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4.58 AVERAGE
4.58 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I began this book with the expectation of learning more about border crossing and the situation on the border, but it was so much more than that. This story brings the reader so much closer to the reality of the 'border crisis' and weaves in historical information on how the US and Mexico got to this point, information on the justice system, and feminism to create a truly unique perspective. This book deepened and expanded my understanding of this complex issue, and I am so glad I read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Mental illness
Read this book. Reconstructed from interviews, medical records, news articles, and myriad other sources, the Death and Life of Aida Hernandez tells a deeply human story of Aida Hernandez, a young woman who grew up on both sides of the US-Mexico border, rejected by the country she feels is home, a country growing ever more hostile to people in legal limbo situations like her. It also weaves the telling of a crucial slice of US immigration law and history throughout, tracing the evolution of ever-growing restrictions and increased militarization on the Southwest US border. The recounting of this history brings the laws to life in a way that simply studying the history of immigration law never did for me.
The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez may give you a better understanding of the small, cumulative ways in which poverty, lack of legal status, and domestic or gender-based violence intersect to push women like Aida into the impossible situations in which they find themselves. As one quote from the book says, "small slipups carried steep prices for people like Aida." Or, put more baldly by Rosie Mendoza, social worker and a "hero" to Aida, "Humans make mistakes. Immigrants cannot."
And that naked truth is at the core of this book. It carefully reconstructs the world which laws and policies have built, a world in which people are trapped in unlivable lives.
But The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez offers hope, too. Not the false, sugary kind of "stories must have happy endings." The realistic, harder-to-swallow kind, that leaves you with only the truth: Humans created this dystopian reality, and therefore humans can change it.
The author's epilogue-like explanation of how the book came to be is instructive and really brings the book together into the clarion call for rejecting despair and embracing tenacity and a commitment to change, that it is. He explains how he realized that violence against women was an inextricable piece of any story about border militarization. He shares his realization of how immigrant rights activists' own common framing of their support for undocumented immigrants in terms of "virtue" and "achievement" fails people like Aida, people who cannot fit their lives into such narrow windows of approval.
Aida's own decision to collaborate on the book stems in part from a determination that it could "bear faithful witness to a story that most people in the US don't hear."
In the end, one of author Bobrow-Strain's three foundational promises to Aida shines through: that her story "would matter on its own, not just as a representative type of 'immigrant experience.'" The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez accomplishes this. It is the Very Human Story of Aida Hernandez. But it is not only a story about her. It is about the world that "the rest of us" have created for her and others, through laws and policies that make it nearly unlivable. It is a testament to the will with which Aida and others defy the odds to live in it anyway, dignity intact. And it is a look in the mirror for US readers, especially those who "observe border and immigration debates from a comfortable remove," at the forms of institutional violence committed in our name, "purportedly to keep us 'secure.'"
And so in its essence, this book is a human story which galvanizes its reader, urging us to recognize our own power: The system as is stands today, in its most punitive form, has not always been like this, and does not have to continue to be like this. It is by design, which means it is not an accident of Nature. This in turn means is can be changed. Re-designed.
We must summon one thousandth of the tenacity Aida and others like her summon every day to survive this unlivable world, and fight to change it, to make it more humane.
The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez may give you a better understanding of the small, cumulative ways in which poverty, lack of legal status, and domestic or gender-based violence intersect to push women like Aida into the impossible situations in which they find themselves. As one quote from the book says, "small slipups carried steep prices for people like Aida." Or, put more baldly by Rosie Mendoza, social worker and a "hero" to Aida, "Humans make mistakes. Immigrants cannot."
And that naked truth is at the core of this book. It carefully reconstructs the world which laws and policies have built, a world in which people are trapped in unlivable lives.
But The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez offers hope, too. Not the false, sugary kind of "stories must have happy endings." The realistic, harder-to-swallow kind, that leaves you with only the truth: Humans created this dystopian reality, and therefore humans can change it.
The author's epilogue-like explanation of how the book came to be is instructive and really brings the book together into the clarion call for rejecting despair and embracing tenacity and a commitment to change, that it is. He explains how he realized that violence against women was an inextricable piece of any story about border militarization. He shares his realization of how immigrant rights activists' own common framing of their support for undocumented immigrants in terms of "virtue" and "achievement" fails people like Aida, people who cannot fit their lives into such narrow windows of approval.
Aida's own decision to collaborate on the book stems in part from a determination that it could "bear faithful witness to a story that most people in the US don't hear."
In the end, one of author Bobrow-Strain's three foundational promises to Aida shines through: that her story "would matter on its own, not just as a representative type of 'immigrant experience.'" The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez accomplishes this. It is the Very Human Story of Aida Hernandez. But it is not only a story about her. It is about the world that "the rest of us" have created for her and others, through laws and policies that make it nearly unlivable. It is a testament to the will with which Aida and others defy the odds to live in it anyway, dignity intact. And it is a look in the mirror for US readers, especially those who "observe border and immigration debates from a comfortable remove," at the forms of institutional violence committed in our name, "purportedly to keep us 'secure.'"
And so in its essence, this book is a human story which galvanizes its reader, urging us to recognize our own power: The system as is stands today, in its most punitive form, has not always been like this, and does not have to continue to be like this. It is by design, which means it is not an accident of Nature. This in turn means is can be changed. Re-designed.
We must summon one thousandth of the tenacity Aida and others like her summon every day to survive this unlivable world, and fight to change it, to make it more humane.
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
A superb and honest collaborative story about a woman trying to live her life amid and despite US border patrol, Mexican political schemes, and her complex family (aren't ours all?). Beautifully chronicled by a journalist/ethnographer, with an important "About this book" section at the end.
dark
informative
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
I couldn’t put this book down. Aida is a vibrant young woman who grew up in Douglas AZ as an undocumented child. This story explores themes of motherhood, family, mental health, intergenerational trauma, immigration, domestic violence, self determination, and government policy through Aida’s story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Wow. Just wow. This was one of the most engrossing nonfiction books I've read in forever. It was very hard to put down. So well-written, so fascinating and horrible and wonderful all at the same time. Bobrow-Strain is an amazing writer. I'd read anything he writes.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
I'm not going to be able to attend the discussion at the library. I will return to this book at a later time.