Undocumented: A Worker's Fight

by Duncan Tonatiuh

Labor rights and the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants are the focus of... read more

Labor rights and the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants are the focus of a fictional story about an undocumented Mexican immigrant who is working long hours in a restaurant for less than minimum wage. A Chinese immigrant who begins working there urges him to go with her for help at a workers’ center. There, the two are told that if they want change, they need to get their coworkers involved. Eventually they are able to convince their coworkers to file a legal complaint against their boss, even though many of them are afraid they might be deported as a result. Tonatiuh’s signature Native Mexican-inspired art style unfolds here in an accordion format that echoes the Mixtec codices that predated Europeans on the American continents. This aptly supports the reader–Friendly, sequential nature of the storytelling in a work that offers a strong social justice point of view, but feels intimate rather than didactic. (Age 12 and older)

© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2019

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