The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning with America’s Inhumane Math

In this illuminating account, Garcia (Pose, Wobble, Flow), an education professor at Stanford, helps tell the life story of filmmaker Dick. The authors’ aim is to cast light on the material cost to Dick of America’s burdensome immigration system. Dick grew up in a “very wealthy family” in Sinaloa, Mexico. In 2011, when she was 20 years old, her family was threatened by drug cartels and she fled to America. She eventually landed in California, where she supported herself as a nanny. Dick explains how as an undocumented immigrant, she suffered losses of time, mental health, and faith. She calls the system an “exhausting mental game” because, contrary to popular belief, undocumented immigrants are actually not unknown to the government (“The IRS, the DMV, the police, they all know you exist.... You are assigned a personal identification number that you use to pay taxes”). Rather, Dick suggests, undocumented immigrants are intentionally kept undocumented so they can’t collect government benefits and can be exploited at work. The authors tally the price extracted from Dick between 2011 and 2023, incorporating some estimates like how much she was likely being underpaid; the total comes to $1,912,177. Part harrowing memoir, part rigorous case study, this makes for an eye-opening glimpse of undocumented life in America. (June)