The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

For a book that tucks easily into the back pocket of your jeans, The Undocumented Americans packs quite a punch. Villavicencio's writing is unforgiving and unidealized--her stories of the undocumented are detached from the hateful, fearmongering rhetoric of anti-immigration movements, but also from the (sometimes) picturesque, cherry-picked narratives fostered by those who support immigration reform. Instead, Villavicencio offers a stream-of-conscious blend of objective journalism and heightened realism that is--like many of her subjects--impossible to categorize. These are stories about our neighbors. These are stories about us.