The Undocumented Americans PDF

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Gianna Duna Titus HUM 221 5 December 2020

The Undocumented Americans: A  literary response 1. Where and how did Villavicencio describe undocumented immigrants working in some of the most essential industries in America. Think about what stories and unseen voices stood out to you and why? Karla Cornejo Villavicencio uses real-life documentation of American-Immigrant’s lives throughout the United States in her novel, The Undocumented Americans, i n order to show how essential immigrants are to industries of America. As Villavicencio recounts her experiences and interviews with different American-immigrants across the nation, she illuminates Joaquín’s story, who went from wanting to “die” as he struggled to cross the US border to being a “day laborer” in New York City (Villavicencio pg. 22-23). After enduring 9/11, and transporting workers in and out Ground Zero while working for a boating company, he explains how he was met with no sympathy and tricked into signing documents that “liberat[ed] the employers from any responsibility from suddenly firing [him]” (Villavicencio pg. 22-23). This not only forced Joaquín to turn to the labor force, but caused him to be met with conditions that were dangerous for any human-being.

2. What did The Undocumented Americans  tell us about the labor force and the way immigrants are treated in America? Karla Cornejo Villavicencio uses Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy in her novel, The Undocumented Americans, to exemplify how essential and unappreciated

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Undocumented-Americans are within the labor force. With “The Hurricane Katrina cleanup set[ting] the model” for Hurricane Sandy, about half of the “reconstruction crews in New Orleans were Latinx, with “more than half being undocumented” (Villavicencio pg. 23). From working the “most dangerous jobs for the lowest wages,” laborers had to experience “pick[ing] up dead bodies without gloves and masks,” as well as, had to “wade waist-deep in toxic waters” (Villavicencio pg. 24). Although, majority of the labor force was back by Undocumented-Americans that worked hard to restore the after-affects of the natural disasters, Villavicencio explains how people such as “New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin,” still wondered “‘how [he’d] make sure New Orleans is not over-run with Mexican workers’”(Villavicencio pg. 24). The effort from laborers were being overlooked based on their ethnicity, all while, “day laborers [were] often the first responders” during these times of crisis (Villavicencio pg. 25). Overall, Villavicencio uses the efforts of undocumented laborers to show how crucial they are to recovery after Natural Distater’s, yet they still are met with unappreciation and unfairness. From being paid the lowest of wages, Villavicencio ensures that readers understands that undocumented labors had to endure conditions that put their own saftey at risk in order to help the same people that wanted to push them out of the city. By doing this, Villavicencio allows readers to understand the unethical and irrational beliefs of local government during that time. By using statistics to show how majority of laborers are undocumented, Villavicencio is also allowing her readers to understand that recovery from such disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and 9/11, wouldn’t be possible without undocumented americans. Villavicencio uses her own opinion against Ray Nagin, in which she believes “there would be no way” for him to keep “New Orleans” from being “over-run with Mexican workers,” when majority of the laborers that were being put to work were undocumented (Villavicencio pg 24).

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