Winner, 2016 Distinguished
Contribution to Research Book Award, given by the American
Sociological Association Latino/a Section
The
intimate stories of 147 deportees that exposes the racialized and
gendered dimensions of mass deportations in the U.S.
The
United States currently is deporting more people than ever before: 4
million people have been deported since 1997 –twice as many as all
people deported prior to 1996. There is a disturbing pattern in the
population deported: 97% of deportees are sent to Latin America or
the Caribbean, and 88% are men, many of whom were originally detained
through the U.S. criminal justice system. Weaving together
hard-hitting critique and moving first-person testimonials, Deported
tells the intimate stories of people caught in an immigration law
enforcement dragnet that serves the aims of global capitalism.
Tanya
Golash-Boza uses the stories of 147 of these deportees to explore the
racialized and gendered dimensions of mass deportation in the United
States, showing how this crisis is embedded in economic
restructuring, neoliberal reforms, and the disproportionate
criminalization of black and Latino men. In the United States,
outsourcing creates service sector jobs and more of a need for the
unskilled jobs that attract immigrants looking for new opportunities,
but it also leads to deindustrialization, decline in urban
communities, and, consequently, heavy policing. Many immigrants are
exposed to the same racial profiling and policing as native-born
blacks and Latinos. Unlike the native-born, though, when immigrants
enter the criminal justice system, deportation is often their only
way out. Ultimately, Golash-Boza argues that deportation has become a
state strategy of social control, both in the United States and in
the many countries that receive deportees.