Undocumented Dreams

Bad Dream by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
The New Yorker, January 25, 2021
Published online as "Waking Up from the American Dream"

In her New Yorker article, “Bad Dream,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio writes powerfully from the perspective of a first-generation immigrant who developed a voice and an identity by moving through the uniquely American and transitional spaces of the undocumented, those on DACA, and permanent residency. Her experience, Villavicencio explains, created a complex relationship between herself and her parents who sacrificed in known and unknown ways to bring her to the United States. She writes that immigrant parents “give us a better life, and we spend the rest of that life figuring out how much of our flesh will pay off the debt.” Throughout her essay, Villavicencio paints a vivid picture of her parents and her heartfelt, though complicated, bond to them. At five, she joined them in the States and discovered that far from “tony expats,” they were earning what they could as undocumented workers delivering food and sewing for long hours, seven days a week. One of the ways Villavicencio paid her “debt” early on was by translating and interpreting for her parents. Like many other high school students, she encountered The Great Gatsby and the idea of the American Dream for the first time and understood that different from Gatsby who animated his own dreams, “we were Dreamers because our parents had dreams.” The dreams of her parents were not just deferred for themselves, but denied; despite the fact that she was high school valedictorian and went to Harvard, her parents remain “poor and undocumented,” aging without “dignity” and unable to retire. Villavicencio’s story urges educators committed to creating equitable classrooms to listen and look out for this perspective and to consider their practices and pedagogy, including the teaching of canonical literature like The Great Gatsby.