Originally from Mexico, Eileen Truax is a journalist and immigrant currently living in Los Angeles. She contributes regularly to Hoy Los Angeles and Unidos and writes for Latin American publications including Proceso, El Universal, and Gatopardo. Dreamers: An Immigrant Generation’s Fight for Their American Dream (Beacon Press) looks closely at the situation of approximately twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as many as two million who came as children. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements. More than ten years later, in the face of congressional inertia and furious opposition from some, the DREAM Act has yet to be passed. In Dreamers, Eileen Truax illuminates the stories of these men and women who are living proof of a complex and sometimes hidden political reality that calls into question what it truly means to be American.
