“Just Like Us,” a Book on the Intersection of Education and Immigration

Mary Ann Zehr of Education Week says that the book Just Like Us,by Helen Thorpe, is the best book she has ever read about the intersection of education and immigration.

Here is her review of the book:

Just Like Us, a book by Helen Thorpe, helped me to understand what life is like for accomplished students in this country who are undocumented unlike any other article or book I’ve read. Thorpe juxtaposes the lives of two undocumented Mexican girls, Yadira and Marisela, with their two closest friends, Elissa and Clara, who are also of Mexican heritage but have documents to live legally in this country. Elissa was born in the United States and Clara, who entered illegally, has a green card. Thorpe followed the girls for nearly five years, starting with their senior year of high school. She changed their names. (In January 2009, Thorpe introduced two of the girls in a program on the radio show This American Life. Her book was released late last year.)

Thorpe made me care about the girls through communicating their teenager banter and including her perceptions about their feelings. All of the girls come from working-class families who are barely making ends meet. All four girls are amazingly resilient. They didn’t get to be top students in their Denver high school for nothing. But by the end of high school, it’s increasingly clear that the two students with legal status have fewer hurdles to overcome in getting into college and launching a career than those without such status.

The book is a coming-of-age story, but it’s also political drama. As well as being a journalist, Thorpe is the wife of the mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper, who is thrust into a statewide debate about illegal immigration after an undocumented restaurant employee shoots and kills a Denver cop. The killer, it turns out, is employed by a restaurant owned by Hickenlooper. Thorpe gets in some rather sticky situations as she continues to report for her book at the same time that her husband is being publicly criticized for being “soft” on illegal immigration. She accompanies him to the funeral of the murdered cop. Click here for the rest of the piece.

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