Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo Book Review

 

Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo Book Review

Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo. This is a memoir mostly. It's a piece of nonfiction and castillo is basically reflecting on his experience being an immigrant here in the united states. 

He and his family crossed over the mexican border when he was really, really young. And the way that this book is pitched, it like talks about how when he crossed over the border, he like went blind and had this like really traumatic experience and things like that. 

Which did happen to him, but that's not really the focus of this novel. This book is broken up into i think it's four parts and each part kind of focuses on a specific period of time in castillo's life. 

And those events are kind of like centered usually around specific single events. So when the book opens you are presented with this experience that Castillo had of ICE raiding his home. 

And he was living with his mother at the time and they were basically looking for his father who had actually been deported about a decade ago at that point. But the ICE officials or whatever still believe for whatever reason that his father still lived in the united states even though it wasn't true. 

Castillo reflects on what a traumatic experience that was but he also then uses that as a way to talk about his father getting deported and sort of the strain on the relationship that he has with his father. 

And also the difficult to describe relationship that his parents have with each other, obviously, being separated and being completely unable to see each other.

And from there the book kind of continues on and castillo reflects on a bunch of different basically concepts related to him being an undocumented person here in the united states for so many years. 

He eventually gets married to someone and eventually gets his green card and he also reflects on that experience and kind of how things did and didn't change for him after getting a green card. 

There's also kind of like a almost dual timeline thing going on here where each section again has this sort of singular event that it's kind of centered around. One of them being the fact that his father was expelled for 10 years. 

And so like in one section it talks about his father trying to come back into the united states after that sort of 10-year ban is up. 

But then there are also like parts of this book where he's reflecting on things that have happened in the past, either things that occurred when he was a kid or things that occurred in his parents' life before they came to the united states or very early on when they came to the united states, things along those lines. 

So castillo himself is a poet and so the way this book is written is really, really beautiful. But there's like a lack of structure that's probably done on purpose but it can be very difficult to get into. 

But i did find that the more that i read i either got acclimated to the writing style or it became more clear sort of what castillo was doing with this story. 

And so i feel like the first section is probably like the most difficult, quote-unquote, to get through just because it feels very flimsy almost. Like this there's not a strong structure here and so it's very hard to tell what castillo is trying to do with this story. 

And i will say like that murkiness kind of continues through the rest of the book. There's some like sort of stories or anecdotes, i suppose you could say, that are expressed in this book that i was just like i don't really know the point of that. 

And it's also interesting that like this book is pitched as a memoir because while it's kind of about castillo i feel like the book is more about his parents. 

He talks a lot about his father's experience getting deported as well as like the work that they did in order to try to get him back into the united states after the 10-year ban. 

And then there's also some similar things that happen to his mother, trying to get her some sort of like citizenship or anything like that, a green card status for some of the different things that have occurred as well, as like her experience with castillo's father and all of this stuff. 

And so when i was reading this book to me the most compelling parts were whenever castillo was reflecting on the experiences of his parents and sort of all the things that they had to deal with and all the things that they like continue to deal with. 

And if i'm being completely honest, it feels a little bit like Castillo doesn't actually reflect very much on himself, or the way that he reflects on himself, it's not really about himself it's about himself in relation to other people, specifically his parents. 

There is a little bit in here about like him moving from california to the midwest, i think specifically michigan, in order to work and i think go to grad school at a university in Michigan.

And he reflects like a little bit about that experience, about sort of being completely removed from his culture and the people around him and things like that. Obviously like in california there's a much stronger mexican community there and like being completely removed from that. 

And, you know, there's one specific anecdote where he talks about how he like rode on the bus for like an hour in order to receive go to a supermarket that sold mexican goods and there were like mexican people who worked there and stuff like that and how like that was very comforting for him. 

Like stuff like that is like sprinkled throughout this book but it isn't the main focus of this book and it's one of those things where i kept reading and being like, i want more of those stories. 

He's also very like sporadic about what he chooses to share, which obviously like is his choice and like it's very weird like critiquing a memoir because it's hard to like tell someone else how to tell their own story. 

