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

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.

The Confessional

Mexican guy. White guy. Classmates and enemies from across the border and on each other’s turf. Big fight. White guy wins. Next day, he’s dead. Everyone’s a suspect. Everyone’s guilty of something.

Does what you look like or where you come from finally determine where your loyalties lie? Who’s Us? Who’s Them? Which side is your side? Is it Truth?

Contemporary politics, the consequences of guys-being-guys, and questions about faith and personal responsibility pulse throughout the pages of this provocative, eloquent debut.