When Cristela Alonzo and her family lived as squatters in an abandoned diner, they only had two luxuries: a television and a radio, which became her pop cultural touchstone and a guiding light. Cristela shares her experiences and struggles of being a first-generation American, her dreams of becoming a comedian, and how it feels to be a creator in a world that often minimizes people of color and women. Her stories range from the ridiculous-like the...

A volume of prose poems and formal verses includes pieces on breakfasting late-shift Detroit auto workers, a woman who sings with the Spanish dawn, and an Andorran communist black-market supplier.