The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story

by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

Overview

One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time

Winner of the 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award | Winner of the 2020 Washington State Book Award | Named a 2019 Southwest Book of the Year | Shortlisted for the 2019 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize

What happens when an undocumented teen mother takes on the U.S. immigration system?

When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby U.S. border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one of the most heavily policed sites in America.

Undocumented, Aida fought to make her way. She learned English, watched Friends, and, after having a baby at sixteen, dreamed of teaching dance and moving with her son to New York City. But life had other plans. Following a misstep that led to her deportation, Aida found herself in a Mexican city marked by violence, in a country that was not hers. To get back to the United States and reunite with her son, she embarked on a harrowing journey. The daughter of a rebel hero from the mountains of Chihuahua, Aida has a genius for survival—but returning to the United States was just the beginning of her quest.

Taking us into detention centers, immigration courts, and the inner lives of Aida and other daring characters, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez reveals the human consequences of militarizing what was once a more forgiving border. With emotional force and narrative suspense, Aaron Bobrow-Strain brings us into the heart of a violently unequal America. He also shows us that the heroes of our current immigration wars are less likely to be perfect paragons of virtue than complex, flawed human beings who deserve justice and empathy all the same.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250251237
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,066,703
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Aaron Bobrow-Strain is a professor of politics at Whitman College, where he teaches courses dealing with food, immigration, and the U.S.-Mexico border. His writing has appeared in Believer, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, Salon, and Gastronomica. He is the author of White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf and Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and Violence in Chiapas. In the 1990s, he worked on the U.S.-Mexico border as an activist and educator. He is a founding member of the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition in Washington State.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Death of Aida Hernandez 3

Part 1 No Country for Young Women

1 Girl in a Labyrinth 11

2 English Without Barriers 21

3 A Sudden Storm 35

4 Miles of Wall and No Time to Sleep 51

5 The New Millennium, Her Own Quiet War 63

6 Better Living Through Border Security 71

7 Dance Steps 81

8 American Dreaming 93

9 No Country for Young Women 101

Part 2 Trauma Red

10 Hunger Is Worse 117

11 Madera 127

12 Exile and Belonging 135

13 La Roca 145

14 The Railroad Yard 153

15 The Black Palace 159

16 Trauma Red 167

Part 3 Slipknot

17 Lucky Etna 179

18 All the Monsters at Once 189

19 The Healer 201

20 Leaving the World and Fighting to Rejoin It 209

21 The "Show Me Your Papers" State 219

22 What Care Can Do 229

23 Slipknot 237

Part 4 Going Away to Come Back

24 Etna's Journey 245

25 The Underworld 261

26 Aida's Voice 275

27 Aida and Ema 287

28 Going Away to Come Back 303

29 To Battery Park 321

Epilogue: The Life of Aida Hernandez 331

About This Book 341

Notes 357

Glossary 405

Explanation of Terminology 409

Acknowledgments 413

Editorial Reviews

"Searing . . . A rich, novelistic tale of a young woman whose life spans both sides of the United States-Mexican border . . . [Aida's] a radiantly optimistic character in a relentlessly bleak, unlucky world...."The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez is an illuminating work of literature, not an ideological tract." —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times Book Review

"Bobrow-Strain writes like a journalist and sociologist, with clear information on history and policy, along with plenty of narrative tension. Hernandez is not a perfect immigrant (she has a criminal record), but she’s a real one, and her story provides insight into how the larger immigration machine actually works." —Adriana E. Ramirez, Los Angeles Times

“The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez gives a human perspective to the politics surrounding immigration … It is a powerful story...” —The Denver Post

"In his deeply researched, captivating new book, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story, Aaron Bobrow-Strain illustrates the complexity of human experience that sometimes accompanies migrants because, like the rest of us, they are people . . . a powerful testament to migrants that deserves a more central role in immigration law debates . . . like other great storytellers, [Bobrow-Strain] has written what is better described as a story about people who happen to be migrants. It’s the people who animate his account, and not the circumstances that convince us to care about the people." —César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, NACLA

“The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez manages to seamlessly weave together the very personal true story of an undocumented Mexican-American woman while also providing readers a sense of how her many misfortunes are interconnected with the U.S.’s border policies over the past 30 years…A beautiful introduction to anyone interested in the subject of immigration”—San Diego City Beat

"Aaron Bobrow-Strain's new book about the border, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez, combines the life story of a young undocumented woman, told in extraordinary detail, with a history of the U.S. border enforcement regime . . . Bobrow-Strain, a professor of politics at Whitman College and an immigration rights activist, first connected with the border when he worked for BorderLinks in Douglas in the 1990s. His book benefits from his first-hand experiences in la frontera as well as his scholarly research into the history of Douglas and immigration law. And his compassion."—Margaret Regan, Tucson Weekly

“Here, at long last, is a nonfiction account of our country’s immigration drama written with the intelligence, passion, and sweep of a great novel. There are echoes of Victor Hugo and Emile Zola in The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez. It is a harrowing and intimate account of an epic, cross-border journey, a tale filled with family, violence, love, injustice, perseverance, and, ultimately, redemption.” —Hector Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark and The Barbarian Nurseries

