Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions

by Valeria Luiselli

“Did you travel with anyone you knew?” All children travel with a paid coyote. Some of them travel also with siblings, cousins, and friends. Sometimes, when our children fall asleep again, I look back at them, or hear them breathe, and wonder if they would survive in the hands of coyotes and what would happen to them if they were deposited at the U.S. border, left either on their own or in the custody of Border Patrol officers. Were they to find themselves alone, crossing borders and countries, would my own children survive?

We are offered coffee and snacks. Alina and I say yes to the coffee. Manu says he’ll have some of everything if it’s free. I translate: Just a cookie please, thanks, that’s very kind of you.

I remember, of course. Nimmi Gowrinathan came to give us a lecture on the fundamentals of political activism. She insisted that the most important thing was to know how to transform emotional capital—the rage, sadness, and frustration produced by certain social circumstances—into political capital.

Teenage Immigrant Integration Association.