Summary

In the first short story of Daniel Alarcón's collection -- a story whose length is only three pages -- a group of unnamed migrants have arrived to a new piece of land and decided to build a settlement of homes there. The migrants know that building on the land without the government's authorization is "not technically legal" (1), but they also know that the government cannot legally destroy the homes they build.

The group built the settlement out of found materials in one night. The next morning, officials from the government arrived with bulldozers. The migrants linked arms and encircled their settlement to protect it from destruction, and the government backed off, ceding the land.

Local media organizations interview the migrants about their settlement, which eventually comes to be locally known as "The Thousands," indicating the number of residents who live there --...