Mike J. Quinn

I have lived in California most of my life. I have two adult sons, and my wife has three beautiful children. Some of my family were born here in the United States, and some were born in Mexico. Collectively we are a modern-day Brady Bunch, and we call ourselves "the Mexiquinns."

I have been working on uniting my family under US citizenship ever since our marriage over ten years ago. Our immigration laws do not make this easy.

In November of 2010, I began writing a book during NaNoWriMo with a working title of "South of the Border."

"The Dishwasher's Son," is the final title and will be available June 1, 2019. It's the story of an American teenager, Minuteman volunteer and ardent anti-immigrant who gets picked up with some of his co-workers when the restaurant he works in gets raided by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (ICE) Having only a student body card, which is not a valid ID according to ICE, he is photographed, fingerprinted and deported to Mexico.

While in Mexico he runs into an uncle, and together they learn the truth about his father's disappearance. Soon he is introduced to the family he has denied his whole life. When he finally gets back to the border, he is refused re-entry into the US because he now has the identity of a recently deported Mexican national.

Desperate to get back home, he meets a local Mexican businessman who tries to help him by introducing him to various people who use many different methods of getting people and "products" into the United States. Being an American, and having limited knowledge of the skills needed to cross the border successfully, he is caught, often, and the penalties against him get compounded each time. Finally, he must decide whether he will cross the deadly Arizona desert or stay and live a life as an illegal American in Mexico.

Along the way, he must learn to deal with the new information about his father, and the heritage he has denied his whole life.