An Interview with John Washington

Arnovis, the immigrant at the heart of John Washington’s new non-fiction book, The Dispossessed, stumbles into his own need for flight. At a soccer game, he accidentally clips another man in the jaw with his elbow. The man’s brother is in the local gang, and Arnovis tries three times to flee El Salvador after its members threaten him. The last time, he brings his 6-year-old daughter, Meybelín, who is detained with him near the U.S-Mexico border. But Border Patrol agents take her away. When Arnovis asks for her days later, a guard in his detention center says, “I didn’t know you had a daughter.” They tell him that they have no record of her.