But there were like certain details in this book that like felt like they were misses. Like i don't know how many siblings castillo has, to be completely honest. I know that he has brothers. 

I think more than one. And i think he has one sister and that like one sister i'm pretty sure was only mentioned towards the very end of the book like there's one part where he refers to his sister as being his mother's only daughter. 

And when i read that sentence i was like, wait a second, where did this sister come from? And i was also a little bit like why isn't he refer--- why isn't she referred to as his sister? 

I think i know why she's referred to, like after reading through the whole section, i think i understand why she's referred to as the mother's daughter um because again it's a thing about like being in the story only in relation to the mother and certain things that are happening in the book that i don't want to talk about. 

But it was just like a weird experience to be like reading this book and to be almost done with it and then realize that Castillo also has a sister. Like it's little things like that where i feel like, again, there wasn't a lot of structure to this book like the fact that i have no idea how many siblings castillo has feels a little bit weird to me for a memoir. 

But also i feel a little bit weird critiquing something like that because that's Castillo's choice about like what he chooses to share about his family. But this is clearly like a thing that affected their whole family but there's no real clear indication of how any of these events affected anyone besides the parents. Like even the way it affected castillo is not super, super clear. 

Like he talks about little things like creating a fake social security card and things like that, but those like moments are so brief in comparison to the rest of this book that it feels almost half baked. 

Those stories should have been like fleshed out a little bit further and things like that. There is like a epilogue almost to this book where castillo kind of reflects on a couple of things that have happened after the events of this book occur.

Specifically like he becomes sober and he goes through like a rough spot with his wife and he now has a kid with her and you know they're doing much better and things like that. 

And so part of me wonders if it's like the lack of space between the events that are talked about in this book and him writing this book that make it all feel a little bit underdone. Or if, again, all of that was done on purpose. 

But like i said earlier, there are lots of things about this book that i did really enjoy castillo is a poet and so the writing in here can be really, really beautiful. There are events that occur in here that i don't really want to spoil, so to speak, that are really, really powerful. 

Like when castillo was reflecting on like the modern day stuff that was to me the most compelling because there is this sense of like what's gonna happen to this family. And it also provides this really good sort of window into this experience that a lot of people don't have. 

And it also like shows like how difficult it is for anyone to get like legal sort of status here in the united states, especially if you're coming from mexico and things like that. 

Like he talks about the fact that a lot of people when they find out that his mom isn't an american citizen or isn't here legally or whatever, they're like but she's been here for so long. But that doesn't really matter in the eyes of the government and the people who sort of provide citizenship status. 

And there's lots of things that too like an outsider might seem like, oh, this is the logical steps you would take that, castillo basically debunks by showing the experiences that he had. 

So yeah there's like a lot of like really great parts of this book but i just felt like the whole thing was really messy and just needed more of a perspective almost. Like a little bit of time in between some of the things that are talked about. 

Or there just should have been a removal of some of the other stuff from like when he was younger because it wasn't developed enough to make stories worth anything really on its own. 

Like they were just sort of like little fragments of memories that castillo seemed to have that really didn't add a whole lot to the modern sort of storyline that castillo was telling that was really the great driving force and to me the most compelling parts of this book. 

So in the end i gave this book a three out of five stars. If i'm being generous i would round it up to three and a half. 

I definitely think this book is worth reading. It's not very long but it does take a while. like i said earlier, to get into the rhythm of what this book is doing. 

But i feel like once you get into like part two, and especially like the last two parts of this book are the most compelling parts of this story. 

So yeah, i feel like i would still recommend this book to most people but it isn't necessarily like my favorite memoir. So those are my quick thoughts on children of the land. 

Also read: The Adventures of Little Kanya by Ashwini R Sane review

Also read: Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino Book review

Also read: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang book review

Also read:  Knock at Midnight by Brittany K. Barnett Book Review

Also read: Conjure Women by Afia Atakora book Review

 THANK YOU SO MUCH