Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Villavicencio, the author of the book, interviews undocumented immigrants and presents their thoughts, struggles and triumphs in a respectful and artistic way. She is also a character within her own book and charts her changes from childhood to adulthood. Villavicencio characterizes her child-self as polite and craving approval from authority figures. She also divulges she was a difficult child, one with the possibility of doing self-harm. Her father kept her summers regimented to keep her from dwelling in her own thoughts. She shows educational promise at the young age of four, and her parents—who had left her in Ecuador—brought her to New York City to widen her educational experience.

Villavicencio understands that her abandonment in Ecuador creates a mental schism. The story she has heard is after a car accident, her mother and father needed money and borrowed it from a family member...