Each Tiny Spark

Through the tourism guide project, Emilia learns about the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Don Carlos was one of the immigrants who helped build the stadium. In the library, Emilia learns, “[I]mmigration enforcement was suspended during this time to encourage workers to come to Georgia” (140). Thus, Emilia connects the Olympics to immigration laws. She then ties immigration laws to restrictive voting legislation. Emilia says, “Mom says we have to vote to change laws we don’t like. But what if laws make it hard to vote” (202).

The 1996 Olympics symbolize the mistreatment of immigrants in the US: The country will use them for labor and then try to expel them when they are no longer needed. Further, the targeting of immigrants is a long-standing political-campaigning strategy, thus highlighting a willingness to use immigrants as pawns for labor or politics. Gus’s grandparents “worked in the chicken plants” (109), and it can be argued that the meat industry has a cruel dynamic that mirrors the 1996 Olympics with regard to immigrant labor. In “Why It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat“ (The Atlantic, 16 Aug. 2019), journalist Eric Schlosser explains how the meat industry lets immigrants carry out the “unusually dangerous and unpleasant occupation” but doesn’t protect them from persecution. In both examples, immigrants perform undesirable jobs at low costs but are not valued as being an essential part of the US economy.

In Each Tiny Spark, Emilia and Gus show that immigrants are not disposable. Further, Emilia realizes that lawmakers can make it hard to vote for change. Cartaya published his book in 2019, and in 2021, Georgia passed Senate Bill 202, limiting voting access and making it a crime to give water and food to voters waiting in long lines. In “Rewriting the Rules: These States Have Passed New Voting Laws This Year. Here’s How They Could Affect 2024“ (USA Today, 16 Nov. 2023), Rachel Looker writes that, in 2023, “at least 14 states enacted laws that will make it harder to vote.” Emilia embodies activism and a desire to embrace change to better one’s community.