that it peaks his interest. I don’t know what a lot of it means but I know that I couldn’t have thought of that before. Not while counting down the days to renewal, not while hearing about nearby ICE raids. How do we measure love or fear? We don’t, but we know it exists. I loved my city, I feared the country. I love my country, I fear it took too long to allow that.

I can’t explain what changes but I try every time I sit down to write. I’m happy and sad and excited and mad, I see more clearly. It’s still hard to decipher the confusion, to understand my America-ness, to grasp my roots. But Zev sniffed out the early morning rooster and he gallops back proudly wagging at his accomplishments. I know why he prances proud of himself, he was allowed to chase his happy, allowed to be a dog. I laugh out loud and sit down to write this piece. I chased my happy, I let go of the FEAR, I went from PANIC to SEEKING. I don’t know who trained who anymore. But we PLAY more than we ever have.

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We are incredibly grateful to Mario for sharing this amazing essay with us. If you would like to check out more of his work you can find him on Substack as Undocuseries and other social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

Mario encourages everyone to check out ONWARD a community for DREAMers leaving the U.S.

We’ll see you next week.

This week Claudia Rojas shares a poem with us from her poetry manuscript, Kite Line to Form I-485. Her manuscript explores navigating life under temporary protected status, as a woman, a daughter and an immigrant from El Salvador.

About the Author:

Claudia Rojas is a Salvadoran-American creative communications pro based in Falls Church, VA. She believes language can influence social shifts. Her poems are published in poetry magazines throughout the U.S. and in the anthology Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora. As a Refugee Storytellers Collective member and Undocupoets alumna, Claudia shares her story to advocate for human rights. Stay connected by visiting Claudiapoet.com

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Converging Lines

Claudia Rojas

At the Salvadoran consulate in Woodbridge, VA, I renew 
my passport, yet I have no airline plans—my money 
and time in decline. I don’t yet manage the fear 
of exile to El Salvador, where my college 
degrees parallel a high school diploma. 

I attend a vigil because if not us, who’s 
going to mourn the disappeared as more than 
frontline workers? The protesters give interviews, 
wish to answer well enough to make the line cut, though 
headlines are saturated by immigrant and not enough human. 

We show up at work with age lines and file taxes, yet policy 
pushes us aside. Politicians seated at offices order men 
in masks to cut the lifeline of their own neighbors. 
What is history if not converging lines, or 
the ways a people refuse demise?

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Claudia navigates life in the U.S. through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. TPS is for designated countries, and the program received legal challenges beginning in 2017. You can find an introductory zine about TPS on Claudia’s website. Help Claudia manifest the publication of her poetry book by signing up for emails or following @Claudiapoet on Instagram.

We’ll see you next week.

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This week we return with a reminder that we are always looking for contributors. And if you missed any of the last few weeks posts here is a small recap of the past three weeks.

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If you have interest in sharing your story with La Cuenta read our guide on how you can contribute here:

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This week we conclude Korina Iribe’s Poetry series; Desert Flower: An Undocumented Girlhood. We are so grateful to have been able to share this beautiful collection of poems about memory, migration and undocumented girlhood.

If you haven’t already, you can read the first two poems of the series below:

Author’s Final Thoughts

I didn’t begin this project knowing exactly what I was going to write about. The series emerged organically as I returned to memories of my childhood and girlhood, to the unique experience of growing up undocumented, as a girl, in the Sonoran Desert. As I wrote, I began to see how deeply interconnected those parts of myself were: the desert, immigration, girlhood, memory, survival, tenderness. All of it lived inside of me and shaped me throughout my formative years. Writing this series became an act of healing, a way to explore my upbringing and reconnect with the landscapes and emotions that formed me. It all led me to this final poem, Desert Flower, named after the series itself.

Ironically, the day after finishing it, I visited the Audubon for the first time during daylight hours. Walking through the gardens, I found myself transported back to my grandmother’s house. I saw so many of the same symbols and images I had written about in these poems: desert plants, shade, stillness, memory. It felt like a quiet confirmation from the universe, from God, from something larger than myself, that I had written what needed to be written. I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share this work, and I hope that somewhere within these poems, readers were able to recognize parts of themselves too.

