In the BOOK OF WANDERERS, a short story collection by Reyes Ramirez, humanity is haunted by the past, present, and future. 

These stories, offering elaborate titles and dawning unique character names, cry out to be seen. 

“A body merely delivers the soul.” (Pg. 1)

I wonder, even, if Ramirez is riffing on the idea of a gospel in the title The Book of Wanderers. The allegories, and Ramirez’s stories of immigrants and their experiences in America ache with repressed pain, grief, and subjugation of biblical proportions for an American immigrant. 

An undocumented immigrant who worked in the World Trade Center dies in the tragic events of 9/11, but the American government cannot acknowledge her death, because they never acknowledged her life. A man working in construction, sweat and hard work driving his day, is shortchanged by the promises of his white boss at the end of every day. Even in an imagined future where white folks are still clinging to superiority, a brown child is denied an education on Mars.

“How can you fight the largest entity in the history of the humankind, especially if it didn’t consider you a person at any point?” (Pg. 50)

Ramirez imagines ten fully unique and vibrant worlds and fills them with Raymond Carver type of slice of life stories as they apply to the immigrant experience.

All of his characters resiliently stay the course of looking for hope and wholeness. They find solace in small moments. They ultimately have one thing in common—exhaustion. The burden of being misunderstood and unknown to an entity like The United States of America is a weight that shows no signs of lifting any time soon. 

If only we could collectively see what makes us the same instead of what separates us, maybe we could have the optimism of post-apocalyptic Xuxa. As she approaches a community and decides if she wants to warn them or not of the coming dangers of a Zombie army not far behind her she thinks:

“Why are they so welcoming? Perhaps they are Naïve. Perhaps they’ve been wanderers, too. Whatever the reason, Xuxa, La Última, has hope.” (Pg. 176)

Hope is the magic that keeps humanity ticking. Ramirez displays this truth with stunning sincerity.