USG’s Immigration Justice team has chosen the book Dreams and Nightmares for a  common read. It can be purchased at the Social Justice table for $16.

The author, Liliana Velasquez and Mark Lyons who edited and translated the book will be at the potluck to discuss her experiences.

Dreams and Nightmares or Sueños y Pesadillas is a remarkable memoir by teenager Liliana Velásquez, who at fourteen years old fled horrific violence and poverty in Guatemala and headed out alone for the United States. On her trip through Mexico she was robbed by narcos, rode the boxcars of La Bestia, and organized thirty of her fellow Central American bus passengers to convince the Federales who had arrested them to allow them to continue on their way. Finally, she made it to the US border, and headed out across the Sonoran Desert, where she encountered death and was caught by US Immigration. After four months in a detention center, she was placed in foster care while the courts decided whether to deport her. She spent a year in a horrendous foster situation and eventually landed on her feet with a family that loves and protects her. After having to recount her story of abuse several times, the judge determined it was too dangerous for her to return home and finally granted her a green card. She is now in high school, while she works to support her family back home and makes plans to go on to nursing school.

Each year since 2013, an average of 50,000 such unaccompanied children have been arrested at the U.S. Border, and their fate is decided by the immigration system. Liliana’s story is uniquely hers, but it is also the story of tens of thousands of children who have fled violence and poverty in their home country to make a safer life in the United States.  In this time when the issue of undocumented immigrants is causing great divisions within our country, much is written about them; but little is told by them in their own voice. Her story needs to be part of our national conversation.

Mark Lyons met with Liliana over forty-five times and recorded, edited and translated her story.  Dreams and Nightmares / Sueños y Pesadillas is in Spanish and English.

Copyright New City Community Press. Published by Parlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina.