In Chap­ter 9, titled “Lies,” the author explores the expe­ri­ence of being Lati­no in the Unit­ed States, reveal­ing how nar­ra­tives about Lati­nos often depict them as pow­er­less and sim­plis­tic fig­ures in sto­ries craft­ed by well-mean­ing allies. The chap­ter opens with a cri­tique of a North Amer­i­can activist who shares a one-dimen­sion­al por­tray­al of immi­grants seek­ing refuge, focus­ing on her own actions while neglect­ing the indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ties and sto­ries of the immi­grants. This leads to a broad­er analy­sis of how such rep­re­sen­ta­tions con­tribute to the per­cep­tion of Lati­nos as vic­tims devoid of agency, which affects both media por­tray­als and per­son­al expe­ri­ences.

The author grap­ples with feel­ings of frus­tra­tion and impo­tence as these stereo­types per­sist unchecked, lead­ing to harm­ful soci­etal assump­tions, such as the belief that Lati­nos are some­how “less than” or inher­ent­ly pow­er­less. These nar­ra­tives become tools in polit­i­cal strug­gles, strip­ping immi­grants of their com­plex­i­ties, and pre­sent­ing them as mere sym­bols of suf­fer­ing for the sake of advo­ca­cy. The author cites exam­ples from lit­er­a­ture and media that rein­force these neg­a­tive stereo­types, lament­ing the lack of nuanced rep­re­sen­ta­tion that reflects the true com­plex­i­ty of immi­grant lives.

The text details the absur­di­ty of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries sur­round­ing Lati­no immi­grants, draw­ing par­al­lels to his­tor­i­cal prej­u­dices against var­i­ous groups. The author under­scores the dan­ger­ous con­se­quences of these stereo­types, describ­ing how they strip Lati­no indi­vid­u­als of their human­i­ty and reduce them to mere abstrac­tions in polit­i­cal rhetoric. By focus­ing on the resilience and agency of indi­vid­u­als like Gisel Villagómez—a DACA recip­i­ent with a rich per­son­al history—the author empha­sizes the impor­tance of rec­og­niz­ing the mul­ti­fac­eted real­i­ties of Lati­no lives, rather than sim­pli­fy­ing them into nar­ra­tives of vic­tim­hood.

Fur­ther­more, the chap­ter dis­cuss­es the chal­lenges faced by DACA recip­i­ents and the psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly tax­ing labels imposed by the immi­gra­tion sys­tem, high­light­ing the arbi­trary and often dehu­man­iz­ing expe­ri­ence asso­ci­at­ed with immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. The author calls for a col­lec­tive acknowl­edg­ment of the full range of human expe­ri­ence among Lati­nos, push­ing back against the pre­vail­ing infan­tiliz­ing nar­ra­tives. The final reflec­tions con­nect per­son­al fam­i­ly his­to­ry with a broad­er under­stand­ing of Lati­no iden­ti­ty, illus­trat­ing the ongo­ing strug­gle for rep­re­sen­ta­tion and dig­ni­ty with­in the com­plex­i­ties of Amer­i­can social struc­tures.