A review by jamiebethreads
The Book of Rosy: A Mother's Story of Separation at the Border by Rosayra Pablo Cruz, Julie Schwietert Collazo

5.0

Everyone needs to read this book— it’s really that simple. This is an incredibly moving, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting story of a mother who sacrifices everything to give her children the opportunity for a better life in America, only to be forcibly removed from her children at the border and held in an ICE detention center.

This book made me feel every single emotion possible. It also reminded me of why volunteering and staying politically engaged is so critical— we cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to the atrocities being committed against our fellow humans, at a time in American history when 500+ children have yet to be reunited with their parents as a result of the Trump administration’s 2018 zero-tolerance policy at the border. Let me say it again, louder for those in the back: this policy was WRONG. Children need to be with their parents, period. Thankfully, there are amazing organizations such as Immigrant Families Together, who do absolutely everything in their power to raise funds to pay bonds, legal fees, transportation, and seek housing for the mothers that are held, ultimately advocating on their behalf for them to be released and reunited with their children. However, it is shameful that we have even gotten to this point. I will be paying extremely close attention to how this horrific nightmare of a policy is resolved. Families belong together.

A million stars for this book— please read Own Voices books such as this that are real depictions of immigration and border patrol, rather than white authors’ fabricated versions of these events (*ahem, Americ*n D*rt)