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Desert Flower

Korina Iribe

I used to dig for earthworms, sit under the schoolyard tree, pluck ’em out one by one, gather ’em up in wiggling piles. Manitas chiquitas the color of sand.

During spring, my search for ladybugs began. My body lay flat against the grass, attempting to catch the coolness of the earth. Held ’em on my fingers, hands always outstretched, reaching for the sun.

My nana lived by the border, in a place called Amado, which means loved. The Sonoran Desert was her backyard. Some days I’d wake before the sun, still sleepy and barefoot. I’d make plans to catch a jackrabbit.

Siempre sabía cuándo venía la lluvia. Haboobs sweeping dust for miles, carrying the smell of creosote and migrant dreams. When the drops would fall, the saguaros would catch them because they knew there would be drier days.

I’d spend hours alone in her garden, the chollas and rattlesnakes my protectors. One day, I saw a caterpillar. The next day, it had formed and hidden itself inside a cocoon. Soon after, it reemerged as a butterfly. I had never seen anything like it. After its time in solitude, God had given it wings.

My little heart yearned to be part of this place, like the beautiful desert flowers who survived the deadliest heat, who grew amongst the thorns of the cactus.

I longed to be what the desert already knew I had been all along.

Propina

We are so incredibly grateful for Korina’s beautiful poetry series and for the work that she does.

An offering from Korina:

If this series moved you, I invite you to visit the Nina Mason Pulliam Rio Salado Audubon Center in South Phoenix. It’s a beautiful space in the middle of the city to reconnect with the desert, with memory, and maybe even with yourself one last time. You can find public visiting information through Audubon Southwest.

We’ll see you next week.

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This week, we are sharing the latest storytelling prompt for the Testimonios de Esperanza project. An overview of the project can be found here.

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For this month’s activity, we want you to think about the dreams you hold on to (or hold on to you). Name these dreams and then write:

Feel free to play with your poem’s form and style. Make it more (or less) dream-like as you see fit.

And if you missed any of the previous activities from Testimonios de Esperanza, you can get caught up here:

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This weekend, Alix and Antero will be in conversation in Fresno, discussing The Cost of Being Undocumented and sharing space with folks at Summerfox Brewing. The event is free, will have plenty of giveaways, and discounted books available! RSVP and join us here.

We’ll see you next week.

This week we return with a short essay from Christián Thaniari, where she reflects on the often overlooked experiences of daily life and what they look like when you grow up as an immigrant in this country.

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When I was seventeen my parents purchased a 2009 silver Toyota Camry from a close friend of my dad’s who had a side hustle of selling used cars. The Camry was purchased with the intention of teaching my younger brother and I how to drive after I had begged my parents to transfer me from Trevor Browne to Maryvale High school after I got in a fight my junior year with some senior boy after he called me a bitch.

I don’t remember the guy’s name otherwise I’d blast it on here. Hope his life turned out shitty.

Anyway, I spent nearly a whole summer begging my parents to teach me how to drive. When they refused, I called my mother’s younger sister, my tia Tere, and asked if she could teach my brother and I how to drive. She refused unless I got permission from my mother and under the condition that we would learn in her dilapidated 1990 Ford Bronco. I tried to negotiate with her noting that the truck was larger than the Camry and would be harder for me to learn to drive and park but she could not be dissuaded.

In the alley behind the planet fitness on 75th and McDowell, before they added all of the speed bumps that cover nearly the entire alley, my brother and I took turns driving the old 1990 Ford Bronco under my tia’s guidance. The seat could not be moved up, so when it was my turn I could barely reach the pedal and the steering wheel sat up so high I was hovering over the driver’s seat with my big toe on the pedals. My parking was shit, because I could not see the lines, could barely see the road past the hood. It was a bust, and when we went home my parents almost beamed with joy when my tia expressed how terrible I had been at it.

Driving or rather learning how to drive was my ticket to freedom and autonomy. I had to learn how to do it. So we asked my brother’s childhood friend Efrain, to teach us how to drive. He too had a shitty ass car that you could not move the seat forward.

I learned to drive with my big toe. When I finally wore down my mother, she let me take out the Camry around the neighborhood. I drove it on main roads while blasting Lana Del Rey and keeping an eye out for cops. Whenever there is an opportunity to mention that I basically taught myself to drive, I let anyone know.

When you are the daughter of immigrants you have to fight tooth and nail for any autonomy or independence.

