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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. A person with what job meets Luiselli and her niece downstairs on Luiselli's first day of work at the New York immigration court?

2. According to Luiselli, what is most often the answer given when child refugees are asked their reason for coming to the United States?

3. Where does Manu keep the police report that he shows to Luiselli on her first day conducting interviews?

4. Luiselli states that for her family's first three years living in the United States, they had been termed as what by immigration law?

5. What is La Bestia?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what location did the gangs MS-13 and the Barrio 18 originate?

2. What is Luiselli's purpose for comparing and contrasting the green card application with the intake questionnaire given to unaccompanied minors?

3. Which three states are the states with "the highest number of children released to sponsors" (49) since the declaration of the refugee crisis?

4. For what reason are child refugees often untruthful or evasive in their answers to the intake questionnaire?

5. With what question does Part I: Border begin and why?

6. What irony does Luiselli point out within the questions asking a child refugee, "Are you happy here?" and "Do you feel safe"? (44)

7. How does Luiselli create a contrast in Part II: Court between two types of emergencies related to the refugee crisis?

8. For what reason do child refugees attempt to be "formally detained by Border Patrol officers" (18) once they reach the border between the United States and Mexico?

9. For what reason do many family members of child refugees refrain from presenting themselves in court in order to support the child's plea for immigration relief?

10. What does Luiselli mean when she states that Manu's police report acted as "a road map of a migration"? (43)

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Valeria Luiselli go about breaking the text into parts and how do these structural elements help to advance her arguments?

Essay Topic 2

Examine Valeria Luiselli’s use of characterization methods to portray her own family members. What effect do these characterization methods have on the essay's inherent themes and messages?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the significance of three of the text's main symbols. How do these symbols connect to the overall themes within the essay?

(see the answer keys)

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