Each Tiny Spark

Through the tourism guide project, Emilia learns about the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Don Carlos was one of the immigrants who helped build the stadium. In the library, Emilia learns, “[I]mmigration enforcement was suspended during this time to encourage workers to come to Georgia” (140). Thus, Emilia connects the Olympics to immigration laws. She then ties immigration laws to restrictive voting legislation. Emilia says, “Mom says we have to vote to change laws we don’t like. But what if laws make it hard to vote” (202).

The 1996 Olympics symbolize the mistreatment of immigrants in the US: The country will use them for labor and then try to expel them when they are no longer needed. Further, the targeting of immigrants is a long-standing political-campaigning strategy, thus highlighting a willingness to use immigrants as pawns for labor or politics. Gus’s grandparents “worked in the chicken plants” (109), and it can be argued that the meat industry has a cruel dynamic that mirrors the 1996 Olympics with regard to immigrant labor. In “Why It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat“ (The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2019), journalist Eric Schlosser explains how the meat industry lets immigrants carry out the “unusually dangerous and unpleasant occupation” but doesn’t protect them from persecution.