Since becoming a mother, driving has become my life. I drive them everywhere, school, playdates, birthday parties, occupational therapy. I’ve driven all over Arizona, the farthest I have driven was to Chandler, on this winding highway that nearly kissed the canyons so my daughter could say goodbye to her friend who was moving out of state.

When I was a teenager I would pick up my best friend and we’d listen to Mac Demarco with the windows down and the warm evening wind blowing through our hair. Now I’m picking up my girls from school listening to Bluey or the K-Pop Demon Hunters album. Sometimes they ask for Bad Bunny too.

Driving is terrifying now. Every car is a potential ICE raid. I don’t even listen to music when I drive. One morning, I decided to drive to the bookstore by myself and chose to avoid highways because I was feeling extra anxious about being stopped. I was blindly following Apple Maps before I realized that I was at a red light right next to the USCIS building. Sure I wasn’t going inside the building or anything but I was thinking in terms of radius. The immediate radius surrounding that building and the potential ICE agents that could be roaming the streets. Felt like I was in shark infested waters. And not even that because sharks are native to the ocean and the water they reside in. These fuckers are actually infesting our neighborhoods. They’re not sharks, they're a disease.

Living in this country as an immigrant you have to fight tooth and nail for your humanity. Simple things like driving—shit even walking—are becoming increasingly dangerous. You bitches can’t stop me from going to Changing Hands to pick up an orange mocha to sip and hold while I browse the aisles. Just like my mother couldn’t stop me from driving around Maryvale village with my best friend past sunset.

I miss the illusion of freedom that the 2009 Toyota Camry gave me at seventeen with a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror. I drove it for years, until I got pregnant with my second daughter and could no longer fit two car seats in the back seat. I traded my parents the Camry for a Ford Escape and then I think my father sold it off to a family friend and they never finished paying him for it.

By then the sentimental value I felt over the Camry had been replaced by the responsibility of being a working mother with a big and reliable enough car for three kids. I still think about the good gas milage it had even after I accidentally put gas in it from a red gasoline can my dad kept in the garage mixed with some other stuff for the lawn mower and weed whacker. And all the times I drove it with all the windows down and the wind blowing and my music blasting to satiate my thirst for freedom as a teenage girl. I’ll always be grateful for that little car.

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We are incredibly excited to have been able to share this piece by Writer and our very own editor Christián Thaniari. If you would like to read more of her work subscribe to her newsletter Matrixial.

We’ll see you next week.

This week we return with a zine by artist and muralist, Anay Dominguez on the history and importance of Mexican Muralism.

My name is Anahy Dominguez, and I am a Mexican-American artist born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Growing up, murals were a constant presence in my life, whether on the walls in front of my house or during visits to El Mercadito in East LA. I loved how they could tell stories through color and symbolism, and regardless of their size, they convey powerful messages. At the time, I didn’t fully realize the privilege I had in understanding culture and community, but I always felt drawn to them.

It wasn’t until I attended college in the Midwest that I began to comprehend murals more deeply, not just as a form of public art, but as cultural messages, acts of resistance, and visuals of truth. Through my studies, I learned about Mexican muralists whose work was created with intention and urgency. Their murals documented themes of nationalism, resistance, and survival, shedding light on histories of colonization, civil war, and resilience that is often overlooked. Seeing art used as a tool for education and protest changed how I understood my own creative practice.

Throughout my life, I have witnessed the ongoing pain and harm experienced by Mexican and immigrant communities in this country. These injustices have worsened. Many of these stories are silenced or ignored, especially in moments like this, when our very existence becomes a political statement. I believe murals are particularly important at this time because they exist in public spaces, for the community to witness. Murals invite people to stop, observe, and reflect. Even for a brief moment, they have the power to unite people and make visible the experiences of communities often pushed to the margins.

Through my work and my zine on the history of Mexican muralism, I aim to honor the voices, histories, and lived experiences of the Mexican and immigrant diaspora. Murals tell stories of struggle, hope, and survival, and by sharing these stories, I hope to create a space for understanding and connection.

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We are incredibly grateful to Anahy for sharing her zine with us! If you would like to follow more of her work you can find her on TikTok and instagram where she shares the many different art mediums she is exploring, like painting, graphic design and photography.

We’ll see you next week.

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