The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez

"Searing . . . A rich, novelistic tale of a young woman whose life spans both sides of the United States-Mexican border . . . [Aida's] a radiantly optimistic character in a relentlessly bleak, unlucky world . . . The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez is an illuminating work of literature, not an ideological tract."—Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times Book Review

"Bobrow-Strain writes like a journalist and sociologist, with clear information on history and policy, along with plenty of narrative tension. Hernandez is not a perfect immigrant (she has a criminal record), but she’s a real one, and her story provides insight into how the larger immigration machine actually works."—Adriana E. Ramirez, Los Angeles Times

“In his deeply researched, captivating book, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story, Aaron Bobrow-Strain illustrates the complexity of human experience that sometimes accompanies migrants because, like the rest of us, they are people . . . The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez is no fairy tale. It’s not an uplifting story of plucky migrants and isn’t the handbook for congressional immigration-law reform efforts. That is precisely why it is such a powerful testament to migrants that deserves a more central role in immigration law debates . . . Bobrow-Strain hasn’t written a story limited to current debates about immigration law and policy. Rather, like other great storytellers, he has written what is better described as a story about people who happen to be migrants. It’s the people who animate his account, and not the circumstances that convince us to care about the people.”—César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)

“It’s not a stretch to say that Bobrow-Strain has written a Grapes of Wrath for our time—a deep, situated, complex study of a mass migration in conditions of a fundamental economic and political violence that goes far, far beyond the question of the contingent suffering of one woman and her family.”—Journal of Narrative Politics

“The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez manages to seamlessly weave together the very personal true story of an undocumented Mexican-American woman while also providing readers a sense of how her many misfortunes are interconnected with the U.S.’s border policies over the past 30 years . . . A beautiful introduction to anyone interested in the subject of immigration”—Seth Combs, San Diego City Beat

“Aida’s story—of border flight, immigration court, for-profit detention, and family separation—is required reading in the age of Trump.”—Rosa Furneaux, Mother Jones

"[A] lyrical and intimate account . . . Hernandez is never reduced to a lecture prop. She is the protean American, in search of herself, re-inventing as she must."—Oscar Villalon, Lit Hub

“A professor combines his academic research with his decades long U.S.-Mexico border activism to brightly illuminate immigration realities by focusing on the struggles of one young woman . . . [A] powerful saga . . . This potent, important work, which 'occupies a space between journalism and ethnography, with a dash of oral history and biography,' adds much to the continuing immigration debate.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Bobrow-Strain, an academic and an immersion journalist of conscience in the mode of Alex Kotlowitz, tells the dramatic true tale of a woman he calls Aida Hernandez with extraordinary clarity and power . . . In this caring and unforgettable borderland saga, Bobrow-Strain reveals the profound personal toll of the immigration crisis.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)