The Diary of Rosa Martinez

A Hidden Life in Occupied America

By: W.G. Davis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

If you read only one book about the American immigration crisis, let it be this one. But be warned: you will never look at a red hat the same way again.
The most unforgettable memoir you will read this year. It's worse. It's happening right now.
This is a voice for our time: Rosa Martinez, a twelve-year-old girl whose family fled the murderous gangs of El Salvador, walked the migrant trail through Mexico, and legally presented themselves at an American port of entry seeking asylum. They were believed. They were paroled. They were given court dates and tracking apps and told to wait their turn.
Then the 2024 election happened.
From the author:
The Diary of Rosa Martinez is not a work of political fiction. It is a tapestry woven from hundreds of true stories—real children, real mothers, real deportations, real unmarked graves. Rosa is real, María is real. The park is real. The plane is real. The executive order that deleted her court date was real. The men on the island? You know they're real.
Rosa's voice came to me from a stack of asylum applications, from the testimony of separated children, from the diaries of actual twelve-year-olds living in hiding right now, in this America, in this decade. She demanded to be heard.
The Diary of Rosa Martinez. She was here. She mattered. She wrote it all down.