This Author Created a Hit Book. She’s Also Living Under Constant Threat of Deportation.
‘Dear Abuelo’ writer Grecia Huesca Dominguez talks about immigration, motherhood, and making art in an era of uncertainty
Poet and children’s book author Grecia Huesca Dominguez never expected Dear Abuelo to find a wide audience. Since preorders launched in October 2019, the book has been placed on back order numerous times. It’s also slated to be included in the curriculum of elementary schools nationwide. In the white dominated world of publishing, Grecia is a first-generation millennial Latina and single mom succeeding in the industry. She’s also undocumented.
The Mexican-born writer and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient has lived in the United States since she was 10. Recently, Grecia and I met for a meal at Cafe Lalo’s on West 83rd between Amsterdam and Broadway to discuss her landmark achievement and what it means to make art in this political climate. For her, creating a story that featured an Afro-Latinx protagonist, Juana, who is also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was her way of defying Trump’s devastating “zero tolerance” policies and disrupting the deep-seated anti-blackness within the Latinx community. She fought to ensure the illustrations in the book would make black immigrants feel seen while paying homage to her family’s lineage. The book is elegant, bursting with color, and melodic. With it, Grecia takes direct aim at harmful anti-immigrant rhetoric as the ultimate act of resistance.
From the outside you wouldn’t know any different. But while most 30-year-olds would pounce at the chance to brag about their goals, Grecia admits that she can still find it difficult to take in the moment. She’s defied great odds to reach this level in her career, and yet, with the Supreme Court decision over the future of DACA looming, it feels as though it could all just slip through her fingers. “Lalo’s is one of my all-time favorite places here in the Upper West Side,” she told me. She frequented the cafe while attending Lehman College as a Macaulay Honors Fellow. Eventually, we took a stroll around the neighborhood to talk about her childhood, how she nearly quit Lehman, and why she’s always got a plan.
