Day Communications, Inc
April 3, 2025
NEW TITLE JUST LAUNCHED
A Novella
The United States for immigrants has become a dystopian nightmare of arrests, detention camps and deportations. Anna Fernandez and her family, legal immigrants, try to save themselves from unlawful deportation but are swept up in the mass anti-immigrant nightmare. Her diary tells their sad story.
Critics have said: “Gripping, timely, disturbing, a must read.”
And, “Anna’s story evokes the other Ann’s Diary from another dystopian time.”
And, “Anna’s tale of despair and triumph is a saga for our times.”
You can link to the novella in Kindle format on Amazon Prime HERE.
The Diary of Anna Fernandez
Chapter One: The Reckoning
I am writing this for you because there is something I experienced that begs to be shared, something that has shaken my faith, something that has made me question pretty much everything.
My name is Ward Beecher. I am 67 years old, and my family has been running cattle on this property in Maverick Country, Texas for 117 years. Six generations.
My three sons and their families run the Maverick River Bend Ranch and their sons and daughters will do so after them. We own the place and have no debt. We have 12,800 acres next to the Rio Grande north of Eagle Pass, land Amos Beecher acquired in a land deal with the railroad company and the federal government in the big railroad expansion after the civil war. He was a Scottish immigrant, a land surveyor and land speculator. You get it. I’m not sure he paid a nickel for it. There was a lot of that going on then, I’ve heard. He was no rancher, but he was Scots, smart, cheap and he learned.
(Skipping to Chapter Two: The Diary)
Day 0ne
My name is Anna Maria Mejia Fernandez. I am 15. Call me Anna.
I am starting this diary in the back seat of my parents’ truck. It is late and we have been driving since noon. We are parked behind an office building next to some panel trucks where they can’t see us from the road. There is a dumpster. A security light gives me light. We have turned off and taken the batteries out of our phones. Tomorrow we will go to my aunt at the farm where she works with her husband Manuel. They will help us.
I will write this in the plain English I have mastered. I am an American. Not kid talk. Not code. Not cool. Not emojis. For the first time in my life since coming to America, I have to keep an accurate record. My favorite teacher, Mr. Miller, in ninth grade English, always said, look with clear eyes, write the facts and keep it simple. He promoted me for a position on the school newspaper and blog. I got it. I am a sophomore, and I am managing editor. So, that’s what I will try to do. Our life has been turned upside down. This will be our story.