Narrator: During Hurricane Sandy, as the floodwaters rose in a Staten Island basement, a day laborer named Ubaldo Cruz Martinez held a shoebox above his head. Inside was a small, wounded squirrel he had found and was nursing back to health. Ubaldo, a man often dismissed by his community as just another alcoholic laborer, drowned that night, his last act one of profound, quiet compassion for a creature as vulnerable as himself. He knew, perhaps, that no creature should have to die alone. This is the kind of story that rarely makes the news, a moment of humanity lost in the noise of political debate. It is precisely this lost humanity that author Karla Cornejo Villavicencio seeks to reclaim in her book, The Undocumented Americans. She moves beyond the familiar narratives of suffering and dreaming to reveal the complex, contradictory, and deeply personal lives of people who are often reduced to a single, dehumanizing word.

Narrator: In The Undocumented Americans, Cornejo Villavicencio makes a deliberate choice to turn away from the polished stories of "DREAMers" in graduation gowns, the figures often presented as the acceptable face of immigration. Instead, she focuses on the people she calls the "randoms," the "people underground"—the day laborers, the house cleaners, the deliverymen whose lives are lived in the shadows of the American economy. The author, who was once undocumented herself, rejects traditional journalistic methods. She doesn't use a recorder, believing it creates a barrier, and she translates her interviews poetically, aiming to capture emotional truth rather than literal transliteration, which she argues often makes her subjects sound simplistic.

Her journey into this world begins on Staten Island, a borough of New York City that stands apart for its conservative politics and lack of diversity. Here, she introduces men like Joaquín, a day laborer whose life story defies easy categorization. Joaquín recounts the terror of crossing the desert, a journey where he nearly gave up on a steep mountain until two young men helped him, saving his life. He wasn't just a laborer; he was a survivor. His story takes another turn on September 11, 2001, when he was working on a boat on the Hudson River. He witnessed the towers fall and spent the next two weeks ferrying cleanup workers to and from Ground Zero. He was a first responder, a helper in a national crisis. Yet, shortly after, he was fired from that job because of his immigration status. By focusing on individuals like Joaquín, the book argues that the lives of the undocumented are not one-dimensional tales of hardship but complex tapestries of courage, contribution, and systemic betrayal.

Narrator: The book powerfully illustrates how undocumented communities disproportionately bear the hidden costs of America's crises, their suffering often rendered invisible. This is starkly evident in the chapters on Ground Zero and the Flint water crisis. After 9/11, thousands of undocumented workers, many of them Latinx immigrants, were essential to the cleanup efforts. They worked in horrific conditions, breathing in toxic dust and wading through chemical-laced water, often without proper protective gear.

One of these workers was Milton, an immigrant from Colombia. Driven by a sense of duty, he joined the cleanup, only to be handed a flimsy mask that broke easily. After a week of hazardous work, his paycheck bounced. Years later, Milton suffers from PTSD, depression, and physical ailments directly linked to his time at "the pile." When the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund was established, many workers like Milton were excluded. They lacked the formal documentation to prove they were there, or their symptoms emerged long after the application deadline had passed.

Cornejo Villavicencio draws a direct line from this state-sanctioned neglect in New York to what happened in Flint, Michigan. She describes the water crisis not as a mistake, but as a form of slow, unpunished killing. In Flint, the undocumented community was the last to know about the poison flowing through their taps. Fear of deportation and language barriers prevented them from seeking help or accessing information. One resident, Theodoro, explains, "When you’re undocumented, you’re the last to know." By connecting these two events, the book reveals a pattern: in times of tragedy, undocumented people are relied upon for their labor but are abandoned when it comes to care, compensation, and basic human dignity.

Narrator: When official systems fail, communities are forced to create their own. In Miami, the author explores the precarious world of healthcare for the undocumented. The book argues that the idea of immigrants draining healthcare resources is a myth; in reality, most are terrified of the system and avoid it at all costs, creating a hidden public health crisis. They turn instead to a network of botanicas, clandestine pharmacies, and alternative healers.

This reality is captured in the story of Salome, an Argentine woman whose husband, Harrison, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Because he was undocumented and uninsured, hospitals turned him away. Desperate, the family turned to a naturalist who prescribed a strict diet of organic foods and exotic fruits. Harrison diligently followed the regimen, keeping a notebook to track his progress in a heartbreaking attempt to will himself to live. But alternative medicine could not stop the cancer. He died in 2012, having been denied access to conventional care that might have eased his suffering. Salome’s bitter conclusion is that "medicine is a total mafia." Her story is a testament to the resilience and resourcefulness of people forced to operate outside the system, but it is also a tragic indictment of a healthcare structure that withholds care based on legal status.

Narrator: The book examines the brutal and lasting trauma of deportation, arguing that it is not a single event but a wound that splinters families and echoes through generations. In a small town in Ohio, the author meets the Quintanilla family. The father, Javier, had lived in the U.S. for sixteen years before he was suddenly deported to Mexico, leaving behind his wife, Patricia, and their four children.

The aftermath is a portrait of quiet devastation. The children, all American citizens, live in a constant state of fear. The youngest boy, Elias, has nightmares and asks his mother if the "bad men" will come for her, too. At school, they are taunted by classmates who tell them to "go back to Mexico." Patricia works grueling hours to support them, but the family’s income has plummeted by 70 percent, a statistic that research shows is typical for families split by deportation. Javier, meanwhile, deteriorates in Mexico, separated from the family he is powerless to protect. The story of the Quintanillas reveals the profound psychological and economic consequences of a policy that rips a father from his home, effectively punishing his American children for the circumstances of their parents' birth. It challenges the sterile, legalistic language of immigration enforcement by showing its devastating human cost.

Narrator: For many children of immigrants, the American Dream becomes a "twisted inversion." Their goal is not just to achieve personal success, but to ensure their parents can age and die with dignity in a country that has exploited their labor while denying them a safety net. The author explores this theme through her own relationship with her parents, particularly her father. After decades of physically demanding work, he finds himself aging, his body wrecked, and facing age discrimination. He has paid into Social Security for years but will never receive its benefits.

This burden falls to the children. The author describes the immense pressure and guilt that comes with this role reversal, where the child becomes the parent's provider and protector. This is the reality for countless families. The book tells the story of Ricardo, a 21-year-old American citizen who was excited to sponsor his parents for green cards, only to be told by lawyers that the risk of them being deported in the process was too high. The promise of a pathway to citizenship was a lie. His mother now plans to return to Mexico when she can no longer work, and Ricardo must prepare to support his parents in a country he barely knows. This final, poignant insight reveals the ultimate cruelty of the system: even after a lifetime of work and sacrifice, the promise of belonging remains just out of reach, and the dream of a better life becomes the responsibility of ensuring a peaceful end.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Undocumented Americans is that a person's legal status is not their identity. By refusing to tell simple stories of heroes or victims, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio shatters the monolith of "the undocumented" and replaces it with a mosaic of deeply human characters: a man who saves a squirrel, a father who builds a church lectern while in sanctuary, a mother who fights for her husband's life against an indifferent system. The book is a powerful act of testimony, giving voice to those who are systematically unheard.

Its real-world impact lies in its radical empathy. Cornejo Villavicencio challenges not just our policies, but our way of seeing. She asks us to look past the headlines and statistics and recognize the "randoms," the people whose lives are just as complex, messy, and worthy of dignity as our own. The final question it leaves us with is not just about policy change, but about our own capacity for compassion: are we willing to see the full humanity of the people who live among us, in the shadows?