"Tell Me How It Ends" by Valeria Luiselli

​    The best books are able to transport you across borders. They put you in another’s shoes for a few moments and allow you to see the world in a new light. In Tell Me How It Ends, Valeria Luiselli has written a powerful and compassionate narrative about the Americas, about migration and our shared history seen through the eyes of children who have fled the poverty or violence of a homeland to have a chance at not only a better life, but in many cases, at life itself.   
   
    Though slender enough to carry in a coat pocket, the clear, precise prose of Luiselli’s essay contains multitudes:  the recounted stories of children who have miraculously survived crossing thousands of miles and entire countries, survived roofs of passenger trains, rail yards and detention centers only to arrive and have mere weeks to find a lawyer, and tell their story in hopes that the evidence of hardships they left behind is enough in the eyes of the court to be granted a chance at temporary relief in this country.
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​    Valeria Luiselli became involved in writing about the child migrant crisis when in 2015 she began work as a volunteer interpreter for the federal immigration court in New York City. She asked each child a series of 40 questions (‘Why did you come?’ ‘Has anyone hurt, threatened, or frightened you?’) Their answers will be used as evidence during the child’s deportation hearing, if they are able to find a lawyer to represent them. Though, Luiselli writes, “Nothing is ever that simple… The children’s stories are always shuffled, stuttered beyond the repair of a narrative order. The problem with trying to tell their story, is that it has no beginning, no middle, and no end.”

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