Book Review: My Side of the River
Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez captures the experience of the American-born children of undocumented immigrants
“We asked for workers. We got people instead.” — Max Frisch, Swiss playwright and novelist, 1965
If you’d value a highly personal glimpse into how immigration works here in the United States or, really, how it doesn’t work, I recommend My Side of the River, which proves both an engaging memoir and an indictment of our immigration system. In her new book, Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez describes her upbringing here as a child born in Arizona of undocumented immigrants. Gutierrez describes how her parents came from Mexico on tourist visas, overstayed, worked hard to stay here, actions, which, given their context, ultimately set their two children adrift in a nebulous and uncomfortable space as U.S. citizens, who could not yet survive on their own in their country of birth.
