Illegally Yours

Agustin grew up in Southern California modeling his entire high school career on American TV shows — dying his hair blonde to look like Zack Morris, navigating the social hierarchies of the hallway — without knowing he was undocumented until he tried to get his driver's license junior year and his parents had to tell him the truth. There was no episode of Saved by the Bell where Zack gets deported. Agustin, who went on to write for Jane the Virgin and become CEO of the Latino Film Institute, tells this story with the comic timing of a professional TV writer and the specificity of someone who lived every bewildering moment of it: the frosted tips, the identity crisis, the family bonding over a shared secret, the stamina required to dream inside a system designed to make dreaming impossible. The most joyful book in the borders and belonging bundle and the one that most completely proves the Laugh & Resist argument: that comedy is not a retreat from the serious but the only form adequate to certain kinds of serious. His mother's line holds the whole book together — dreams should not have borders. Under the jokes, Agustin agrees with her completely.