"Excellently researched and exquisitely told, here is a story of the Americas for our times." —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street and Women Hollering Creek and Other Stories

“Bobrow-Strain, an academic and an immersion journalist of conscience in the mode of Alex Kotlowitz, tells the dramatic true tale of a woman he calls Aida Hernandez with extraordinary clarity and power . . . In this caring and unforgettable borderland saga, Bobrow-Strain reveals the profound personal toll of the immigration crisis.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)

“A professor combines his academic research with his decades long U.S.-Mexico border activism to brightly illuminate immigration realities by focusing on the struggles of one young woman . . . [A] powerful saga . . . This potent, important work, which 'occupies a space between journalism and ethnography, with a dash of oral history and biography,' adds much to the continuing immigration debate.” —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez weaves the personal narrative of a single immigrant with the complex history of the southern border, where many people used to feel that their culture and identity traversed the border line . . . Aida’s story—of border flight, immigration court, for-profit detention, and family separation—is required reading in the age of Trump." —Rosa Furneaux, Mother Jones

"[A] lyrical and intimate account . . . Hernandez is never reduced to a lecture prop. She is the protean American, in search of herself, re-inventing as she must." —Oscar Villalon, Literary Hub

From the Publisher

02/18/2019

In this merger of “journalistic nonfiction and ethnography,” politics professor Bobrow-Strain narrates the story of Aida Hernandez, who grew up an undocumented immigrant in Douglas, Ariz.; married and had a child with an American citizen; was deported in 2008 to Mexico at age 20; and, not long after, returned to the U.S. in an ambulance after she was stabbed and left for dead by a stranger. After the stabbing, Hernandez developed PTSD, exacerbated by fears she’d be deported and separated from her son again. Four years later, she was arrested for misdemeanor theft and spent 10 months in the Eloy Immigration Detention Center before getting a green card. Interwoven with Aida’s story are those of her father, a former socialist revolutionary; Rosie Mendoza, a former undocumented immigrant who became Aida’s social worker; and the twin border towns, Douglas and Agua Prieta, Mexico. Bobrow-Strain draws from dozens of interviews with the principal actors in the story, including four years of collaboration with Hernandez, providing him an insider’s perspective that elevates the narrative above simple reportage. This is a riveting and distressing account of one woman’s immigration nightmare, and a well-researched argument against the status quo in border security. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

This audiobook demonstrates that the national debate over immigration is nothing new. Listeners will be gripped by Frankie Corzo’s narration of this biography of Aida Hernandez, who came to the U.S. in 1987 at the age of 8. Corzo captures the raw emotions that percolate throughout the audiobook and excels in moments of drama, such as when Aida is deported to Mexico. At its core, the author’s work reveals the battles immigrants face through an up-close depiction of the obstacles that confront Aida and others. Corzo’s presentation is straightforward yet nuanced in ways that focus on crucial moments, making this an audiobook that enriches the current political discourse with rarely heard personal stories. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2019 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2019 - AudioFile

This audiobook demonstrates that the national debate over immigration is nothing new. Listeners will be gripped by Frankie Corzo’s narration of this biography of Aida Hernandez, who came to the U.S. in 1987 at the age of 8. Corzo captures the raw emotions that percolate throughout the audiobook and excels in moments of drama, such as when Aida is deported to Mexico. At its core, the author’s work reveals the battles immigrants face through an up-close depiction of the obstacles that confront Aida and others. Corzo’s presentation is straightforward yet nuanced in ways that focus on crucial moments, making this an audiobook that enriches the current political discourse with rarely heard personal stories. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2019 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2019 - AudioFile

★ 2019-01-16

A professor combines his academic research with his decadeslong U.S.-Mexico border activism to brightly illuminate immigration realities by focusing on the struggles of one young woman.

In this powerful saga, Bobrow-Strain (Politics/Whitman Coll.; White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, 2012, etc.), a founding member of the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition in Washington state, focuses primarily on Agua Prieta, Mexico, just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. Until around 1990, the border between the two towns seemed mostly invisible. Douglas residents often shopped, dined, and worked in Agua Prieta, and vice versa. Aida Hernandez—not her actual name, an anonymity the author explains in detail—was born in Agua Prieta in 1987. Until age 9, she resided in Mexico, impoverished but generally content. When Aida's mother left Mexico with her and her siblings to escape a violent marriage, vast complications began. The new man in the family's life turned out to be worse than the biological father, but they were dependent on him for lodging and food and cowed by his threats to have them deported back to Mexico. Although Aida dedicated herself to performing well in school and learning fluent English, her undocumented status meant constant uncertainty. It also meant that she was vulnerable to violent male figures, ranging from her mother's paramour to Aida's boyfriends to abusive Border Patrol agents. When Aida had a son at age 16, her lack of adequate income and her overall vulnerability became far more complex since every decision she made would affect her child. Bobrow-Strain met Aida through a social worker whose own complicated border saga mingles with many others portrayed by the author in vivid and often agonizing detail. The settings eventually transcend Agua Prieta and Douglas to encompass immigration detention centers, overwhelmed immigration courts, and, eventually, New York City, where Aida and her son battle for a better life.

This potent, important work, which "occupies a space between journalism and ethnography, with a dash of oral history and biography," adds much to the continuing immigration debate.

Kirkus Reviews