"In Guatemala, almost everyone has lost someone they love to murder," writes Rosayra Pablo Cruz in The Book of Rosy, a heartrending memoir of her harrowing journey through Mexico and into the United States. "We are a nation whose ghosts hover in the air around us, a country of walking dead."
Rosy first immigrated to the U.S. in 2014, but threats to her family in Guatemala necessitated a return. In 2018, Rosy risked a second border crossing, this time accompanied by her sons, 15-year-old Yordy and five-year-old Fernando. Daughters Britny and Dulce remained in Guatemala. "Among the many things that people don't understand about migration is this: No one wants to leave the people they love." Unaware of the Trump administration's newly enacted and harshly enforced "zero tolerance" policy, Rosy was sent to Eloy Detention Center in Arizona with bond set at $12,000. Yordy and Fernando were taken from her and placed with a foster mother thousands of miles away in the Bronx, N.Y.
Rosy's poignant writing of the struggles facing Guatemalans and her firsthand experience of being in a "literal and psychological prison" are bookended by the powerful advocacy efforts of another mother, Julie Schwietert Collazo. A former social worker, Collazo was horrified to learn of the separations at the border. After contacting a New York City attorney and mobilizing a volunteer network of friends and strangers, Collazo launched a campaign, Immigrant Families Together, to raise thousands of dollars to free several mothers at Eloy Detention Center--including Rosy.
Ultimately inspiring and hopeful, The Book of Rosy offers an intimately detailed and personal account of two mothers' determination and strength. --Melissa Firman, writer, editor and blogger at melissafirman.com