Karla has read a vast amount of books about immigrant life in America and has hated almost all of them. She could not see herself or her friends in the sad, “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” memoirs that permeated much of the existing literature. In her searing debut, The Undocumented Americans, Karla seeks to tell stories that more closely resemble her own.

As one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard, she reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this groundbreaking portrait of a nation in The Undocumented Americans, a finalist for the National Book Award. Using a combination of reporting and personal memoir, Karla traveled the country at the risk of arrest and deportation to tell of the interior, hidden lives of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Guest host, Myriam Gurba, is the editor-in-chief of Tasteful Rude, a Brick House Collective publication. She is also the author of the memoir Mean, a New York Times editors’ choice.