The Cost of Being Undocumented
One Woman's Reckoning with America's Inhumane Math
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- USD 15.99
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- USD 15.99
Publisher Description
An undocumented activist and a social scientist come together to tally of the structural costs of undocumented life
An inhumane math pervades this country: even as our government extracts labor and often taxes from undocumented workers, it excludes these same workers from its social safety net. As a result, these essential workers struggle to get their own basic needs met, from healthcare to education, from freedom of association to the ability to drive to work without looking for ICE in the rearview mirror.
When Alix Dick's family found themselves in the crosshairs of cartel violence in Sinaloa, Mexico, she and her siblings were forced to flee to the U.S. Many of the scenes that she shares are difficult and unforgettable: escaping from a relationship in which her partner threatened to report her to immigration; getting root canals done in an underground dental clinic. But there are moments of triumph, too: founding her own nonprofit; working on films that tell important stories; and working with her co-author Dr. Garcia to tell her story in a framework that lays bare the realities of structural oppression.
As Alix and Antero tally the costs of undocumented life, they present a final bill of what is owed to the immigrant community. In this way, their book flips the traditional narrative about the economics of immigration on its head.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this illuminating account, Garcia (Pose, Wobble, Flow), an education professor at Stanford, helps tell the life story of filmmaker Dick. The authors' aim is to cast light on the material cost to Dick of America's burdensome immigration system. Dick grew up in a "very wealthy family" in Sinaloa, Mexico. In 2011, when she was 20 years old, her family was threatened by drug cartels and she fled to America. She eventually landed in California, where she supported herself as a nanny. Dick explains how as an undocumented immigrant, she suffered losses of time, mental health, and faith. She calls the system an "exhausting mental game" because, contrary to popular belief, undocumented immigrants are actually not unknown to the government ("The IRS, the DMV, the police, they all know you exist.... You are assigned a personal identification number that you use to pay taxes"). Rather, Dick suggests, undocumented immigrants are intentionally kept undocumented so they can't collect government benefits and can be exploited at work. The authors tally the price extracted from Dick between 2011 and 2023, incorporating some estimates like how much she was likely being underpaid; the total comes to $1,912,177. Part harrowing memoir, part rigorous case study, this makes for an eye-opening glimpse of undocumented life in America.
