Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s The Undocumented Americans: Between a Memoir and a Manifesto

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio positions her book The Undocumented Americans as a “work of creative non-fiction,” experimentally mixing literary genres such as the memoir, personal essay, and testimonio. She draws on journalistic methods of doing interviews and fact-checking exercises, but departs from them at will as she blends these stories from the undocumented community with the personal and the magical. This essay details some of these creative overtures and discusses how and why Villavicencio’s work sits uncomfortably between fact and fiction, between memoir and manifesto, as she sets out to represent America’s undocumented. The essay examines the politics of Villavicencio’s unapologetic tone, her focus on undocumented life post-migration, and her mapping of the self as an extension of community. It contextualizes her work in relation to the selfnarratives that appear during the youth movements surrounding the DREAM Act in the first decade of the 21st century and probes at the limits of selfrepresentation, especially for an undocumented writer. Villavicencio registers her struggles at representing a community that is vulnerable to the extent that it is rendered voiceless, but also overrepresented in the mainstream media as caricatures or through simplified categorizations. Her critical engagement with representing undocumented voices also manifests as complaints against translation biases in the publishing industry. Long after the publication of her book, Villavicencio has continued the behind-the-scenes work to position her voice, doing book readings and interviews. This essay is interested in Villavicencio’s efforts to retain the autonomy over her voice within the textual boundaries and beyond.