The Brown Bag Book Discussion Group – September Update

Brown Bag Books does not meet in July or August. The September book selection is The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life by Lauren Markham (nonfiction).

This is the “story of (two) brothers who escape El Salvador’s violence to build new lives in California – fighting to survive, to stay and to belong. Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores – until, at age seventeen, a deadly threat from the region’s brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home they’ve ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, California. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of teenage life with only each other for support. With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience.” (Amazon)

Please join us on September 3rd in the Fireside Room at noon to discuss this very relevant and informative book.