La Cuenta Turns Two!

Tallying 184 costs of surviving in this country while undocumented.

Image by Christián Peña

The beginning of October marks La Cuenta’s two year anniversary. Over the past year, we’ve continued to document the untold and hidden costs of living in the U.S. while labeled undocumented. Building from last year’s tally, we’ve categorized and sorted the myriad costs shared by our contributors over the past twelve months. 

The results are stunning. Over the past year, we’ve more than doubled the costs covered on La Cuenta, the summary below represents 184(!) different costs mentioned by our contributors. 

As we coded these contributions, we were struck by themes of resilience and joy that emerged in this year’s posts. Though an extraordinary amount of loss and grief was present within these posts, we also saw ongoing exploration around resistance, strength, and solidarity. 

La Cuenta Year Two

Compiled by April Olivia Pacheco and Antero Garcia

The Costs of:

Acting; Activism, &; Advocacy, &, &; Aggravation to children and families; Aging; Art, &, &, &; Art-healing praxis; &; Attending funerals via Zoom; Baking; Beauty standards; Being a role model; Being multilingual, &, &, &, &; Bland and beige marketing; Book banning; Borders, &, &, &, &; the “Buchona” look; Care and rest; Checkpoints; Child separation, &, &, &; Civil war; Classroom cruelty; Climate devastation; Collective action, &; A college degree, &; College education, &, &, &, &; Community-based art; Community Support; Convenience; Creating a network; Criminalization; Cross-campus activism, &; DACA renewal; De la nada, &; Diaspora; Displacement; Divorce; Dos and Don’ts; The double-barreled impact of the criminal justice system and immigration for Black and Latinx migrants; Driving to the grocery store; Dropping out; Dying, &; Education, &; The emergency room ; The “English Learner” label, &; Entreprenuership, &; E-verify, &; Family reunion; Family separation; Fatherhood; Federal custody of children; Filmmaking; Finding purpose; Freedom; Future-oriented storytelling; Generation 1.5; Girlhood, &; Giving birth; Giving thanks; &; Graduation, &, &; Grief; Human imagination; The “illegal” label; Illunon; Immigration policy, &, &, &, &, &; Incarceration, &; Inhumane treatment; Justice, &; Labor, &, &, &; Language barriers; Learning English, &; Lessons about immigration in schools; Life beyond a degree; Living in Florida; Love, &; Loving America; Making zines; Medical care, &; Mental health; Mentorship; Migration; Miracles; Motherhood, &; &; Nightmares; Not affirming immigrant identities in classrooms; “Not being like other immigrants”; Not having DACA, &; Not making resolutions; Offering support; The ones we left behind; Organizing, &; Passport privilege; Paying taxes; Platforms; Poetry, &, &, &, &; Postpartum depression; Presidential xenophobia; Public scholarship; Publishing; Racialization; Refuge; Resilience, &; Shadows; Sharing joy through cooking; Silence; Stereotypes, &, &; A STEM degree, &, &; Storytelling, &; Survival, &; Temporary solutions; Unaccompanied Alien Children; The “Undocu-” label, &; Visibility; Vocabulary; Writing, &; &; &, &, &; Worker co-ops

(note: & represents multiple entries related to this cost, each & is a unique link.)

Like last year, let this annual post serve as an invitation to contribute to La Cuenta! We have some very exciting developments to share (stay tuned to next week’s announcement!). We’d love to include your voice here–get in touch if you have an idea or would like to be involved.

Propina

La Cuenta interviewee and author of Love Across Borders, Anna Lekas Miller, recently published an article for The Progressive about Kamala Harris’s immigration policy positions. Her article, including statements from La Cuenta’s co-founders, can be found here.

We’ll see you next week.