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Piece Description
This youth producer illuminates the immigration debate with an intimate letter to her aunt. Elizabeth has watched her Tia Ofelia work ever since Ofelia crossed illegally from Mexico to the U.S. If Elizabeth could give anything to her Tia Ofelia, it would be this: her children, flying first class from Mexico to Chicago, into the arms of a mother they haven't seen in five years.
3 Comments
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Review of To My Aunt, Who Crossed the BorderOften lost in the abstract immigration debates of politicians are the personal stories of recent immigrants. Elizabeth Pliego speaks softly but delivers powerful words as she talks about her aunt Ofelia's journey to America, exhausting meat packing job, and the cousins her aunt left behind. This breathtaking piece is not about politics or protests, but about family and the borders keeping them apart. |
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Review of To My Aunt, Who Crossed the BorderThis week, after the Senate's defeat of President Bush's bill for immigration reform, Elizabeth Pliego's poignant interstitial should be "required listening." To be rammed into a van with a dozen others, driven north over the border by a "coyote," settled with relatives in Cicero, and have to work packaging food twelve hours a day at six dollars an hour; to return from work every day so back-achingly exhausted that your eyes are "the color of blood"; to be separated from your small children whom you send a couple of dollars a day -- this is what it's like to be "undocumented" in Illinois. The situation is hardly different in California or New York. Pliego's letter to her Aunt Ofelia could be the template for thousands of letters written by Chicana nieces all over this land. To understand what we mean when we talk about immigration, listen to this piece. It may not change your opinions, but it will wrench your heart. |







Arvid Hokanson
Posted on August 01, 2007 at 07:04 AM | Permalink
Review of To My Aunt, Who Crossed the Border
I like this letter from Elizabeth to her aunt Tia. It's touching, and gives us a personal story that is easily lost in the debate about immigration policy. The piece is just the right length, it's not overdone, but still gives us a touching story about what a niece would give to her aunt.
This also gives us the perspective of youth - something else that we don't always hear in stories about immigration.
This will make a good drop-in for a magazine or local talk show.