Books about Immigration & Borders
Why do people come here from all over the world?
by Bob Avakian
A sharp contrast and rebuke to fascists like Donald Trump who demonize our immigrant brothers and sisters and who praise the vicious system of imperialism.
Illegal People:
How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants
by David Bacon, $18.00
In Illegal People Bacon explores the human side of globalization, exposing the many ways it uproots people in Latin America and Asia, driving them to migrate. At the same time, U.S. immigration policy makes the labor of those displaced people a crime in the United States. Illegal People explains why U.S. national policy produces even more displacement, more migration, more immigration raids, and a more divided, polarized society.
Paperback, 272 pp.
Dying to Live:
A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid
by Joseph Nevins, $23.95
A compelling account of US immigration/border enforcement and the rapidly growing death toll among migrants. Stunning photos by Mizue Aizeki complement the text.
Paperback, 225 pp.
Expulsions:
Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy
by Saskia Sassen, $29.95
Expulsions exposes the fundamental forces at play in current forms of economic, political, and social structures. She correctly contrasts the world as most people understand it with the world as it is actually evolving, towards an extreme form of capitalism with activities that occur across international borders―to devastating effects.
Hardbound, 304 pp.
Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario, $16.00
Enrique's Journey recounts the unforgettable quest of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her starving family to find work in the United States. Braving unimaginable peril, often clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains, Enrique travels through hostile worlds full of thugs, bandits, and corrupt cops. Paperback, 299 pp.
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, $16.00
Ifemelu seems to have everything a Nigerian immigrant in America could desire, but the culture shock, hardships, and racism she's endured have left her feeling like she has "cement in her soul." Astonished at the labyrinthine racial strictures she's confronted with, Ifemelu, defining herself as a "Non-American Black," launches an audacious, provocative, and instantly popular blog in which she explores what she calls Racial Disorder Syndrome.
Paperback, 588 pp.
Tell Us We're Home
by Marina Budhos, $8.99
Jaya, Maria, and Lola are just like the other eighth-grade girls in the wealthy suburb of Meadowbrook, New Jersey. They want to go to the spring dance, they love spending time with their best friends after school, sharing frappés and complaining about the other kids. But there's one big difference: all three are daughters of maids and nannies. And they go to school with the very same kids whose families their mothers work for. For grades 7 and up.
Paperback, 320 pp.
Out of the Sea and Into the Fire:
Latin American-U.S. Immigration in the Global Age
by Kari Lydersen, $16.95
From the misty highlands of Chiapas or the idyllic coast of Honduras; to the harsh dry desert of the U.S.-Mexico border; to a frozen street corner in Chicago or a sweltering tomato field in Florida; these are the stories of Latin American migrants in the age of globalization.
Paperback, 224 pp.
Breath, Eyes, Memory
by Edwidge Danticat, $16.00
At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti-to the women who first reared her.
Paperback, 272 pp.
The Right to Stay Home:
How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration
by David Bacon, $20.00
People across Mexico are being forced into migration, and while 11 percent of that country's population lives north of the US border, the decision to migrate is rarely voluntary. Free trade agreements and economic policies that exacerbate and reinforce extreme wealth disparities make it impossible for Mexicans to make a living at home.
Paperback, 328 pp.