The Book of Rosy : A Mother's Story of Separation at the Border
Other Available Formats
Overview
"Offers hope in the face of desperate odds" - ELLE Magazine, ELLE's Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020
" D]isturbing and unforgettable memoir...This wrenching story brings to vivid life the plight of the many families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border." - Publisher's Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
" The] haunting and eloquent...narrative of a Guatemalan woman's desperate search for a better life." -Kirkus, STARRED Review
PEOPLE Magazine Best Books of Summer 2020
TIME Magazine Best Books of Summer 2020
PARADE Best Books of Summer 2020
Compelling and urgently important, The Book of Rosy is the unforgettable story of one brave mother and her fight to save her family.
When Rosayra "Rosy" Pablo Cruz made the agonizing decision to seek asylum in the United States with two of her children, she knew the journey would be arduous, dangerous, and quite possibly deadly. But she had no choice: violence--from gangs, from crime, from spiraling chaos--was making daily life hell. Rosy knew her family's one chance at survival was to flee Guatemala and go north.
After a brutal journey that left them dehydrated, exhausted, and nearly starved, Rosy and her two little boys arrived at the Arizona border. Almost immediately they were seized and forcibly separated by government officials under the Department of Homeland Security's new "zero tolerance" policy. To her horror Rosy discovered that her flight to safety had only just begun.
In The Book of Rosy, with an unprecedented level of sharp detail and soulful intimacy, Rosy tells her story, aided by Julie Schwietert Collazo, founder of Immigrant Families Together, the grassroots organization that reunites mothers and children. She reveals the cruelty of the detention facilities, the excruciating pain of feeling her children ripped from her arms, the abiding faith that staved off despair--and the enduring friendship with Julie, which helped her navigate the darkness and the bottomless Orwellian bureaucracy.
A gripping account of the human cost of inhumane policies, The Book of Rosy is also a paean to the unbreakable will of people united by true love, a sense of justice, and hope for a better future.
Customers Also Bought
- 1
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780062941923
- ISBN-10: 0062941925
- Publisher: HarperOne
- Publish Date: June 2020
- Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.75 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.8 pounds
- Page Count: 256
Related Categories
The Book of Rosy
“We are last names only. We are numbers.” From the first page of this account of a mother from Guatemala being separated from her sons at the southern U.S. border, readers are drawn into the wrenching impact of American immigration policy on parents and children.
The Book of Rosy chronicles the experiences of Rosayra Pablo Cruz, a shop owner, writer and mother of four. After the murder of her husband and a shooting attempt on her life, Cruz fled Guatemala in 2014, leaving her three oldest children behind with her mother. After gangs threatened to kidnap her eldest son, Yordy, she returned. Cruz made another attempt to flee in April 2018 with 15-year-old Yordy and Fernando, age 5.
Cruz describes making the 2,300-mile journey over eight days and nights, packed in the back of a truck with other refugees. In an ICE detention center in Arizona, officials separated her from Yordy and placed her with Fernando in a frigid cell. Within days, she was informed her sons would be sent to a different facility, a transfer that took place at 2 a.m. Yordy and Fernando ended up far away, placed with a Spanish-speaking foster mother in the Bronx. Eventually, the efforts of Immigrant Families Together, a group of activist mothers who raise money to post bond for detainees like Cruz, reunited her with her sons.
Interspersed with Cruz’s story is Julie Schwietert Collazo’s account of her 2018 decision, in response to the Trump administration’s family separation policy, to establish a grassroots group that would become Immigrant Families Together. The group has worked to reunite more than 80 families.
Simultaneously published in Spanish and English, The Book of Rosy offers an unflinching look at conditions in U.S. detention centers and a sobering reminder of the power of policy to change the course of lives.
The Book of Rosy
“We are last names only. We are numbers.” From the first page of this account of a mother from Guatemala being separated from her sons at the southern U.S. border, readers are drawn into the wrenching impact of American immigration policy on parents and children.
The Book of Rosy chronicles the experiences of Rosayra Pablo Cruz, a shop owner, writer and mother of four. After the murder of her husband and a shooting attempt on her life, Cruz fled Guatemala in 2014, leaving her three oldest children behind with her mother. After gangs threatened to kidnap her eldest son, Yordy, she returned. Cruz made another attempt to flee in April 2018 with 15-year-old Yordy and Fernando, age 5.
Cruz describes making the 2,300-mile journey over eight days and nights, packed in the back of a truck with other refugees. In an ICE detention center in Arizona, officials separated her from Yordy and placed her with Fernando in a frigid cell. Within days, she was informed her sons would be sent to a different facility, a transfer that took place at 2 a.m. Yordy and Fernando ended up far away, placed with a Spanish-speaking foster mother in the Bronx. Eventually, the efforts of Immigrant Families Together, a group of activist mothers who raise money to post bond for detainees like Cruz, reunited her with her sons.
Interspersed with Cruz’s story is Julie Schwietert Collazo’s account of her 2018 decision, in response to the Trump administration’s family separation policy, to establish a grassroots group that would become Immigrant Families Together. The group has worked to reunite more than 80 families.
Simultaneously published in Spanish and English, The Book of Rosy offers an unflinching look at conditions in U.S. detention centers and a sobering reminder of the power of policy to change the course of lives.