“Immigrants are the enemy or the provider, depending on who you're talking to and who we benefit.”

Unpacking the invisible costs of immigration policies with author Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez.

This week, we conclude our conversation with author Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez. As she describes the journey from delivering a viral TED Talk to authoring her popular memoir, My Side of the River, Elizabeth reflects critically on how these opportunities are interpreted and shape the broader discourse around immigration. Noting the experiences of her parents and challenges getting basic needs met—like health and hunger—Elizabeth details the personal costs of U.S. immigration practices.

ALIX DICK: You gave a TED Talk a few years ago that went very viral. Can you talk about the aftermath of that experience?

ELIZABETH CAMARILLO GUTIERREZ: It was weird because the TED Talk is the reason why I ended up getting a book deal. I think it reached over a million views pretty quickly, and it eventually got to 2 million, which is a lot for TED Talks.

Initially it was a lot of people really resonating with the story of what it means to be put into an immigrant narrative and what that means to you. You either get scapegoated as the immigrant that does hard labor. If you happen to not fit that mode they're like, "Oh, but you're different." Right? But we're not different. This is who we are, and you're subjecting us to what you want us to be.

I think that America has used us to their beck and call. They’ve done that to immigrants. Depending on who you're talking to and who we benefit, immigrants are the enemy, or we are the provider. And right now it's with this political environment, even immigrants are polarized about immigrants. And I'm like, "Why are we letting this happen?" Right?

Immigrants aren't just Mexicans or Latinos. We're all sorts of people. Obviously there's never going to be a consensus, but basic human rights should be important. Right now I'm reading Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, and it's destroying me.

ANTERO GARCIA: It's on my shelf right now - that book is huge!

ECG: It's so big! Even in the beginning I'm like, "Oh my God! Why? Why?" I’m learning a lot through that.

The aftermath of the TED Talk really let me see a lot of people's perspective. I was also working in finance. It was weird because a lot of my co-workers were white Republican or right-leaning people who didn't necessarily think of me in any way, and they actually completely ignored the fact that I gave a TED Talk for the company. Never mentioned it. It was like nothing happened. And it's just like that is how the world works. They don't like what you say, they don't like when you're being loud, they don't like when you're proud. And so sometimes, for me, it was just doing the exact opposite.

After the talk, I had some agents reach out through Twitter, which I was like, "This is a scam." Eventually, I asked a friend in the media industry if she knew anybody in publishing. She happened to know my agent's former assistant, and so she connected me to her and she talked to me and then connected me to her. And my agent's Johanna Castillo. She's fantastic. She's like my publishing mom because she keeps me on track, and sometimes she scares me, but she always tells me the truth, which is what I really appreciate about her. She tells me what's real, what's happening, how the industry works. And for me, that's incredibly important. But I got her as an agent and got the book deal, and it all kind of started from there.

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Also, to the people that were like, "You should have waited 10 years.”: I didn't get the book deal in 10 years. I got it now. What do you want me to do?

AD: Did you always know you wanted to write a book?

ECG: I can't remember specifically being like, "I'm going to write a book." I'm very much an opportunist. If an opportunity comes across me, then I'm going to take it. Because I think with anything, you don't know where it's going to land you. And so I never necessarily sought out writing a book, but it was a challenge that I got and I was like, "Yeah." If you manage to get an agent to sign you when getting an agent is so hard, and when you manage to get a book, you're like, "Of course I'm going to write a book. Of course I'm going to do that."

AG: One question that we ask everyone is related to the name of this publication. La Cuenta points to —the hidden costs incurred by undocumented and mixed status families in this country. If you were to give a bill to the United States for the things that it's taken from you, what might you put on it?

ECG: That's so hard. Obviously, I think the instinct is to give it to your parents too. My dad never finished college. He went to grade school, but he never finished for X & Y reasons.

It's a bill for their lost potential because, when I see my parents, my mom is one of the smartest people I know. She's a fighter. She will break down an argument like it's nothing and that's fascinating to me. And my dad, I can really rely on my dad for tasks. I'm like, "If you had the potential and if people actually supported you, you would've been an incredible entrepreneur." He is so tactical with how he thinks, and he gave that to me. So I’d make it a bill for their loss potential.

Also, it was very cheap to raise two successful kids for the United States. They got to do it without actually having parents and all these things. And now we're giving back to the country in one way or another. And so that's a bill that they have, and it was at the cost of us not having our parents around. So very cheap in that sense.

And I think there was a lot of hunger. A lack of medical care that we weren't afforded. And somehow we made it alive with a lot of issues still now that they're coming up in flares, but it's still the output that you receive. I always think about big corporations that are doing constant tax evasions, and I think about these corporations and how they get the benefit of getting publicly educated students into their workforce, and they are allowed to not pay for it because our government decides that it's okay because they donate a certain amount to elections or whatnot.

AG: Is there anything else about writing this book that you wanted to share?

ECG: At the end of the day, My Side of the River is for kids. Kids like my younger brother that I know are in the trenches, and also older siblings, older sisters who are in this constant feeling of like, "Oh, I'm so annoyed and I'm so angry that I have to do this," to seeing their family survive and do great things. To see the potential that their younger siblings or their family has, and eventually seeing that to fruition.

Propina

We are exceptionally grateful to Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez for sharing her time and expertise with us. If you haven’t checked out My Side of the River, what are you waiting for?

If you missed the previous parts of our conversation with Elizabeth, you can find them here and here.

We’ll see you next week.