Minal Hajratwala, Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents Houghton Mifflin, 2009
It's not just a story about the Indian diaspora. It's about empire, about the movement of labor, about the use and abuse of race, about global historical forces that created expatriate communities in far-flung places. Minal Hajratwala explains how and why her extended family moved to and settled in nine different countries.
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America Princeton, 2004
Mae Ngai, "How Grandma Got Legal" LA Times
Who's considered to belong in this country, and who's considered alien? Has that binary always been in place, or did certain policies create the charged figure of the "illegal alien"? Mae Ngai's investigations into the history of immigration, citizenship and race provide critical context for ongoing debates over what to do about undocumented immigration.
David Bacon, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants Beacon, 2008
In his latest book, David Bacon elucidates the structural factors that generate poverty among people who eventually migrate to the US. According to Bacon, trade policy and the neoliberal economic agenda are closely connected to immigration patterns and policies. He also highlights the political agency of migrant workers.
Mike Davis, "Can Obama See the Grand Canyon? On Presidential Blindness and Economic Catastrophe" TomDispatch
Mike Davis, "Living On the Ice Shelf: Humanity's Meltdown" TomDispatch
Will the current economic meltdown, and worker reaction to it, be a reenactment of the Great Depression? Could the politics of racist resentment on the US-Mexico border explode into (more) violence? Are global elites truly motivated to combat climate change? Mike Davis, author of In Praise of Barbarians, tackles these and other issues.
The civil rights movement did a lot for the lives and liberties of African Americans. Did it do enough for their economic fortunes? Steven Pitts points to an ongoing jobs crisis and discusses job quality and the impact of globalization. Arnoldo Garcia has been monitoring crackdowns on immigrant workers and others.
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