When ICE raids shatter four families in a single coordinated sweep, twenty years of honest work, tax payments, and community contributions mean nothing when your documentation is wrong.
In Los Angeles, seventeen-year-old Elena Herrera faces an impossible choice: accept her full scholarship to UCLA or stay home to fight for her detained father's release. In Miami, single mother Carmen watches fifteen years of building an American life collapse as she faces deportation, while her eight-year-old daughter Isabella?born in Florida?doesn't understand why they might have to leave the only home she's ever known. In Omaha, DACA recipient Patricia becomes her family's lifeline when her stepfather is arrested at the meatpacking plant, forcing her to choose between her American future and her family's unity.
Mi Sueño Americano follows these interconnected lives across five transformative years, from the 2024 election through its devastating aftermath. Elena channels her trauma into law school, becoming the immigration attorney her community desperately needs. Patricia builds a resource center helping other mixed-status families navigate an unforgiving system. Carmen discovers unexpected strength in exile, creating opportunities in Honduras while maintaining hope for reunion.
This powerful novella reveals how love transcends borders, how trauma transforms into advocacy, and how families survive even when systems designed to protect them fail catastrophically. With unflinching honesty and deep compassion, Mi Sueño Americano gives voice to experiences too often reduced to statistics and political talking points.
Perfect for readers of Cristina Henríquez's The Book of Unknown Americans and Reyna Grande's The Distance Between Us, this is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the human cost of immigration policy in America today.
Stories from a country that forgets us?until we refuse to be forgotten.
