Two new books spotlight the humans and stories so often concealed by dominant narratives about immigration into the United States. Yajaira M. Padilla in From Threatening Guerillas to Forever Illegas takes a look specifically at the ways Central Americans have been by turn stereotyped (as gangsters, maids, and so on) and invisibilized in US media over the past several decades—and how Central Americans themselves rebel against skewed representation. And in the anthology Somewhere We Are Human, Reyna Grande and poet and activist Sonia Guiñansaca compile 44 essays, poems, and artwork by migrants, refugees and Dreamers. Together, they give voice to the people who tend to be ignored and demonized in an increasingly toxic national debate.

Moderator: Frederick Luis Aldama, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin and award-winning author of over 48 nonfiction books and inductee into the Texas Institute of LettersYajaira M. Padilla, Reyna Grande, From Threatening Guerrillas to Forever Illegals: US Central Americans and the Cultural Politics of Non-Belonging, A Ballad of Love and Glory, Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings