Somewhere we are human : authentic voices on migration, survival, and new beginnings

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Title:

Somewhere we are human : authentic voices on migration, survival, and new beginnings

Alternate title:

Some where we are human : authentic voices on migration, survival, and new beginnings

Author:

Grande, Reyna, editor.

Guiñansaca, Sonia, editor.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971- writer of foreword.

Summary:

"In the overheated debate about immigration, we often lose sight of the humanity at the heart of this complex issue. The immigrants and refugees living precariously in the United States are mothers and fathers, children, neighbors, and friends. Individuals propelled by hope and fear, they gamble their lives on the promise of America, yet their voices are rarely heard. This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate--now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia--towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders." -- Provided by Amazon.com.

Edition:

First HarperCollins paperback edition.

Physical Description:

xix, 311 pages ; 21 cm

Genre:

Biographies.

Essays.

Poetry.

Subject Term:

Noncitizens -- United States -- Social conditions.

Immigrants -- United States -- Social conditions.

Noncitizens -- United States -- Biography.

Immigrants -- United States -- Biography.

Noncitizens -- United States -- Poetry.

Immigrants -- United States -- Poetry.

Emigration and immigration in art.

Emigration and immigration.

Author(s):

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971-

Publisher:

HarperVia,

Publication Date:

2023

2022

ISBN:

9780063095786

Publication Information:

New York : HarperVia, 2023.

Call Number:

304.8 SOMEWHERE

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003614578	New Adult Nonfiction	304.8 SOMEWHERE	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

""Wide-ranging yet consistently affecting, these pieces offer a crucial and inspired survey of the immigrant experience in America."" -Publishers Weekly

"[These contributions] touch on so many different facets of the immigrant experience that readers will find much to ponder... [and] experience how creative writing enriches our understanding of each other and our lives." -Booklist

Introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen

A unique collection of 41 groundbreaking essays, poems, and artwork by migrants, refugees and Dreamers--including award-winning writers, artists, and activists--that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today.

In the overheated debate about immigration, we often lose sight of the humanity at the heart of this complex issue. The immigrants and refugees living precariously in the United States are mothers and fathers, children, neighbors, and friends. Individuals propelled by hope and fear, they gamble their lives on the promise of America, yet their voices are rarely heard.

This anthology of essays, poetry, and art seeks to shift the immigration debate--now shaped by rancorous stereotypes and xenophobia--towards one rooted in humanity and justice. Through their storytelling and art, the contributors to this thought-provoking book remind us that they are human still. Transcending their current immigration status, they offer nuanced portraits of their existence before and after migration, the factors behind their choices, the pain of leaving their homeland and beginning anew in a strange country, and their collective hunger for a future not defined by borders.

Created entirely by undocumented or formerly undocumented migrants, Somewhere We Are Human is a journey of memory and yearning from people newly arrived to America, those who have been here for decades, and those who have ultimately chosen to leave or were deported. Touching on themes of race, class, gender, nationality, sexuality, politics, and parenthood, Somewhere We Are Human reveals how joy, hope, mourning, and perseverance can take root in the toughest soil and bloom in the harshest conditions.

Author Notes

Sonia Guiñansaca is Kichwa-Kañari born in Ecuador. They are an internationally acclaimed poet, activist, and cultural strategist. Guiñansaca is the author of Nostalgia St Borders and founded some of the first spaces for undocumented writers in the US.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

"The paradox of immigration and xenophobia that exists at the heart of America" is explored in this heartrending anthology edited by novelist Grande (A Ballad of Love and Glory) and poet Guiñansaca (Nostalgia and Borders). In the evocative poem "Caravan," Kaveh Bassiri reflects on the aspirations of those who join immigrant caravans to the U.S.: "They are coming as refugees, resident aliens, dreamers,/ Leafing out of the undocumented past/ To translate themselves." In "Guilty of Being Lucky," Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley discusses the "trauma of separation" endured by migrant mothers and their children, including those who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the Trump administration's "Zero Tolerance" policy. Elsewhere, Emilia Fiallo describes how, at age 15, she began to reproach her undocumented father for bringing his family from Ecuador to the U.S. "without a plan": "The times I couldn't travel, I blamed him. The car I couldn't drive, I blamed him. I aimed all my undocumented emotional bullets at my father. Because I could not hurt this country, I hurt him." Wide-ranging yet consistently affecting, these pieces offer a crucial and inspired survey of the immigrant experience in America. Agent: Johanna Castillo, Writers House. (June)

