This audiobook reports on the young activists who are engaged in holding lawmakers to the promises made in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA). Almarie Guerra invests her narration with a judicious balance of formality and personality. The author's presentations of the subjects' backstories—from their childhoods through their political engagement as young adults—are easy to follow. Guerra adjusts her pacing so that factual details as well as individual opinions, emotions, and thoughts all receive respectful attention. Her steady pace neither hurries nor drags as passages move from descriptions of activism to the challenges of living in a near-permanent state of limbo. In examining what looks like state-sanctioned terrorizing of vulnerable individuals, Guerra makes these lives real without histrionics. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The Making of a Dream: How a group of young undocumented immigrants helped change what it means to be American
Narrated by Almarie Guerra
Laura Wides-MuñozUnabridged — 11 hours, 59 minutes
The Making of a Dream: How a group of young undocumented immigrants helped change what it means to be American
Narrated by Almarie Guerra
Laura Wides-MuñozUnabridged — 11 hours, 59 minutes
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Overview
“A sweeping chronicle of the immigrant rights movement. . . . Wides-Muñoz reminds us that thanks to the ability of young people to dream, what seems impossible today may yet prove achievable tomorrow.” -New York Times Book Review
A journalist chronicles the next chapter in civil rights-the story of a movement and a nation, witnessed through the poignant and inspiring experiences of five young undocumented activists who are transforming society's attitudes toward one of the most contentious political matters roiling America today: immigration.
They are called the DREAMers: young people who were brought, or sent, to the United States as children and who have lived for years in America without legal status. Growing up, they often worked hard in school, planned for college, only to learn they were, in the eyes of the United States government and many citizens, ""illegal aliens.""
Determined to take fate into their own hands, a group of these young undocumented immigrants risked their safety to ""come out"" about their status-sparking a transformative movement, engineering a seismic shift in public opinion on immigration, and inspiring other social movements across the country. Their quest for permanent legal protection under the so-called ""Dream Act,"" stalled. But in 2012, the Obama administration issued a landmark, new immigration policy: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which has since protected more than half a million young immigrants from deportation even as efforts to install more expansive protections remain elusive.
The Making of a Dream begins at the turn of the millennium, with the first of a series of ""Dream Act"" proposals; follows the efforts of policy makers, activists, and undocumented immigrants themselves, and concludes with the 2016 presidential election and the first months of the Trump presidency. The immigrants' coming of age stories intersect with the watershed political and economic events of the last two decades: 9/11, the recession, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama presidency, and the rebirth of the anti-immigrant right.
In telling their story, Laura Wides-Muñoz forces us to rethink our definition of what it means to be American.
Editorial Reviews
03/26/2018
Journalist Wides-Muñoz movingly traces the 12 years of attempted legislation and political activism that culminated in the DREAM Act, focusing on the remarkable, and remarkably common, stories of several youths affected by its central feature: a path toward permanent citizenship for people brought illegally to the U.S. as children. During the decade-long fight, her subjects grew up, went off to college, got married, and had children, watching and protesting as the legislation started and stalled. They organized a 1,500-mile walk to raise awareness for their cause, orchestrated lengthy sit-ins, and pushed President Obama to deliver on his campaign promises. The injustices Wides-Muñoz details are wrenching: an undocumented immigrant worried that calling an ambulance in a medical emergency would result in deportation; a daughter could not visit her father in an immigrant detention center lest she too be investigated; a mother was pulled over in a routine traffic stop and deportation proceedings were begun immediately. But there are uplifting moments as well, particularly in Brazilian-born Felipe Sousa’s journey, as he struggled to accept that he was gay before finding a partner in the immigration reform movement. With the DREAM Act’s fate currently uncertain, this is a timely look at a contentious issue. (Feb.)
Wides-Muñoz probes deep into the dreamers’ relationships with their parents and often finds empathy and concern.
Essential… A valuable and detailed look at lawmaking and policy that affect people and communities across the nation as well as portraits of heroic youth willing to put their own status in jeopardy to advocate for fair treatment, not only for themselves and their families but for all immigrants.
A necessary and exciting book about five young people whose dreams and struggles are interwoven with this country’s best hopes for itself. This is also the story of the legislators, activists, and ordinary citizens who stand behind them, and of the very slow grinding of the wheels of justice.
Powerful. Evocative and illuminating. A deeply empathetic look at those caught between two worlds and who risk losing everything in a time of deceitful political rhetoric. Read it.
An intimate look at the complicated lives and remarkable aspirations—thwarted and fulfilled—of people searching for a way out of a peculiar historical trap. The Making of a Dream is, in turns, inspiring, heartbreaking, hopeful, and maddening…just as it must be.
A sweeping chronicle of the immigrant rights movement… Wides-Muñoz expertly describes the broader reform movement, through vivid thumbnail portraits of key students… Wides-Muñoz reminds us that thanks to the ability of young people to dream, what seems impossible today may yet prove achievable tomorrow.
Deeply reported, empathetic, and beautiful, The Making of a Dream is the definitive account of the moral drama that created a new group of Americans and empowered them to call on their country to live up to its ideals.
The Making of a Dream is an indispensable book to understand how the Dreamers became the leaders of a new civil rights movement in this country. Here’s the incredible story of how a group of young immigrants conquered their fears, put two Presidents on their side and, in the process, changed this nation forever. This is a must read to understand the new America.
This audiobook reports on the young activists who are engaged in holding lawmakers to the promises made in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA). Almarie Guerra invests her narration with a judicious balance of formality and personality. The author's presentations of the subjects' backstories—from their childhoods through their political engagement as young adults—are easy to follow. Guerra adjusts her pacing so that factual details as well as individual opinions, emotions, and thoughts all receive respectful attention. Her steady pace neither hurries nor drags as passages move from descriptions of activism to the challenges of living in a near-permanent state of limbo. In examining what looks like state-sanctioned terrorizing of vulnerable individuals, Guerra makes these lives real without histrionics. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170298846 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 01/30/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 1,083,269 |
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