Family

Through numerous interviews with children and their guardians, the essay becomes an examination of a burgeoning new family dynamic for migrant families in which members are separated by national borders. During Luiselli’s interviews, family features prominently as either the thing children are running from or are running to. As Luiselli surmises, “The family tree of migrant families is always split into two trunks: those who leave and those who stay” (49). Some families are reunited; other children form new families with their legal guardians. The dynamic of migrant families is thus initially defined by the physical separation of its members.

The structure of revealing questions from the questionnaire one by one allows for the theme of family to mature over the course of multiple different interviews and points of view. Luiselli's first interview with Manu reveals that he has never met his father, is not in contact with...