Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: The Undocumented Americans

Author Karla Cornejo Villavicencio joins co-hosts Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher to talk about The Undocumented Americans, which is both a memoir and a series of essays about immigrant laborers from across the country.  Karla shares her own experiences as an immigrant child, the trauma it has caused her; and relates how widespread, and under-acknowledged, such trauma is among immigrants. In a free-flowing conversation, Karla reflects on what motivated her to write the book in the age of Trump, her love of the immigrant communities in Queens where she grew up (as did Medaya), how literary academia continues to fetishize mental illness, and much else. Also, Alex Ross, author of Wagnerism, returns to recommend Rick Perlstein's Reaganland.