Karla Cornejo Villavicencio on “Catalina,” the Tale of an Undocumented Student at Harvard
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Catalina Ituralde is the protagonist of the novel that bears her name, “Catalina).” In the summer before her senior year of college, she’s working as an intern at a prestigious literary magazine, and come fall she’ll be back at Harvard to plot her future. But, contrary to a life of comfort that this scenario suggests, Catalina’s situation is complicated and uncertain: she’s an undocumented immigrant, raised in Queens by her grandparents, and after graduation she might not have the privilege of choosing what job she takes. “Catalina”* *is the second book by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, who first gained attention with the essay) “I’m an Illegal Immigrant at Harvard,” published anonymously in the Daily Beast; her first book, “The Undocumented Americans),” was a finalist for the National Book Award. Though Villavicencio has since become an American citizen, “There’s this Latin American paranoia that comes from my parents, [who] grew up under a dictatorship,” she tells David Remnick. “I’ve heard all of these stories . . . and then there’s also being undocumented here, where the idea that I could disappear at any time, my parents could disappear at any time – I don’t think that I’m necessarily capable of feeling that kind of permanence.”