We Are Not from Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez (review)

Guatemala is no longer safe for Pulga, Chico, and Pequeña, three teens from closely interlocked families who have run afoul of Rey, the violent young kingpin of the local crime ring. There was already bad blood between Pulga and Rey following a beatdown with Rey’s younger brother, but now Pulga and Chico have witnessed Rey murder a shopkeeper. Pequeña has been forced into a sexual relationship with Rey and has just given birth to his baby, and she finds his brutal vision of their future as untenable as she finds him personally disgusting. The trio grabs what cash they can from home and head for El Norte, undergoing all the trial by hunger, weariness, attacks, and deceit their flight entails. One dies along the way, an aftermath of a concussion sustained in a fall from a La Bestia boxcar; one loses heart and is swept into U.S. border custody; one is found half-dead in the desert by a woman who helps secure the refugee’s temporary safety and legal counsel while they await decisions on refugee applications. Although moments of grace from shelter workers or generous fellow migrants offer brief glimpses of humanity, this is a grim trek without definite resolution, consonant with Sanchez’s impassioned indictment, in her closing note, of many refugees’ treatment in United States detention. Teens who read Johnston’s Beast Rider (BCCB 2/19) can now ramp up to this searing novel, whose careful attention to the intolerable forces driving refugees out makes the uncertainty of their future all the more bitter.