What is the author perspective in the nonfiction book, Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives?

While the individual perspective offered in Underground America depends upon whose testimony is being offered at any given moment, the general perspective is that of undocumented immigrants who are otherwise asked or forced to hide in the United States—to go “underground.” For this reason, many of the people speaking are speaking out for the first time, or in the midst of a process of learning how to have and defend their voice in the country.

This perspective is being offered specifically to combat the perspective of documented, American citizens who view immigrants as an unwelcome burden or as job thieves. This perspective is mostly represented in the Forward, Introduction, and Author’s Note. Here, Peter Orner and Luis Alberto Urrea both call for greater education and information on issues of immigration and criticize anti-immigrant politics for its inflammatory rhetoric. “It should serve as an indication of how truly lacking understanding is on the issue,” writes Urrea, “that those who suggest we stop and educate ourselves are often vilified as apologists for the invasion” (3). The true contest of perspective being offered in Underground America is between the people who have an opinion without any experience of what it means to live undocumented in the U.S., and those who have the experience but are repeatedly silenced.