Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America

Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, written by Helen Thorpe, is detailed account of the lives of four Mexico-born girls as they come of age in Denver, Colorado. Thorpe, an Irish-American journalist, published the nonfiction novel in 2009. Two of the girls, Clara and Elissa, are here legally, while the other two, Marisela and Yadira, are without documents. While the girls are similar in birth and in their backgrounds, their legal status comes to define their futures.

The book opens as the girls are about to graduate from a public high school in Denver that is largely Latino. The girls deal with everyday teenage issues such as how to wear their hair, but they also contend with much more serious issues, such as how to deal with their traditional parents, how to handle constant relocations because of poverty, and how to pay for college. Beating the odds in which many students drop out of high school, the girls not only manage to graduate but have also done very well. Through scholarships and private donations of concerned individuals who support the education of illegal immigrants, all of the girls wind up going to college.