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Behind Bars: Latino/as and Prison in the United States
Author(s): Suzanne Oboler
- Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
- Publication Date: October 15, 2009
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 308 pages
- ISBN-10: B00ANY623M
Book Description
Prisons and the multiple ways that Latino/as have developed to combat the pervasive inhumane acts visited on them are the core of this anthology. Its combination of scholarly presentations, interviews, poetry, visual arts, and narratives of the inmates’ lived experiences situates the realities of prison and its aftermath in the discussion about the ideals of individual freedom and rights. The authors highlight the attempts to normalize the systematic dehumanization of incarcerated Latino/as by “walling off” and sanitizing the urgent problems their very presence inevitably poses. This book argues for the societal responsibility to uphold the dignity of all peoples, irrespective of their histories and status in their respective societies.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“With this anthology, Oboler and her collaborators have taken a vicious swing at cracking the walls of silence, indifference, and distortion that surround the largest system of criminal injustice in the world. Simply put, with its wide array of individual case studies, and legal, social, and philosophical interventions on civil and human rights discourses, Behind Bars is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary work to date on the sordid reality of the carceral state’s pervasive impact on U.S. Latinos. This a must-read for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding not only of how the prison industrial complex intersects with social control, nationhood, immigration policies, and international law and impacts the individual lives of those behind bars, but also of what the very existence of these policies and practices say about us in the so-called free world.”–Louis Mendoza, Associate Professor of Chicano Studies, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
About the Author
Suzanne Oboler is Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/City University of NY. She is the Founding Editor of the international academic journal, Latino Studies (Palgrave), and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the 4-volume, Oxford Encyclopedia on Latinos and Latinas in the United States (2005). She has published Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of Representation (1995) and has edited 2 anthologies; Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos (co-edited with Anani Dzidzienyo; Palgrave, 2005) and Latino/as and Citizenship: The Dilemma of Belonging (Palgrave, 2006).
