The Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border

by Juan Pablo Villalobos

Overview

Award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos explores illegal immigration with this emotionally raw and timely nonfiction book about ten Central American teens and their journeys to the United States.

You can't really tell what time it is when you're in the freezer.

Every year, thousands of migrant children and teens cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The journey is treacherous and sometimes deadly, but worth the risk for migrants who are escaping gang violence and poverty in their home countries. And for those refugees who do succeed? They face an immigration process that is as winding and multi-tiered as the journey that brought them here.

In this book, award-winning Mexican author Juan Pablo Villalobos strings together the diverse experiences of eleven real migrant teenagers, offering readers a beginning road map to issues facing the region. These timely accounts of courage, sacrifice, and survival—including two fourteen-year-old girls forming a tenuous friendship as they wait in a frigid holding cell, a boy in Chicago beginning to craft his future while piecing together his past in El Salvador, and cousins learning to lift each other up through angry waters—offer a rare and invaluable window into the U.S.–Central American refugee crisis.

In turns optimistic and heartbreaking, The Other Side balances the boundless hope at the center of immigration with the weight of its risks and repercussions. Here is a necessary read for young people on both sides of the issue.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374305741
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	131
Lexile:	810L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He has written literary criticism, film criticism, and short stories. Villalobos has penned multiple books, including Down the Rabbit Hole, which has been translated into fifteen languages and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and Quesadillas. He lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his wife and their two sons.

Table of Contents

Author's Note vii

Where Are You Kids? 2

Now I'm Going to Sleep for a Bit 8

The Other Side Means the Other Side 24

There Are Snakes Out There 40

It Was Like Cotton, but When I Touched It, It Was Just Ice 50

I'd Rather Die Trying to Get Out 64

He and I Got Along Really Well 76

How We Were Going to Get There 86

La Cabuya 102

Before and After 114

To This Day 124

Acknowledgments 135

About the Refugees 137

Glossary 141

Further Reading 145

Editorial Reviews

*2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers Literature Finalist!*
*A Kirkus Best Book of the Year!*
*An NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book Pick!*
*AN ILA Notable Book for a Global Society!*

"A critical compilation of stories from unaccompanied Central American teen refugees who make tremendous sacrifices to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. This essential volume is deserving of more than one read." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Villalobos amplifies the voices of the young refugees mired in the current immigration crisis in this accessibly written collection. . . . The stories, some of which are interconnected, demonstrate the complexity and unevenness of the current immigration and asylum policy. . . . Villalobos' approachable collection provides readers with varied, nuanced insight into the issues." —Booklist

From the Publisher

09/01/2019

Gr 7 Up—In Villalobos's author's note, readers learn that all of the stories in this collection were inspired by 10 immigrant minors from Los Angeles and New York in 2016. And while there are fictional techniques employed and names have been changed to protect anonymity, they are true to the experiences of the Central American teens who crossed the border into the United States. Set off with graffiti-style title pages, each short story highlights the current climate of immigration from hopeful to tragic and showcases a range of experiences including financial payout for transportation, running away from home, and kidnapping. The emotional toll is felt deeply, no matter the bleak circumstances, with narrators recounting experiences of being locked in a shipping container or a jail cell. The weakness of this collection is that the varied fictional techniques do not tie the stories together and infrequently fit the storytelling itself. For example, one story uses chapter headings while another uses dates; another uses hyphens to move the story forward paragraph by paragraph. VERDICT Ultimately, this collection is an additional purchase because of the quality of the writing, not because of the significance of the topic and stories that lie within. Without consistency, the stories feel scattered with the only binding element being the teens' geographic location.—Alicia Abdul, Albany High School, NY

School Library Journal

★ 2019-07-21
A critical compilation of stories from unaccompanied Central American teen refugees who make tremendous sacrifices to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

Told in short vignettes that offer dynamic perspectives, this harrowing book provides readers with snapshots of dire, foreboding situations faced by migrants. The first story, "Where Are Your Kids?" spotlights 16-year-old Kevin and his 10-year-old sister, Nicole, whose mother in the U.S. learns from an immigration officer that her kids are not in Guatemala on a school trip as she believed but rather detained at the San Ysidro border. In another account titled "I'd Rather Die Trying to Get Out," the two siblings are moneyless and lost, resorting to asking a random truck driver for a lift. The author's introductory note indicates that all these stories are true save for some changes to protect the 11 immigrant minors' identities. Most narratives leave readers with (all the right) questions: How long were the teens detained? Are they OK? Why did they receive such horrible treatment in detention cells? What aren't they telling readers? Villalobos (Breve historia del ya merito, 2018, etc.) records the chilling details of the refugees' treks, framed against a background of politics and the reality of today's migration crisis.

At the center of every story lies credible fear; this essential volume is deserving of more than one read. (author's note, about the refugees, glossary) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews