I wrote this piece for the June, 2015 edition of Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine.
In the midst of heated political debate about social issues, it’s
the stories of people who live the experience that touches us in a way that
facts and rhetoric cannot. Maria
Andreu’s book, The Secret Side of Empty has brought the debate over immigration
reform to young readers’ attention. The book tells the story of M.T., a
straight A student, whose blonde hair and fair complexion help hide her
undocumented status. It’s a story that Andreu says was “born out of my deepest,
ugliest secret” of being undocumented.
“It feels amazing and humbling,” said Andreu of the critical
acclaim her first book has received, including being named to top Latino author
lists by ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association, School Library Journal
and Latino Stories.
The book began as a memoir and then evolved into
fiction. It was a lesson, she said, in
“letting a story tell you where it wants to go.” That direction was taking her
own experience of being undocumented and showing how it impacts a child. “There
is a lot of political debate about it and what the impact of it is. I wanted to
show the human side of it,” she said.
Her parents were Argentinians who immigrated to New Jersey. “They wanted to come to America, the promised
land, with a plan of saving and working very hard and then going back home as
so many people do, but life got complicated,” she said.
As early as four and five years old, Andreu began to hear
conversations in the kitchen between her parents about activities they were not
able to do and people being swept up in immigration raids. A trip to Argentina
to attend the funeral of her grandfather, set her and her mother on a two-year
odyssey to get back home to the United States and reinforced an identity of
being different. “I felt out of place,” she recalled. Andreu attended first
grade and part of second grade in Argentina.
Her father continued working at a restaurant in New Jersey. “The kids were a little mean because I didn’t
talk exactly the way they did. It very much had a quality of being on hold.”
The only way Andreu and her mother could get back home was
through using a coyote (a person who smuggles Latin Americans across the U.S.
border for a high fee). They travelled to Mexico to begin the journey back to
the United States. Andreu remembers being in a shack in a remote location with
nothing nearby but an outhouse. They depended on the coyote to bring them
food. Sometimes, he would take her and
her mother for a walk. On one such walk, the coyote pointed off into the
distance and told them they were seeing the United States. “That doesn’t sound
right, because where is the imaginary line?” she thought. “It blew my mind to
think that something about me made it so I wasn’t able or allowed to cross the
imaginary line.”
Once safely home, Andreu finished her grammar school
education at St. Joseph School in New Jersey and attended Holy Rosary, a girl’s
high school. The feelings of confusion and embarrassment over her status
intensified. “I watched American TV and
had friends, but there wasn’t the Internet and it was hard to communicate with
others about things. I didn’t talk to
anyone about it.” As she got older, she saw her friends get jobs and driver’s
licenses and began to feel her life narrowing.
As a high school senior, she was unable to attend her
school’s National Honor Society trip to Europe.
She had to feign indifference when a teacher offered to obtain funding
for her to go. “I don’t know if she had
a sense of my immigration status, but she knew we were poor,” she said. “She pulled me aside and said, ‘Just say the
word and I will find the money for you to go.’ I was so embarrassed. I thought
she was seeing something so ugly about me. I was just like, it doesn’t matter,
I don’t really want to go.”
After that, Andreu said she was in a dark place and didn’t
see what the future could hold. But when
she was 18, she learned about the new law signed by President Reagan that
granted amnesty to undocumented individuals who entered the country before
1982. Not having to live with the fear of
deportation was transformative, she said and she began her path to citizenship.
“For a long time I lamented that I had grown up this way,”
she said. “Now I realize the resilience, strength and insights it gave me. “
Andreu enjoys connecting with young readers through her book
and also in person. Speaking at Atlas DIY, an organization in Brooklyn, New
York that advocates for undocumented youth, was particularly poignant. “I
didn’t have any help to offer them but seeing their eyes light up and thinking
someone felt what I feel, was very emotional,” she said. “It was the only
experience where they cried and I cried.”
Andreu is also passionate about sharing her book with people
who are outside of the immigration reform debate. “Obviously I want to touch
people who understand the experience but I also want to touch people who have
never thought about it before who say to me, ‘I never knew.’ I love that. It
makes me so excited.”
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