The Argonauta book club meets this Thursday and I finished our book, early this morning.  Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue is about undocumented immigrants or dreamers. 

The story is about the Jonga family.  Jende lies to get in the country and has a lawyer who has concocted a story about Jende's life will be in danger if he returns home to Cameroon.  Jende works two years before having enough money to send for his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son Liomi.  Neni gets a student visa and also works.

They do work hard and save even harder.  They are not lazy welfare recipients sponging of the system.  Things get better when Jende gets a job as a chauffeur for the Edwards.  Clark Edwards works for Lehman Brothers.  The Edwards family is quite a contrast to the Jongas.  Rich and the poor--the working poor.

But you know what happens to Lehman's.  The brokerage firm goes bankrupt and everyone's life changes. 

Jende loses his job.  Neni has a baby.  Cindy Clark takes to drugs. Vincent Edwards, the oldest son quits law school and goes off to find himself in India, thereby rejecting all that the Edwards have worked for.  It's incomprehensible to the Jongas.  What they dream of and work hard at getting, Vincent has thrown away. 

There are casualties--the children.  The Edwards' youngest son, Mighty witnesses this traumatic change in his family and is helpless to do anything about it.  Liomi's dream of becoming a successful American businessman is threatened.  But the baby, she is a bona fide American and entitled to all that label encompasses.

In the end, Jende can't take the stress of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) breathing down his back, besides the two dishwasher jobs, which are the only type of work he can get, are taking their toll on his health.  He decides to go back to Cameroon.  But Neni, you won't believe the struggle she gives.  First, she wants to divorce Jende for awhile and marry someone else to get that coveted green card, then divorce him to remarry Jende.  Worse, is her idea to give her son away to be adopted by friends, just so he will gain American status.  She really wracks her brain to come up with something, ANYTHING, to stay in America.  She loves New York and digs in her heels.

What to do?

Is that enough tension for you?  Read the novel.  It's a good view of today's immigrants and what they go through and feel.  But don't worry.  It really isn't all that bad.