Undocumented
A Worker's Fight
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning author and illustrator Duncan Tonatiuh’s picture book is “a gorgeous, timely, and necessary offering about the daily plight of undocumented workers in the United States” (Library Journal).
Undocumented: A Worker’s Fight is the story of immigrant workers who have come to the United States without papers. Every day, these men and women join the work force and contribute positively to society. The story is told via the ancient Mixtec codex, accordion-fold format.
Juan grew up in Mexico working in the fields to help provide for his family. Struggling for money, Juan crosses over into the United States and becomes an undocumented worker, living in a poor neighborhood, working hard to survive. Though he is able to get a job as a busboy at a restaurant, he is severely undercompensated—he receives less than half of the minimum wage! Risking his boss reporting him to the authorities for not having proper resident papers, Juan risks everything and stands up for himself and the rest of the community.
“Multiple Pura Belpré Medal and Honor-awarded Tonatiuh channels his interest in the Mixtec codex format to create a superb modern odyssey, stupendously illustrated in his signature contemporary adaptation of Pre-Columbian art forms, presented on accordion pages in a handsome slip-box.” —Booklist (Starred Review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tonatiuh's lean and elegant fable plots a memorable map of one man's immigration experience. Laid out in an accordion-fold format, Tonatiuh's slim but big-hearted graphic novella is narrated by Juan, a Mixteco-speaking man who crossed from Mexico to America while a teenager. Since then, he has worked with "no papers," underpaid and unknown ("You don't know our names but you've seen us"), laboring seven days a week and living in miserable poverty. While the experience of undocumented workers in America is most often told via hard-hitting, dry reportage with occasional attempts at melodrama, this comic is both inventive in form and (darkly) humorous. The plot is a staunch, if short, ode to the power of collective labor, as Juan is recruited to and ultimately leads the fight for better wages and visibility for immigrant workers of many different nationalities. The direct and brief narrative reveals Tonatiuh's background as a picture book creator, with pages formatted much like a child's read-aloud, but the earth-tone coloring and use of flattened perspectives and long scrolling arcs of action evoke ancient Mixteco codices. While speaking to the current political climate, Tonatiuh's work is also a timeless reminder of the dignity inherent to labor and the laborer. This is the graphic novella reconfigured as a call to action.
