As an undocumented immigrant in search of love, I was forced to lie to nearly every man I dated.

After I wrote a piece criticizing American Dirt, Oprah invited me to appear on Oprah's Book Club for a candid conversation with her and author Jeanine Cummins.

As a formerly undocumented Mexican immigrant, I’ve longed for more books telling our stories to be published and celebrated. Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt is not what I was hoping for.

I was sick of immigration dictating how I moved through life—the border had kept me from my family for many years, and been the source of so much pain. Now it was putting a stain on our love.

The ACLU has sued on Mr. Torres’s behalf so that the courts might recognize these types of actions as racial profiling, which is already illegal and unconstitutional. But Torres’s terrible saga demands us to examine what happens to undocumented people when they are detained by local authorities. Had Mr. Torres been in the country illegally, the Ascension Sheriff’s Office would have turned him over to ICE and he’d likely be sitting in a crowded detention camp right now, if he were not already deported.

We are in the midst of what is undeniably a humanitarian crisis. ICE is holding a record 50,000 migrants in detention facilities across America, the agency reported in May, and while McAleenan has denied that children were held in unhygienic conditions, he has admitted that this is an “extraordinarily challenging situation.” The Antideficiency Act allows federal agencies to accept voluntary services “in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.” The safety of human life is exactly what is at stake here: At least seven children have died while in U.S. custody since last year.

The Latinx community cannot wait to be seen, and America can no longer deny us the opportunity to tell our story. I cannot think of a more critical time for a museum on the National Mall to celebrate our history and contributions and to help erase the divide between Latino and American. Our time is now.