[12] Though Cornejo Villavicencio did not know where she wanted her career to go at first, she later discovered her passion in advocating for issues regarding immigration, mental illness, and the culture of people who are undocumented.

[16] In 2010, when Cornejo Villavicencio was a senior in college and before Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was established, she wrote an essay, “I'm an Illegal Immigrant at Harvard”, which was published anonymously by the Daily Beast.

Jose Antonio Vargas described Cornejo Villavicencio’s memoir as ‘a significant contribution to personal-essay literary journalism,' emphasizing its role in illuminating and giving voice to the lives of undocumented individuals in the United States.

[22] Cornejo Villavicencio visited with workers in Cleveland, Flint, New Haven, New York, and Miami, "gaining access to vigilantly guarded communities whose stories are largely absent from modern journalism and literature".

She wanted to shift focus from adolescent immigrants to older ones who tend to be treated as unambitious because of their job titles such as domestic workers or day laborers.

[25] She shares personal stories, such as witnessing her father collapse and sob on the floor after losing his job, highlighting the harsh reality faced by many migrant children.

[17] Cornejo Villavicencio had originally written the book as her dissertation at Yale; when she presented it, it was failed, she believes because she "criticized the legacy of migration studies, where I found a fixation on brown skin, on calloused hands".

[4] Natasha Walter describes the memoir as having a reportage style, as Cornejo Villavicencio details the immense role that day laborers played at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11 and the lives of undocumented people throughout cities in the United States.

[26] Working at Ground Zero, these workers endured poor conditions, being exposed to toxic dust and debris without proper equipment and receiving inadequate pay.

[26] As a result, a large percentage of the day laborers developed various health conditions, as chronicled in Cornejo Villavicencio’s memoir, including cancer, respiratory complications, and PTSD.

[28] Day laborers were also major contributors to the restoration efforts of hurricane-struck Staten Island, working as unpaid volunteers following Hurricane Sandy.

[9] She recounts the reliance of the undocumented community on alternative healthcare, including attending botanicas to attain medicinal herbs or resorting to Vodou or Santeria to cure ailments.

[33] Kirkus Reviews points out that because any identifiable details have been changed, the reader has to trust that Cornejo Villavicencio hasn't embellished, but notes her "candor about herself removes worries about the credibility of her stories".

"[11] Daisy Muñoz, writing for the LatinX Project at New York University, said "Cornejo’s storytelling flawlessly goes from her experiences to those of her interviewees, all the while weaving everyone’s histories into a compassionate and nuanced narrative of what it means to live an undocumented life".

[35][36][5] Before achieving legal status, Cornejo Villavicencio held a worker’s permit as a result of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

With the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, she obtained a work permit and later received a temporary green card after marrying Talya Zemach-Bersin.

She grew up in Brooklyn and Queens and now lives with her partner, Talya Zemach-Bersin, in New Haven, Conn., where she is finishing up a Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale University.