Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselle

Small but powerful is how I would describe this essay. The author, an immigrant from Mexico herself, writes a reflection on her experience as a volunteer translator for children who cross the border into the United States alone. She tells her story in a series of forty questions which consist of things that her children have asked her, things that she translates when children are being interviewed to assess their eligibility for asylum, and then answers that she gives, answers that she hears, and the thoughts she has about the particulars of the process and overall. This is a hard book to read, thinking about my own children if they were to be in such a position. The fact that 80% of both girls and women who cross the border are raped at least once is so painful to think about. I am a woman, and I have grand daughters. What would I have to do? The violence that we in the United States have sown in Latin America and the complete lack of empathy or responsibility that is acknowledged for the resulting misery is sadly laid out unflinchingly. Please read this book and then consider what needs to be done about reuniting traumatized children with their families and trying to build a life. The private prisons holding immigrants need to be eliminated, and those that abused children rather than safeguard them should be held accountable. We are very far from accomplishing these goals, but they are laudable ones.