Looking for Esperanza

Literary Nonfiction. Latino/Latina Studies. Inspired by a story about an immigrant mother who walked the desert from Mexico to the USA with the dead body of her baby strapped to her own, Adriana Páramo immersed herself in the underground world of undocumented women toiling in the Florida fields. This fieldwork and the anonymous voices of the women she encountered while looking for the mother in the story are captured in LOOKING FOR ESPERANZA, winner of the 2011 Social Justice and Equality Award in creative nonfiction. "A timely and stunning project, Adriana Páramo's LOOKING FOR ESPERANZA is a heart-wrenching collection of portraits of Mexican women whose lives and journeys illustrate the complexity and dignity of the undocumented immigrant. Páramo writes with admirable honesty and sensitivity, making visible perspectives seldom explored in either literature or journalism: the Mexican laborer in the American Southeast, the woman as border-crosser, and the stories of struggle that rise above tragedy and travesty to highlight perseverance and hope."—Rigoberto González "Adriana Páramo's LOOKING FOR ESPERANZA is an essential window into the hidden world of undocumented female farmworkers struggling to maintain their health, their families, and their dignity in an unforgiving world. Páramo shines a necessary light on these defiant fearless women fighting for their own small morsel of the American Dream. The result is a book both powerful and unforgettable."—Dinty W. Moore