Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
By: Joshua Davis / Narrated By: Will Damron
Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
And the battle goes on and on. And on… So very WOW-ish!
What a great audiobook! What an astounding story!
What a deplorable movie!
If you’ve seen the movie, please do NOT think you know the story: As the book here says, the movie ended at the “high” point, with a bit of gratuitous sentimentality thrown in, and seriously, that’s oh so not the whole story.
This starts as the story of five boys at Carl Hayden High School in Arizona. All are undocumented with only one having an official green card. Each boy was brought to the US by parents fleeing poverty or, in Lorenzo’s case, to find better medical help than local help could provide. One of the boys, Oscar (Brought in at the age of 12), is disciplined, filled with positivity, and joins the ROTC program where he immediately becomes a standout. He is devoted to the principles America stands for, earns the admiration of others and, when the 9/11 attacks occur, he’s driven to see about doing what he can through the military. That’s when he’s told, with regrets, that as honorable a young man as he is, as dedicated, as driven, as patriotic as he is: He will never be anything but an Illegal, not eligible to serve in the US Armed Forces in any capacity.
Dreams upended, Oscar seeks purpose and his active mind needs focus. That’s when he stumbles upon teachers Fredi and Allan. They teach science and encourage robotics and instantly Oscar is smitten. When an underwater robotics competition is announced, Fredi and Allan encourage the boys to give it a try; but knowing the boys will be at SUCH a disadvantage without the high-caliber education other schools have, the two teachers put forth the idea of competing against universities rather than other high schools. If… WHEN… they lose, it’ll be to the Ivy League and other top-notch universities; they’ll go up against the very best the country has to offer.
And so begins the development of Stinky, their underwater robot; and so begins the absolute wonder of the book. These young men (And it’s winnowed down to four: Oscar, Lorenzo, Luis, and Christian. Hank had to be dropped for not raising his grades) go through two steps forward, one step back, time and time again. Not only in their development of Stinky, but in their lives as well. Lorenzo is constantly taunted and tormented by peers, and he usually winds up using his fists when he can’t take another word. Plus, he’s never felt comfortable at school, doesn’t study, but suddenly belonging to this wonderful group? He starts sitting up front in class, asking questions, doing whatever he can to get his grades up so that he might compete. All this while dealing with an abusive and alcoholic father; all while dealing with the possibility of eviction from the family’s roach-infested home.
All the boys struggle, and all the boys carry on, spurred on by the enthusiasm and guidance of Fredi and Allan, and getting up again after failures because Oscar has a way of putting a positive spin on even the most potentially disheartening setbacks. And since they don’t have the financial resources the universities’ teams have, each of them has to think waaaaay outside the box for what items to use, how to use them. When other teams are using specialized bladders, Lorenzo comes up with: A balloon.
Their enthusiasm and hard-probing, truly thoughtful questions earn them the respect and goodwill of people also. I kept getting spine tingles as experts listened to them, were impressed by them, and turned that respect into assistance. These people in the know never asked if they were documented/undocumented; they simply saw young men asking the right questions, young men who were fiercely determined and who had good minds, inquisitiveness and an unbridled excitement.
So Stinky is finally ready, they go to the competition, and if you don’t cry by aaaaaall that happens there, your heart MUST be made from stone because author Joshua Davis can write true excitement buildup, can write true from-the-heart emotion. So huzzah to him for taking us there.
But then Davis goes on where the movie stops to tell us of the Happily Ever Afters. And in Arizona, in the US, there are none. Laws taking away education from undocumented individuals go into place, so what happens to those beautiful minds? George W. Bush didn’t care; Obama didn’t care (At least not until the documentary “Underwater Dreams” came out—which, by the way, my sister says is really really good). The people of Arizona and the greater United States gave it all brief interest when there was news coverage.
Then they stopped caring too.
Will Damron delivers this all in well-modulated tones, whether he’s talking about the harshness of the boys’ lives, or their creativity and inventiveness, or Fredi and Allan’s fears that are turned upside down and reframed into actionable steps of courage. And when he comes to the end of the audiobook, we feel the incredible fatigue, the horrible heartache. We feel the despair. Sooo… Bravo, Mr. Damron? Cuz you broke my heart?
If you’re looking for a book with a heavy dose of Reality thrown in, oh dooooo give this, my sister’s pick for our audiobook club, a try. And if you’re feeling, all shut up and sedentary in these Shelter in Place times, like you’ve reeeeeeally got a hankering to jump outta your seat, to stand up and cheer?
Do give Spare Parts a Listen! It had me believing in young people again.
I just wish we had the humanity in place to back up all that hope and belief for those kids. They truly deserve it, and lacking that humanity, lacking that spirit? Well, we’re just a much poorer country for it.
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