(Hardcover, 2014) (Paperback, 2018)
Joshua Davis
Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Hardcover 2014, Paperback 2018)
A New York Times Best Seller
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 place—and national recognition—in 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.
Praise for Spare Parts
“A gratifying human interest story that calls attention to the plight and promise of America’s undocumented youth.”
–Library Journal
“A feel-good tale of scrappy underdogs beating long odds… A great American story.”
–Peter Carlson, The Washington Post
“A triumphant read.”
–The Toronto Star
Read the Publishers Weekly review of SPARE PARTS
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Read The Washington Post review of SPARE PARTS
Read the Booklist review of SPARE PARTS
Listen to Joshua Davis and three of the people featured in his book on The Diane Rehm Show
Read The Toronto Star review of SPARE PARTS
Joshua Davis is a contributing editor at Wired, cofounder of Epic magazine, and the author of The Underdog, a memoir about his experiences as an arm wrestler, backward runner, and matador. In 2014, he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for feature writing. He has also written for The New Yorker and other periodicals, and his writing is anthologized in the 2012 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing as well as in the 2006, 2007, and 2009 editions of Best Technology Writing. The movie Spare Parts is based on his reporting. He lives in San Francisco, California.