Reyna Grande knows how the migrant children on the border feel. She was one of them, and she grew up to write two award-winning novels and a memoir in 2012 about her early life.
http://www.reynagrande.com/
If you want to know why migrants don't just get jobs in Mexico or wherever they're from, read about her father going from city to city in Mexico seeking work in construction.
If you want to know why parents are desperate enough to send their children with a coyote, read her book.
If you wonder how children feel when they are left behind by one or both parents, read chapter one.
If you liked the classic 19th C. novel Jane Eyre, read the story of this 20th C. not-quite-orphan in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. The cruelty of adults to children in both books is incredible.
Another graphic account of poverty and cruelty faced before and after immigration is Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. His journey began in Ireland in the 1930s, Reyna's in Mexico in the 1980s.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/17/books/generous-memories-of-a-poor-painful-childhood.html
If you've never talked with anyone who hiked across the Mexico-US border illegally, read chapter 20. I was afraid to read on when her brother Carlos was separated from the group, which scattered when a helicopter with spotlight hovered overhead.
So many of those who become separated are later found dead from dehydration or other weather elements.
Buy this book for the person who represents you in the House of Representatives and in the US Senate.
Buy it for your friends. This is an easy way to make a difference in the big debate this month over how to handle the migrant children turning up at our borders. Available in either Spanish or English.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/19/entertainment/la-ca-reyna-grande-20120819
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