Since the start of the Trump administration earlier this year, stories and images of ongoing immigration raids and arrests have been at the forefront of media coverage.
The repetition of these images — which often perpetuate negative stereotypes of immigrants — dehumanize the individual.
Writers Alix Dick and Antero Garcia aim to humanize immigrants and give them a voice in their weekly Substack publication, La Cuenta. They also launched Testimonios de Esperanza, a small-scale research project that collects the stories of 10 immigrant families.
Garcia, an associate professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, spoke about how the project came together.
“This was really a recognition of the millions and millions of families in every state, in every city, in every classroom that oftentimes remain silent and are not given the same kind of voice to share their stories,” he said.
The pair also worked to flip the script on the costs of illegal immigration.
Dick, an immigrant from Sinaloa, Mexico, overstayed her tourist visa and is living in the U.S. without legal status.
She tells her story in The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning with America’s Inhumane Math and breaks down the costs of time, employment, and preventative medical care that comes with being undocumented.
“There's a reason why undocumented people and immigrants come to this country,” she said. “Nobody comes to this country for the sake of it. There is a story behind that decision, and we believe that it was necessary for us to put that, not only in our book, but also in La Cuenta.”
