David Beats Goliath
The controlling irony of the book is that an underfunded robotics team comprised of poor immigrant students beat a mighty team from MIT in a prestigious competition. The team from MIT was mostly white, enjoyed a $10,000 grant from Exxon/Mobile was not just four times larger, but composed of actual engineering students.
Maricopa County’s Most Wanted
The immigrant aspect of the story is further explored through the anti-immigrant policies of persecuting otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants by Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Sheriff diverted attention, money, time and resources away from investigating actual crimes to conduct an obsessive crackdown on Mexican and others from below the border who were living in his jurisdiction illegally, even if committing no other crimes. Ironically, it would be Arpaio himself who would go on to become Maricopa County’s most famous convicted felon. That conviction still stands despite receiving a controversial pardon from Donald Trump and thus Arpaio remains exactly what many of those immigrants he persecuted never were: a criminal.
Oscar Vasquez
Oscar Vasquez is one of the immigrant students. Born in Mexico, his parents snuck him across the border with them when he was just twelves. As a result of this status, he is ineligible to pursue his one dream: enlisting in the United States military. The irony here should need no explaining although and, doubtlessly, any explanation would fall on deaf ears among those most fervently convinced the only good immigrant is a white European immigrant.
East Side Story
The city of Phoenix is described as essentially being split into two very distinct halves. To the East is the more economically diverse, but predominantly white members of the population. West Phoenix is almost entirely drained of all but the poorest white residents, dominated by its Hispanic demographics. Those living in the East have many pat answers and reasons for why they rarely venture into West Phoenix, but everybody knows the truth: they do not want to associate with the Hispanics majority there for whatever reason. And yet, ironically, an inordinate number of those Hispanics commute from West Phoenix to East Phoenix to do their jobs working for white East Phoenix employers.
The Welder
Juan Arcega is the father of Cristian, one of the students on the winning robotics team. His employment story is even more ironic than most of his fellow West Phoenix residents. The company he works for as a welder landed a contract with a big time client requiring Juan’s services to install fabricated metal ramps for disabled access. And so Juan—patriarch of an entirely family who had illegally entered and remained living in the United States—would find himself wielding welding equipment as he went quietly about the business of adding access ramps to facilities in the service of the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency.
