Gang Life vs. Community Engagement Theme Analysis

Though much of Tell Me How It Ends concerns Valeria Luiselli’s large-scale ideas for reframing the present-day “immigration crisis,” she also suggests ways to make life better for the individual migrants already living in the United States. The book follows Manu López’s struggle to avoid gangs like MS-13 in both Honduras and the United States. When Luiselli first meets him, he is sixteen and has recently made the dangerous journey to the United States from Tegucigalpa, Honduras—a passage he undertakes because of threats from the Barrio 18 gang. Even in the United States, though, he isn’t safe from gang violence, as he encounters MS-13 and Barrio 18 members at his high school in Hempstead, Long Island. As a result, he tells Luiselli and his immigration lawyers that he wants to leave school. This isn’t an option, however, since his immigration status in the United States depends upon whether or not he’s a student. It is because of stories like Manu’s that Luiselli and her students at Hofstra University form a group to provide teenage immigrants with support, doing so by organizing language classes, soccer games, and other activities intended to keep them from gang life. Spotlighting the positive effect of such programs on teenagers like Manu, Luiselli champions education and civic engagement, suggesting that a strong sense of community support can help at-risk immigrant teenagers withstand the threat of violence and the coercive tactics of dangerous gangs.

Luiselli emphasizes how little support Manu had in his hometown in Honduras, as seemingly nobody in the community was willing or able protect him from the Barrio 18 gang. He even filed an official police report registering that gang members used to wait for him outside school every day and often followed him home while “threatening to kill him.” Luiselli notes that in the last lines of the typewritten report (which Manu still has), the Honduras police department “promised to ‘investigate’ the situation.” Despite this claim, Manu was never offered protection of any kind. Shortly thereafter, Barrio 18 members followed him and his friend home and murdered his friend, at which point Manu himself escaped, called his aunt Alina, and arranged to join her in the United States as soon as possible. That Manu had to leave his home country just to feel safe going to school illustrates how isolated he was in Honduras from any kind of support network that might have helped him avoid Barrio 18.

However, Luiselli also calls attention to the fact that moving to the United States doesn’t solve Manu’s problems. Although a team of powerful lawyers agrees to take on his case and help him stay in the country, he soon encounters the same kind of danger he faced in Honduras, as Hempstead High School is full of MS-13 and Barrio 18 members. “Hempstead is a shithole full of pandilleros [gang members], just like Tegucigalpa,” he says, telling his lawyers that he wants to drop out of high school. However, they inform him that he can’t drop out, since he “has to be enrolled in school” to be “considered for any type of formal [immigration] relief.” Due to these restrictions, Manu finds himself in a difficult position, one in which he’s required to endure the same dangers from which he originally fled. And though this time he has certain forms of support, they are (at first) primarily legal and thus don’t offer him day-to-day help with avoiding gangs.

Tell Me How It Ends is first and foremost a book that encourages readers to consider the underlying problems of the immigration crisis, so it doesn’t offer many concrete solutions. However, its final chapter—aptly titled “Community”—suggests that Americans can help young at-risk immigrants like Manu by providing them with communal support. Luiselli explains that she has turned her Spanish conversation course at Hofstra University into a “migration think tank,” in which she and her students discuss the nuances of the crisis and brainstorm the best ways to address this challenging situation. These conversations inspire her students to found the Teenage Immigrant Integration Association (TIIA), an organization devoted to helping teenage migrants become “quickly and fully integrated” into life in the United States, thereby giving them the support networks necessary to stay away from gang life. Luiselli’s students decide that TIIA should offer “intensive English classes, college prep sessions, team sports, a radio program, and a civil rights and duties discussion group.” Organizing events like pickup soccer games, TIIA reaches out to migrants and provides them with the kind of support and encouragement they need to establish themselves independently from gang affiliation.

Of course, these efforts don’t guarantee that MS-13 will completely leave people like Manu alone, but they at least give young migrants resources and allies, which in turn help them stay strong in the face of danger. Considering how hard it must be to resist gang-related pressure, this sense of community is vital. “It only takes a group of ten motivated students to begin making a small difference,” Luiselli writes, suggesting that even small-scale manifestations of civic engagement can go a long way in helping at-risk migrants. As for Manu, he now has permanent residency in the United States, belongs to a church “where he feels welcome,” has relationships with mentors at a Long Island anti-gang nonprofit, and participates in TIIA’s soccer games. Much of his success, Luiselli implies, comes from his newfound sense of belonging to a community that has his best interests in mind. In this way, the author makes a case for the power of community building and civic engagement to help migrants lead safe and rewarding lives.