LibGuides: #familiesbelongtogether Reading List: Books

The Crossing or El Otro Lado or Coming to America

The World in Half by Cristina Henríquez
ISBN: 159448855X
Publication Date: 2009-04-02
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
ISBN: 0385350848
Publication Date: 2014-06-03
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
ISBN: 0316010804
Publication Date: 2005-09-19
The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande
ISBN: 1451661770
Publication Date: 2012-08-28
Reyna Grande is the author of two novels, Across a Hundred Mountains and Dancing with Butterflies. In her memoir, The Distance Between Us (Atria, 2012) Reyna recounts her experiences as a child left behind in Mexico when her parents emigrated to the U.S. in search of work, and her own journey to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant at the age of nine.
Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
ISBN: 0812971787
Publication Date: 2007-01-02
A true story from award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounting the odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.
The Beast by Óscar Martínez; Francisco Goldman (Introduction by); Daniela Maria Ugaz (Translator); John Washington (Translator)
ISBN: 1781681325
Publication Date: 2013-10-08
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Immigration History & Policy

A Nation by Design by Aristide R. Zolberg
ISBN: 0674022181
Publication Date: 2006-04-30
According to the national mythology, the United States has long opened its doors to people from across the globe, providing a port in a storm and opportunity for any who seek it. Yet the history of immigration to the United States is far different.
American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century by Gary Gerstle
ISBN: 0691102775
Publication Date: 2002-08-25
This sweeping history of twentieth-century America follows the changing and often conflicting ideas about the fundamental nature of American society: Is the United States a social melting pot, as our civic creed warrants, or is full citizenship somehow reserved for those who are white and of the "right" ancestry? Gary Gerstle traces the forces of civic and racial nationalism, arguing that both profoundly shaped our society.
Impossible Subjects - Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America by Mae M. Ngai
ISBN: 0691124299
Publication Date: 2005-08-28
This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy--a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.
When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
ISBN: 0374298785
Publication Date: 2012-03-13
How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts by Natalia Molina
ISBN: 0520957199
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Molina demonstrates that despite the multiplicity of influences that help shape our concept of race, common themes prevail. Examining legal, political, social, and cultural sources related to immigration, she advances the theory that our understanding of race is socially constructed in relational ways--that is, in correspondence to other groups.
Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
ISBN: 1566894956
Publication Date: 2017-04-04
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear both here and back home.
Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity by Paul Spickard
ISBN: 0415935938
Publication Date: 2007-06-21

Why I Left my Home

Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America by Thomas Bruneau; Lucía Dammert; Elizabeth Skinner
ISBN: 0292729286
Publication Date: 2011-12-01
The first book to look specifically at the Central American gang problem by drawing on the perspectives of researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America provides much-needed insight.
A History of Violence: Living and Dying in Central America by Óscar Martínez; Daniela Maria Ugaz (Translator); John Washington (Translator); John Lee Anderson (Introduction by)
ISBN: 1784781681
Publication Date: 2016-03-08
The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life by Lauren Markham
ISBN: 1101906189
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the seventeen-year-old Flores twins as they make their harrowing journey across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother's custody in Oakland, CA.
Drug War Capitalism by Dawn Marie Paley
ISBN: 1849351937
Publication Date: 2014-12-09
Combining on-the-ground reporting with extensive research, Dawn Paley moves beyond the usual horror stories, beyond journalistic rubbernecking and hand-wringing, to follow the thread of the Drug War story throughout the entire region of Latin America and all the way back to US boardrooms and political offices.

This is America

Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s by Francisco E. Balderrama; Raymond Rodriguez; Raymond Rodríguez
ISBN: 0826339735
Publication Date: 2006-05-31
During the Great Depression, a sense of total despair plagued the United States. Americans sought a convenient scapegoat and found it in the Mexican community. Laws forbidding employment of Mexicans were accompanied by the hue and cry to -get rid of the Mexicans!- The hysteria led pandemic repatriation drives and one million Mexicans and their children were illegally shipped to Mexico.
Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town by Mirta Ojito
ISBN: 0807001813
Publication Date: 2013-10-15
The true story of an immigrant's murder that turned a quaint village on the Long Island shore into ground zero in the war on immigration.
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
ISBN: 1101982241
Publication Date: 2017-01-10
A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.
Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (Voice of Witness) by Peter Orner (Editor); Luis Alberto (Foreword by); Annie Holmes (Editor); Jaykumar Menon (Editor); Tom Andes (Editor); Polly Bresnik (Editor); Corinne Goria (Editor); Luis Alberto Urrea (Foreword by); Stephen Orner (Editor)
ISBN: 1934781150
Publication Date: 2008-06-28
Underground America tells the stories of men and women who have come to the United States seeking a better life for their families, only to be subjected to dehumanizing working conditions. Supporting myriad industries, these workers form an essential part of our economy — often by working the least desirable jobs without the most basic legal protections. Underground America allows this largely ignored part of our country to finally share its experiences.

Film

The Deportation of Innocence - Children of Deported Parents
What happens to children when their parents are deported to Mexico?

The Deportation of Innocence takes us on a journey into the experiences of U.S.-born children and their immigrant families as they come to terms with deportation and the long-lasting effects this has had on their lives. For the children, this can mean growing up with an absentee parent, being placed in foster care and in the most dire cases, being put up for adoption. This film takes us deep into the struggle of these American children as they are caught in the political crossfire between two nations.

#familiesbelongtogether Reading List: Books

Introduction

The Crossing or El Otro Lado or Coming to America

Immigration History & Policy

Why I Left my Home

This is America

Film