Lunch and Learn: "The Cost of Being Undocumented" by Alix Dick & Antero Garcia

Co-presented with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights

This spring, grab your favorite lunch at noon and tune in to virtual conversations with the Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System on topics from repairing the effects of racial injustice to fighting for equitable access to recovering from exile and loss. Let’s learn together!

Lunch and Learn returns with special guests Alix Dick and Antero Garcia in conversation with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George's County Memorial Library System discussing their new book, "The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman's Reckoning with America's Inhumane Math."

Registration not required. Click on the YouTube video linked below to stream the program live or watch the recording later.

About the book: 

An undocumented activist and a social scientist come together to tally of the structural costs of undocumented life

An inhumane math pervades this country: even as our government extracts labor and often taxes from undocumented workers, it excludes these same workers from its social safety net. As a result, these essential workers struggle to get their own basic needs met, from healthcare to education, from freedom of association to the ability to drive to work without looking for ICE in the rearview mirror.

When Alix Dick’s family found themselves in the crosshairs of cartel violence in Sinaloa, Mexico, she and her siblings were forced to flee to the U.S. Many of the scenes that she shares are difficult and unforgettable: escaping from a relationship in which her partner threatened to report her to immigration; getting root canals done in an underground dental clinic. But there are moments of triumph, too: founding her own nonprofit; working on films that tell important stories; and working with her co-author Dr. Garcia to tell her story in a framework that lays bare the realities of structural oppression.

As Alix and Antero tally the costs of undocumented life, they present a final bill of what is owed to the immigrant community. In this way, their book flips the traditional narrative about the economics of immigration on its head.

Find the book in our collection: Book | eBook | eAudiobook

About the authors: 

Alix Dick is an artist and storyteller living in Los Angeles. Her contributions as a producer and filmmaker have screened at film festivals across the globe. She co-edits the substack La Cuenta, an online publication centering the voices and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in the US.

Antero Garcia is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books about schooling in America. He co-edits the substack La Cuenta.