Tracing his story of becoming a US citizen, Jose Orduna s memoir explores the complex issues of immigration and assimilation.
Jose Orduna chronicles the process of becoming a North American citizen in a post-9/11 United States. Intractable realities rooted in the continuity of US imperialism to globalism form the landscape of Orduna s daily experience, where the geopolitical meets the quotidian. In one anecdote, he recalls how the only apartment his parents could rent was one that didn t require signing a lease or running a credit check, where the floors were so crooked he once dropped an orange and watched it roll in six directions before settling in a corner. Orduna describes the absurd feeling of being handed a piece of paper his naturalization certificate that guarantees something he has always known: he has every right to be here. A trenchant exploration of race, class, and identity, "The Weight of Shadows" is a searing meditation on the nature of political, linguistic, and cultural borders, and the meaning of America. "