Engage and Evade - by Asad L Asad

Book Synopsis

How everyday forms of surveillance threaten undocumented immigrants--but also offer them hope for societal inclusion

Some eleven million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States, carving out lives amid a growing web of surveillance that threatens their and their families' societal presence. Engage and Evade examines how undocumented immigrants navigate complex dynamics of surveillance and punishment, providing an extraordinary portrait of fear and hope on the margins.

Asad L. Asad brings together a wealth of research, from intimate interviews and detailed surveys with Latino immigrants and their families to up-close observations of immigration officials, to offer a rare perspective on the surveillance that undocumented immigrants encounter daily. He describes how and why these immigrants engage with various institutions--for example, by registering with the IRS or enrolling their kids in public health insurance programs--that the government can use to monitor them. This institutional surveillance feels both necessary and coercive, with undocumented immigrants worrying that evasion will give the government cause to deport them. Even so, they hope their record of engagement will one day help them prove to immigration officials that they deserve societal membership. Asad uncovers how these efforts do not always meet immigration officials' high expectations, and how surveillance is as much about the threat of exclusion as the promise of inclusion.

Calling attention to the fraught lives of undocumented immigrants and their families, this superbly written and compassionately argued book proposes wide-ranging, actionable reforms to achieve societal inclusion for all.

Review Quotes

"Winner of the Distinguished Scholarship Award, Pacific Sociological Association"

"Finalist for the Order of the Coif Book Award"

"Winner of the Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society"

"Engage and Evade is a remarkable book both for its subject matter and for the scope and depth of the research. The writing is approachable and compelling. . . . [I]n a moment of contentious politics related to immigration, Asad offers a complex portrait of daily life for undocumented immigrants and their families, making the book crucial reading for both sociologists and the general public."---Edelina Burciaga, American Journal of Sociology

"Asad L. Asad makes a thought-provoking scholarly intervention that challenges what scholars and researchers know about surveillance as it relates to undocumented immigrants. . . . [A]ccessible, well structured, and theoretically rich."---Yalidy Matos, Perspective on Politics

"Winner of the Raúl Yzaguirre Best Political/Current Affairs Book Bronze Medal, International Latino Book Awards"

"Winner of the Victor Villaseñor Best Latino Focused Nonfiction Book Award Bronze Medal, International Latino Book Awards"

"Engage and Evade is a beautifully written study . . . [and] an incredible contribution to scholarship on immigration and surveillance as it provides the nuance and complexity of the ways people who live in fear of surveillance are forced to navigate it."---Saher Selod, Contemporary Sociology

"[Engage and Evade's] account of the US immigration policies and structure helps to place the intricacies of the US immigration policies in a more historical, cultural, political and social context that gives us a better opportunity to question our common knowledge of the interactions between migrants and the system."---Meghan Geist, Migration & Development

"A comprehensive framework. . . . [Asad] tells a convincing, important, and desire-centered story . . . of how these immigrants balance their often-conflicting identities as undocumented immigrants, workers, and parents."---Emma M. Lezberg, Sociological Forum

"Honorable Mention for the Charles Taylor Book Award, Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Section of the American Political Science Association"

"Winner of the C. Wright Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems"

"Honorable Mention for the Otis Dudley Duncan Book Award, Population Section of the American Sociological Association"

"Honorable Mention for the Thomas and Znaniecki Book Award, International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association"

"Winner of the Best Book Award, Latino/a Section of the American Sociological Association"

"Winner of the Edwin H. Sutherland Book Award, Law and Society Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems"

"Honorable Mention for the Herbert Jacob Book Prize, Law and Society Association"

"Winner of the Robert J. Bursik Junior Scholar Award, American Society of Criminology"

"Finalist for the Foreword INDIES, Political and Social Sciences Category"

"Beyond portraying immigrants in the workplace as workers or households as parents alone, Asad explores what it means to be wholly human . . . In [Engage and Evade], it is beautiful to see immigrants subjectivities centralized in the analysis of their everyday decisions and behaviors related to institutional interactions. . . . [A] must-read."---Stephanie Canizales, Social Forces

"[A]dmirable is Asad's intimate familiarity with the narratives, sentiments, and aspirations Latino immigrants express as they make [a] life in the United States"---Aaron Arredondo, Ethnic and Racial Studies

"Asad challenges the conventional notion that undocumented immigrants in the United States hide in the shadows, fearful of all forms of institutional authority. Rather, he persuasively argues, many engage selectively and rationally with both law enforcement and service institutions such as schools, hospitals and health clinics, and organizations that provide social assistance."---Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs

"Engage and Evade is an interdisciplinary study at the intersection of sociology, political science and law, which makes a significant contribution to the fields of migration and surveillance studies."---P. Arun, International Migration Review

"Engage and Evade, a thought-provoking study of how undocumented immigrants contend with surveillance, sheds light on why the vast majority of undocumented immigrants follow the law: they were also law-abiding in their home countries and now seek social inclusion in the United States, where they are making a life for their families. . . . Engage and Evade is sociology at its finest."---Richard Mora, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

"A provocative intervention that challenges the popular and scholarly understandings of institutional surveillance on undocumented immigrants. . . . valuable, nuanced, and insightful. . . . This important book will surely support the societal inclusion of undocumented immigrants by illuminating and interfering in the inequalities of laws and policies."---Oscar R. Cornejo Casares, Law & Society Review

About the Author

Asad L. Asad is assistant professor of sociology at Stanford University, where he is a faculty affiliate of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.