Joshua Davis. (2014). Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Joshua Davis. 2014. Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

Joshua Davis. Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Davis, Joshua
   • bioText: Joshua Davis is the cofounder of Epic Magazine and longtime writer at Wired, where his work was nominated for a National Magazine Award for feature writing. He is the executive producer of the critically acclaimed Apple TV+ series Little America, which tells stories of immigrants across the United States. He is also the author of The Underdog, a memoir about his experiences as an arm wrestler, backward runner, and matador. He lives in San Francisco with his family.
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Spare Parts

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Joshua Davis's Spare Parts—now a major motion picture—is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and the young men who proved they were among the most patriotic and talented Americans in this country—even as the country tried to kick them out.

Four undocumented Mexican American students, two great teachers, one robot-building contest . . .
In 2004, four Latino teenagers arrived at the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were born in Mexico but raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where they attended an underfunded public high school. No one had ever suggested to Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they might amount to much—but two inspiring science teachers had convinced these impoverished, undocumented kids from the desert who had never even seen the ocean that they should try to build an underwater robot.
And build a robot they did. Their robot wasn't pretty, especially compared to those of the competition. They were going up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, including a team from MIT backed by a $10,000 grant from ExxonMobil. The Phoenix teenagers had scraped together less than $1,000 and built their robot out of scavenged parts. This was never a level competition—and yet, against all odds . . . they won!
But this is just the beginning for these four, whose story—which became a key inspiration to the DREAMers movement—will go on to include first-generation college graduations, deportation, bean-picking in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan.
Finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
New York Times Best Seller

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1. • value: Grade 4
2. • value: Grade 5
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reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Noel Sharkey, Nature
   • content:

     "Perhaps the most gripping popular-science book I have read."

2. • premium: False
   • source: Peter Carlson, The Washington Post
   • content: "A great feel-good tale of scrappy underdogs beating long odds. But there's more to the story, and Spare Parts illuminates the human side of two polarizing political issues: immigration and education . . . Spare Parts is a delightful book . . . A great American story."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Héctor Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark
   • content: "Spare Parts is an unforgettable tale of hope and human ingenuity. Against a backdrop of urban desert decay, a faltering school system, and our country's cutthroat immigration policies, Joshua Davis offers a moving testament to how teamwork, perseverance, and a few good teachers can lift up and empower even the humblest among us."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Sonia Nazario, author of Enrique's Journey
   • content: "It's the most American of stories: how determination and ingenuity can bring triumph over long odds. There are too few stories like these written about Latino students. Poignant and beautifully told, Spare Parts makes you feel their frustration at the obstacles and indignities faced by Cristian, Lorenzo, Luis, and Oscar--and to cheer as they rise to overcome each one of them. "
5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 6, 2014
     Davis (Entrenched) offers a forceful portrait of four Mexican American teens from an impoverished neighborhood in Phoenix who became engineers and won first place in a national NASA-sponsored robotics competition. Despite their meager funds and lack of experience, these high school students, with the support of two teachers, succeed beyond all expectations, defeating well-funded teams like the one from MIT. Throughout the book, Davis gives almost equal time to the rising tide of anti-immigrant feeling in Arizona and around the nation. These young men, all but one of who are undocumented, are painfully aware that their place in the spotlight may garner unwanted scrutiny by immigration officials. Despite their amazing win, their options continue to be severely constrained. The final chapters, which document what happened after the accolades and fanfare faded, really capture the character of these young men. Davis takes what could have been another feel-good story of triumphant underdogs and raises the stakes by examining the difficulties of these young immigrants in the context of the societal systems that they briefly and temporarily overcame. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary Agency.

6. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 15, 2014
     The story of four high schoolers from the wrong side of Phoenix who built a robot, entered it in a national competition that included such prestigious schools as MIT, and won.Wired contributing editor and Epic magazine co-founder Davis explores the lives of four teenagers who could have easily fallen through the cracks but instead managed to channel their creative energy into a preposterous victory in a much-regarded robotic competition. The author lets the narrative grow organically: Nothing came easily; brainstorms didn't save the day, but ingenuity did; there was anger, poverty and neglect, as well as the quandary of U.S. immigration policy, which, when this drama was taking place, 2004, was actively spawning xenophobic vigilante groups. "[S]tudents who were living in the country illegally could be sought out and detained...Even a seemingly harmless summer science competition bore life-altering risks," writes Davis. There were also intergroup struggles that had to be overcome, as the author rightly points out that since these boys didn't have deep pockets, they had to fall back on cooperation and ingenuity and the help, guidance and advice of two mentors. There were also a few angels in the picture, scientists who lent their valuable equipment and wisdom to the project; they didn't give the boys the answers, but they helped point them in the right direction. Always hovering in the background of the story, and often intruding to the front of the action, is the Border Patrol, as well as "the tractor-beam pull of poverty and low expectations." This is the everyday life of the illegal immigrant, but these immigrants are trying to win the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition. What motivated those involved and what impressed the judges was "that there was no reason to come up with a complex solution when an elementary one would suffice." Well-handled by Davis: both heart gladdening and a challenge to start making sense of national immigration policy.

     COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

7. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     November 1, 2014
     

     Wired editor Davis narrates the stories of four undocumented Latino high school students who beat MIT to win a prestigious national robotics competition. These teenagers glued together an underwater robot out of scavenged parts and PVC pipes, using tampons to absorb leaks. Their triumph against the odds unfolds against a troubled backdrop of poverty, faltering schools, border patrol checkpoints, and the omnipresent risk of deportation. Brought into Arizona by Mexican parents seeking a better future, Oscar, Cristian, Lorenzo, and Luis owed their achievement to creative problem solving, dedication, and inspiring teachers, including an Iranian immigrant named Fredi Lajvardi. The boys' story partakes of the cliched but characteristically American underdog genre, but the author is quick to point out that brains and hard work can achieve an uncertain future at best for these undocumented minors and 1.4 million others like them. Lacking visas, even the best and brightest must fear deportation and struggle to find employment or attend college. Placed in context, the teenagers' achievement in robotics reflects the aspirations of generations of "DREAMers," individuals who meet the general requirements of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. VERDICT A gratifying human interest story that calls attention to the plight and promise of America's undocumented youth.--Michael Rodriguez, Hodges Univ. Lib., Naples, FL

     Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

8. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from November 15, 2014
     Reality is complicated, notes Wired magazine contributing editor Davis in this powerful chronicle of four West Phoenix teenagers who proved they knew more about what to do with spare parts than the leaders of the country they called home. In 2003, Lorenzo Santilian, Oscar Vaquez, Christian Arcega, and Luis Arranda had been all but written off by Arizona's educational and political systems. Children of Mexican immigrants who had been brought into the U.S. illegally, they found themselves attending a severely underfunded barrio school. Yet in 2004 they scraped together used-car parts and created a funny-looking but impressively functional underwater robot that won first placeand national recognitionin the prestigious, NASA-sponsored Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition, overcoming competition that included MIT engineering students. All things being equal, these four engineering geniuses should have been able to write their own tickets to the best universities in the country. But all things are not equal. Far from it. Davis pulls no punches as he describes the grim sociopolitical atmosphere that allows the oppression of talented people for no morally acceptable reason. The four young inventors and their struggles helped spur the DREAMers movement, and their story will also be told in a forthcoming Hollywood movie. This is important reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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Joshua Davis's Spare Parts—now a major motion picture—is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and the young men who proved they were among the most patriotic and talented Americans in this country—even as the country tried to kick them out.

Four undocumented Mexican American students, two great teachers, one robot-building contest . . .
In 2004, four Latino teenagers arrived at the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were born in Mexico but raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where they attended an underfunded public high school. No one had ever suggested to Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they might amount to much—but two inspiring science teachers had convinced these impoverished, undocumented kids from the desert who had never even seen the ocean that they should try to build an underwater robot.
And build a robot they did. Their...

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