From Every End of the Earth - Just Like Us

I don't much read the Washington Post web site anymore but there do continue to be bits of reporting and writing worth the time. Nancy Trejos has a book review of From Every End of This Earth by Steven Roberts that has caused me to add the book to my "want to buy" list.

But the true sacrifice is made for the children. I've learned this from my own experience as the U.S.-born child of a Colombian father and Ecuadorian mother. My parents arrived in New York City with no college degrees and unable to speak English. But they found jobs -- my father served food to patients at a Manhattan hospital, my mother cleaned Park Avenue apartments by day and midtown offices by night -- and managed to save enough money to buy a house in Queens and send me to Georgetown University.

Roberts focuses much of the book on children like me -- Generation Next. "Being a child of immigrants can be a complicated way to grow up," he writes. "Generation Next is often pulled between the past and the future, between celebrating their own tradition and creating their own identity."

Postscript:

I may be on a roll - here's another book to add to my list of "must read" books: Just Like Us.

There are few books that can juggle both the human emotion and struggle against the controversial political backdrop that is America as well as Helen Thorpe’s “Just Like Us.” An accomplished journalist, Thorpe not only engaged in relationships with the stars of the book for 5 years, but uncovered the true face behind the issue of immigration. As the wife of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, she treaded carefully and reported on the issue and its players throughout the years with skill.