"Just Like Us" was well-written and engaging, but I believe the author's hoped to convince her readers to feel genuine frustration and grief for the struggles these girls faced and, sadly, by the end of the book, I felt quite the opposite way.

Even before the Dream Act was passed, an important piece of legislation that made it possible for children like these girls to achieve US citizenship through legal means, there were options available to them that would have allowed them good lives and, potentially, eventual citizenship. Instead of choosing one of these avenues--avenues which, thanks to privately funded educations paid for by generous Americans were wide open--the girls bemoaned their "sad" fates for the entirety of their college years and pissed the time away.

Ultimately, the girls ended up hardly better off than they began, through a series of _dumb_ decisions that their expensive college educations were supposed to help them avoid. The ending of their stories, one in particular, earned a great big eyeroll from me. I enjoyed the author's writing style very much, but didn't much care for her muses. ( )

This was another choice for my office’s equity and social justice book club. I’m really happy that it was picked, as it covers the topic of immigration to the US. Specifically, it focuses on the challenges those without documentation face as they make their way out of high school and try to figure out what options are available. I think I would have preferred a book written by one of these women, though, which factors into my three-star rating.

Author Ms. Thorpe is a journalist who was also married to the mayor of Denver while writing her book. This is relevant because much of the book focuses on the broader policy and political issues focused on during the immigration debate, and her husband often found himself (or put himself) in the middle of those discussions. Ms. Thorpe decided to follow four young women from their junior year of high school until they were in their early 20s. Two of the four women had documentation; two did not.

Some of the challenges are ones you could probably imagine – how do you go to college, for example, if you have very little money, don’t qualify for any financial aid, AND have to pay out-of-state tuition since you can’t prove residency? But others might not be top of mind to everyone – like how to handle the stress of knowing your parents could be arrested and deported at any point.

I appreciate the skill and research necessary to write this type of book that covers nearly seven years in the lives of many people, but I also think that people can best tell their own stories. Additionally, I often find myself annoyed with this book as Ms. Thorpe bends over backwards to appear neutral and give time to ‘both sides,’ but the ‘other side’ of the debate is often quite hateful. I do think there are real policy issues to be sorted out about how to address the needs of those who are here without documentation, but so many people who are so vocal about it seem to have really screwed up ideas about immigrants in general, and (in the case of at least one prominent politician), choose to think of their own immigrant ancestors as totally different, since they were European.

I also found myself cringing at times when she would use the term ‘illegal’ to describe the women or their families. I fall firmly in the camp that no person is ‘illegal.’ And of course I cringed whenever the author spoke of or with Tom Tancredo. Because ugh. That guy.

I do think I got a lot out of this book, but reading it also made me more interested in reading Diane Guerrero’s “In the Country We Love.” ( )

Narrated by Paula Christensen. Journalist Helen Thorpe followed four Mexican girls living in Denver as they graduated from high school through college. Two are undocumented and the others have green cards; the focus of the story is on the undocumented girls, Marisela and Yadira. This illustrated the dilemma and stress of living as undocumented immigrants that I never realized. Yet Marisela and Yadira thrive in school, becoming politically and socially active, earning good grades, and working jobs while dealing with family issues, and balancing their two cultures. It's actually pretty remarkable that they all did as well as they did. And while I understand why immigrants would be desperate to settle here illegally, after reading this, I now wish for all would-be immigrants to realize the terrible limbo their non-American-born children will suffer for years because of their decision. ( )

Denver's own Helen Thorpe does a great job of humanizing the issue of immigrants who have entered this country illegally and the long term affect this action has on the lives of their children. She chronicles the personal experiences of four intelligent, ambitious girls from Mexico who were brought into the country illegally when they were very young. She follows them from senior year in high school through college. All of the girls are facing promising futures, but only two have papers showing them as in the country legally, and the difference this makes in the opportunities and resources available to each girl, even though their backgrounds are very similar, is astounding. Ms. Thorpe also includes her own experiences and impressions of the immigration issues being discussed nationally and locally, both as a journalist and as the then-wife of our then-mayor, John Hickenlooper. I think she does a great job of remaining open-minded and seeing all sides of the issues, even if she doesn't necessarily agree. ( )

Just Like Us tells the story of four high school students whose parents entered this country illegally from Mexico. We meet the girls on the eve of their senior prom in Denver, Colorado. All four of the girls have grown up in the United States, and all four want to live the American dream, but only two have documents. As the girls attempt to make it into college, they discover that only the legal pair sees a clear path forward. Their friendships start to divide along lines of immigration status.
Just Like Us is a coming-of-age story about girlhood and friendship, as well as the resilience required to transcend poverty. It is also a book about identity—what it means to steal an identity, what it means to have a public identity, what it means to inherit an identity from parents. The girls, their families, and the critics who object to their presence allow the reader to watch one of the most complicated social issues of our times unfurl in a major American city. And the perspective of the author gives the reader insight into both the most powerful and the most vulnerable members of American society as they grapple with the same dilemma: Who gets to live in America? And what happens when we don’t agree? ( )