Library Journal Review

In Also a Poet, New York Times best-selling author Calhoun blends literary history and memoir, examining her relationship with her father, art critic and poet Peter Schjeldahl, and their shared passion for Frank O'Hara's work as she draws on taped interviews he conducted for a never-completed biography of O'Hara. In Somewhere We Are Human, distinguished writers/activists Grande and Guiñansaca compile 44 essays, poems, and artworks by migrants, refugees, and Dreamers that help clarify the lives of those who are undocumented. Featuring a selection of letters exchanged by Ernest Hemingway and his son Patrick over two decades, Dear Papa was edited by Patrick Hemingway's nephew Brendan Hemingway and his grandson Stephen Adams (40,000-copy first printing). Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, Horn's Voice of the Fish uses fish, water, and mythic imagery to illuminate the trans experience, with travels through Russia and a devastating injury the author suffered as backdrop. Former deputy editor of The New Yorker and former editor of the New York Times Book Review, McGrath looks back on childhood summers as both joyous memory and obvious idealization in The Summer Friend, also considering a close friendship with someone from a very different background. Starting out with his nearly dying on the day he was born, the world's best-selling novelist has some amazing stories to tell in James Patterson by James Patterson (250,000-copy first printing). Having probed the lives of Mary Shelley and Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's wife and daughter, acclaimed biographer Seymour takes on Jean Rhys, the celebrated author of Wide Sargasso Sea in I Used to Live Here Once.

Foreword	xi
Editors' Note	xv
Migration
Sonia Guinansaca
Before	3
Reunion	5
After	7
Bo Thai
Art: Where do we go	9
Carolina Rivera Escamilla
The Promise Made	11
Jennif(f)er Tamayo
& I Came the Way the Birds Came.	18
Javier Zamora
Every election,	31
There's a Wall ft. Merengue Legend Kinito Mendez's "Cachamba"	32
At the Naco, Sonora Port of Entry Twenty Years After Crossing the Border, but This Time with Papers	34
Alan Pelaez Lopez
Art: A Future, Elsewhere	38
Iois-soto lane
Searching for Atlantis	40
Jesús I. Valles
Quinceañera	50
You find home / then you run	53
Danyeli Rodriguez Del Orbe
Pa' Nueva Yol	57
Rita E. Urquijo-Ruiz
First Visit	65
Kaveh Bassiri
Caravan	75
Immigrant Song	78
Learning Drills	79
Azul Uribe
10	81
Féi hernandez
After Sappho	91
How We / Tell Stones \	95
Conception	98
Survival
Girum Seid Mulat
When I Dream of Mother(land)	103
From an Ethiopian Child Living in America	107
Aline Mello
Fit	109
T. jahan
Any Day Now	118
Julissa Arce
Not of Their World	127
Mariella Mendoza
Montaña a Montaña	137
Laurel Chen
You Say Citizenship I Say a Country is a Catastrophe	147
Auto-deportee aubade	149
Lucy Rodriguez-Hanley
Guilty of Being Lucky	152
Emilia Fiallo
All the Little Pieces	159
Julio Salgado
Art: A Moment for Two	169
Francisco Aviles Pino
Fruit	171
Unite Here Local II	172
An ode to journalists	173
Angel Sutjipto
Discretion	175
T. Lê
I unravel to tether myself	182
You insist on my native tongue	184
Nothing in Particular	186
Elías Roldán
A Permanent Stitch	189
Razeen Zaman
Insider-Outsider: Unlearning My Legal Education	197
Alexa Vasquez
Querida Zoraida	206
New Beginnings
Ola Osaze
Things you remember when an orange-hued fascist with a blond combover is voted out of office	215
Oscar Vazquez
Body of Work	221
Sól Casique
Bull Vision	229
If I, an undocumented person, were to own a spaceship or two or three	232
Barbara Andrea Sostaita
Undocumented Success Story	237
Reyna Grande
Not So Sweet Valley	244
Rommy Torrico
Art: Come Bock	252
César Miguel Rivera Vega Magallón
Return to the Invented Country; A Theory of Return Migration	254
Dujie Tahat
The Fence	263
I Take My Kids to School and the President is Set to be Acquitted	264
The Way As Promised Has Mile Markers To Guide Us	267
Miriam Alarcón Avila
Through the Lens of My Camera	269
Yosimar Reyes
Silicon Valley, CA	277
Grace Talusan
Counter Encounters	286
Dulce Guerra
Sweet Grass	294
Carolina Alvarado Molk
On Paper	299
Acknowledgments	305
About Viet Thanh Nguyen	309
About the Editors	310

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Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents