A Genre for Justice: Life Writing and Undocumented Migration in Rosalina Rosay’s Journey of Hope

Abstract

Rosalina Rosay’s Journey of Hope (2007) to date constitutes one of only two published memoirs by a woman who entered the United States as an undocumented migrant from Mexico; it is the only one which acknowledges this status openly. This article suggests that Rosay manipulates the life writing genre in order to inform her white American audience about undocumented migrants’ humanity and to call them to social and political action. Rosay writes in the form of the testimonio—traditionally connected with collective activism—but markets her book as a memoir appealing to American individualism. As a trickster text—a narrative that plays with genre boundaries to humanise undocumented migrants—Journey of Hope pushes readers to see undocumented immigrants as economic refugees who should not be excluded based on stereotypes but granted basic human rights. I explore specifically the rhetorical tools Rosay employs to speak to her privileged readers’ values and to alleviate their concerns about undocumented migrants as a social and cultural threat. In reviving the testimonio as a trickster text with new purpose for Latina immigrant writers, Rosay’s work shows how migration patterns are gendered and underscores immigrant women’s fight against oppression.