"The higher moral law here is that people have a human right to move, to change location if they experience hunger, poverty, violence, or lack of opportunity. Especially if that climate in their home country is created by the United States."

Creative nonfiction by a journalist recounting stories of people living with undocumented status in the United States, including her own experience and that of her family's.

Villavicencio is a Harvard and Yale educated Ecuadorian American who uses the power of her education to give a voice to the unheard. And what a voice she possesses. Profound, honest, unabashed, and driven to reveal the depth of hardship living "without papers" in the land of the free truly costs people, she is as down to earth as she is raw. Reading this book was like sitting down and having a conversation with one of the coolest women I've encountered.

Diving deep into a duality that exists in the United States, where an exploitive reliance on labor intersects with a suppressive discrimination of equality, Villavicencio lays bare an ugly and heart-wrenching reality. From 9/11 to Flint, Michigan to hurricane disaster relief to attaining medical care in order to treat diseases caused by working or living in these situations, it is astounding how people are allowed to exploit those with undocumented status to line their own pockets.

Villavicencio's honest portrayal of the far-reaching consequence, both physically and psychologically, caused by deportation on individuals and families, or living under the constant fear of being returned to a place no longer or ever considered home, makes this work as essential as Isabel Wilkerson's to understanding the complex tapestry that comprises the United States.