No where else might you find a page-long rant about SpongeBob and the show's lack of industry awards recognition as an explanation of F-1 student visas than in Felipe Torres Medina's new book.
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Torres Medina moved to the U.S. at 21 years old with a dream of becoming a comedy writer. Now, he is a Peabody and Writers Guild Award-winning, 5-time Emmy nominated writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
His debut book is called America, Let Me In: A Choose Your Immigration Story.
The laugh-out-loud book draws not on the severe, but on the absurd of the U.S. immigration system, using humor to communicate what is a very complex, challenging and expensive system to navigate.
It’s a comedy book, first and foremost. But in some ways, it’s a love letter to his community.
“ I think immigration has become this thing that is just seen as negative,” he said. “ I wanted to talk about this subject in a way that people would actually feel like they wanted to have the conversation.”
Immigrants today account for 14.3% of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center. That’s a record 47.8 million people as of 2023. The book comes out amid a wide-sweeping crackdown on the immigration system from the Trump administration, including the issuing of a series of executive orders that have, among other things, stripped legal protections for certain immigrants in the U.S.
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Medina says his book tells fictional stories that are rooted in real narratives. It's structured like a game, where readers 'choose their own adventure' between varying levels of difficulty in reaching the U.S.
“Writing this book has, if anything, only reaffirmed my faith in the ideals of this country,” he said.
The award-winning writer spoke with WLRN about his new book ahead of an appearance at Books & Books Coral Gables.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
WLRN: The book is full of these lighthearted, comedic moments but it’s also a very candid love letter to the immigrant community. Can you explain why you thought it was important to write this book?
MEDINA: I'm an immigrant, so I felt like I had to tell this story. I just felt like I had it in me, and I'm also a comedian. What I found was that people have a lot of opinions about immigration, but they don't really have a lot of knowledge about the subject. And so I figured, oh, well, I can maybe explain it in a way that isn't just grating or truly depressing as it can often be anything related to immigration. So yeah, that's why I ended up writing this book.
And why the decision to write the book in this way? Balancing heart and empathy with comedy.
I think immigration has become this thing that is just seen as negative. Even if you support immigration, it's one of these things where it's always about struggle and strife, and it is very hard, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to talk about this subject in a way that people would actually feel like they wanted to have the conversation rather than just ‘Oh, here we go, now we've gotta talk about immigration.’ Maybe this is a way to get people to talk about immigration in a way that is fun and not necessarily just draining.
Can you walk us through some of the experiences that led up to this project actually being created and coming to fruition?
I chose to write it in this kind of interactive format where you are the reader and you're going through all these different kinds of journeys to come to the United States, all of them legally.
Partially because I had three different kinds of visas before I finally settled in the United States with my green card. I had a tourist visa, I had a student visa, and then I had what they call an Alien of Extraordinary Ability visa, which in and of itself is already a very funny comedic term, even though it's a very serious term. It's so absurd.
"Writing this book has only reaffirmed my faith in the ideals of this country and that we have to fight for this country to be this great nation that has welcomed people throughout its history because it is what makes America strong."Felipe Torres Medina
So I had those and then I had friends and family who had work visas and other kinds of visas, and I was like, I need to find a way to tell all of these stories because you can't really explain the immigration system without explaining that there's a bajillion kinds of visas, and they all have their own rules and they're all their own specifications, and so you need to be so aware of them when you're applying and it's all this encyclopedic knowledge that people who don't have to go through the system obviously don't have.
So I figured, okay, well I have to tell all these stories.
All of a sudden, this interactive format is kind of a game already. This book is already lighter than anything else written about immigration and anything else that people are going to enjoy about immigration. So I figured ‘Great, this is a great conduit for jokes and humor while still talking about the subject.’
How has writing this book changed your perspective on life in the US as an immigrant?
I think it hasn't that much. I think I really like the United States. That's why I moved here and that's why I think most immigrants move here. I think immigrants are deeply America-pilled, as the youth would say.
We really like America. That's why we come here. We believe in its ideals and that's why we go through so, so, so many very hard things to get here. Some are much harder than others.
I came here in a relatively privileged way and it was still very hard, but there's people who do things much, much more complicated things than I did, and I think that writing this book has, if anything, only reaffirmed my faith in the ideals of this country and that we have to fight for this country to be this great nation that has welcomed people throughout its history because it is what makes America strong. It is what built America. It's our diversity, and our immigrants are the people who made our country.
If you read the book and all of a sudden are interrogating people who say, ‘Oh, it's easy to fix the immigration system,’ then that's the right attitude to have because it's not easy to fix the immigration system. Like most things in America, there are no easy solutions. We just kind of have to talk to our neighbors and get together and maybe then talk to our representatives and government and say, 'You have to fix this, but you have to fix this right.'
IF YOU GO
What: An Evening With Felipe Torres Medina And Carmen Pelaez
When: May 27 at 7 p.m.
Where: Books & Books in Coral Gables, 265 Aragon Ave Coral Gables, FL 33134
