Migrant Brothers

A powerful call to recognize immigrants as kin, from one of the Caribbean's most influential literary voices

"The ... story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California-- fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong ... journalist Lauren Markham follows the seventeen-year-old Flores twins as they make their harrowing journey across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother's custody in Oakland, CA. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating a new school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of life as American teenagers-- girls, grades, Facebook --with only each other for support"--Provided by publisher.

Uprooted Children is a study of migrant farm children in Florida and the eastern seaboard. It describes how black, white, and Mexican-American children of migrant families grow up in rural America under conditions of extreme hardship and how they come to terms with the world and themselves. In preparation for this book, Dr. Coles spent years among migrants, drawing his research through interviews and every day life.

Adapted from a work of the same title published in 2017 by Crown.

This is the story of a child and his brothers who were abandoned when he was three and left with their grandparents (migrant workers). They were constantly moving to follow whatever crop happen to be in season at the time, living in one room shanties that were called home. His life inside and outside of taverns and bars were all too familiar. This is the story of his struggles to find peace and to obtain acceptance in a world where it seemed that no one cared. Always looking to find the reason for the one question; Why Me?

An intimate examination of the everyday lives and suffering of Mexican migrants and indigenous people in our contemporary food system. An anthropologist and MD in the mold of Paul Farmer and Didier Fassin, Seth Holmes shows how market forces, anti-immigrant sentiment, and racism undermine health and healthcare. Holmes’s material is visceral and powerful. He trekked with his companions illegally through the desert into Arizona and was jailed with them before they were deported. He lived with indigenous families in the mountains of Oaxaca and in farm labor camps in the United States, planted and harvested corn, picked strawberries, and accompanied sick workers to clinics and hospitals. This “embodied anthropology” deepens our theoretical understanding of how health equity is undermined by a normalization of migrant suffering, the natural endpoint of systemic dehumanization, exploitation, and oppression that clouds any sense of empathy for “invisible workers.” Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is far more than an ethnography or supplementary labor studies text; Holmes tells the stories of food production workers from as close to the ground as possible, revealing often theoretically discussed social inequalities as irreparable bodily damage done. This book substantiates the suffering of those facing the danger of crossing the border, threatened with deportation, or otherwise caught up in the structural violence of a system promising work but endangering or ignoring the human rights and health of its workers. All of the book award money and royalties from the sales of this book have been donated to farm worker unions, farm worker organizations, and farm worker projects in consultation with farm workers who appear in the book.

Do you ever wish that a family vacation could last all summer, that you could have a summer filled with laughs, games, and memories to last a lifetime? The youngest of ten siblings, Thelma Garcia Celestino had an extraordinary childhood. Are We Almost There? details the adventures of the ten siblings as they travel across America. Along the way, these unique individuals share loss, find strength, and work together to harvest the hopes and dreams in the fields of life. This hardworking family migrated from state to state, harvesting crops and working the fields. Take a ride into a different era: a time of toil, a land of labor, and foundation that begins with family. The five brothers and five sisters each tell their story in separate stories. The close-knit relationship of this large Hispanic family is clear and their determination that everything is possible even in the hardest of times. Uncover the deepest treasures of life as the siblings migrate, asking, Are We Almost There?

Companion publication geared for personal and group discussion and reflection with the goal of better welcoming those from other nations.

Immersive, engrossing report on the European refugee crisis A mother puts her children into a refrigerator truck and asks, “What else could I do?” A runaway teenager comes of age on the streets, sleeping in abandoned buildings. A student leaves his war-ravaged country behind because he doesn’t want to kill. Everyone among the thousands of people who come to Europe in search of asylum each year possesses a unique story. But those stories don’t end as they cross into the West. In Lights in the Distance, acclaimed journalist Daniel Trilling draws on years of reporting to build a portrait of the refugee crisis as seen through the eyes of the people who experienced it firsthand. As the European Union has grown, so has a tangled and often violent system designed to filter out unwanted migrants. Visiting camps and hostels, sneaking into detention centers, and delving into his own family’s history of displacement, Trilling weaves together the stories of people he met and followed from country to country. In doing so, he shows that the terms commonly used to define them—“refugee” or “economic migrant,” “legal” or “illegal,” “deserving” or “undeserving”—fall woefully short of capturing the complex realities. The founding story of the EU is that it exists to ensure the horrors of the twentieth century are never repeated. Now, as it comes to terms with the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, its declared values of freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights are being put to the test. Lights in the Distance is a uniquely powerful and illuminating exploration of the nature and human dimensions of the crisis.

A collection of stories about the life of a migrant family.