Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Starred Review In 2004, Denver journalist Thorpe met four Mexican girls o legal, two undocumented d began a five-year journey of chronicling their lives and the lives of their families against the backdrop of growing tensions on immigration issues. She follows the girls risela, Clara, Yadira, and Elissa om their high-school proms through college graduation, documenting the huge differences between the challenges and uncertainties faced by those with documents and those without. Thorpe also chronicles the family dynamics and economic struggles as the girls tentatively move into the middle class, the tensions of assimilation as the girls become increasingly American, and the emotional challenges to maintaining cultural ties to their families and communities. She follows the story into Mexico when Marisela's mother is deported. But Thorpe also follows the opposition, including former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado), who made a name for himself by vociferously opposing illegal immigrants. All the while, Thorpe had the added complication of being married to the mayor of Denver, whose business and political stances added to the heated debate. Thorpe does a masterful job of exploring issues of class, race, and culture in the American amalgam through the lives of four young Mexican women.

Kirkus Reviews

Random Family moves west in this incredibly human investigation of illegal immigration. Taking a page from Adrian LeBlanc's 2003 book, journalist Thorpe spent several years with her subjects—four Mexican girls, two legal, two undocumented. Elissa and Clara have endured many of the problems of immigrant life, including poverty, absent fathers, mounting familial responsibilities and intense pressure to succeed. But for Marisela and Yadira, who crossed the border with coyotes as babies, the hurdles are much higher. Both exceptional high-school students, the two illegal immigrants were ineligible for financial aid or in-state tuition at any public universities. Though they managed to find private benefactors and enroll at the University of Denver, even with a college degree their options are limited—without Social Security cards, they won't be able to work legally. Alongside the lack of medical insurance, the inability to travel and the constant fear of deportation, the future, even for these extremely talented and motivated students, looks grim. As Thorpe followed the girls, Denver became a hotbed of immigration issues when an illegal alien was arrested for shooting a police officer. Further complicating matters was the fact that Thorpe is married to Denver mayor John Hickenlooper. "Fortune handed me a messy braid of narratives, spliced together by bizarre connections," she writes. "In the end, though, this is what immigration is like: inherently messy. The issue bleeds. And we are all implicated." The author's position in the Denver political scene gives her a unique perspective, but her real strength is the painstaking way in which she gets to know the women and their families. Through the lives of four fascinating young women, Thorpe creates not only a moving examination of a complicated American issue, but a well-told, inspirational story as well.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Two new books follow the fates of young Latinos in the U.S. and examine how many are marginalized by education, immigration and incarceration policies.

<REVIEW PUBLISHER=""Reed Business Information-US"" RELEASEDATE=""05/25/2009"" LANGUAGE=""EN"" SECRIGHTS=""YES"" PUBLICATION=""Publishers Weekly"" PUBDATE=""05/25/2009"" VOLUME=""256"" ISSUE=""21"" PAGE=""48"" SECTION=""Reviews"" SUBSECTION=""Nonfiction"" CONTENTTYPE=""Review"" AUTHNAME=""Staff"">Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in AmericaHelen Thorpe. Scribner, $26.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3893-6

By the time Marisela, Yadira, Clara and Elissa—four girls of Mexican descent from the suburbs of Denver—entered their freshman year in high school, they were inseparable, but four years later, their fundamental difference threatened to divide them: Clara and Elissa were legal residents, but Marisela and Yadira had begun to suffer the repercussions of their parents' choice to illegally enter the U.S. Journalist Thorpe, married to Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, met them as the girls without legal status were finding their friends' liberties—big and small—to attend college, drive or even rent a movie unbearable. “It was hard for Marisela and Yadira to see why they should labor over their homework if they were just going to end up working at McDonald's,” Thorpe writes. “Marisela slid into trouble with ease, but Yadira found the experience profoundly disorienting.” With striking candor, Thorpe chronicles the girls' lives over four years, delineating the small but arresting differences that will separate them and shape their futures. She personalizes the ongoing debate over immigration and frames it so compassionately and sensibly that even the staunchest opponents of immigration liberalization might find themselves rethinking their positions. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Sept.)