Sanctuary Making - by Carolina Valdivia

Book Synopsis

Immigration policy and enforcement practices in the United States now extend beyond the border to the country's interior, impacting the private lives of millions of undocumented and mixed-status families in new ways. Sanctuary Making traces this shift, showing how as enforcement has expanded and deepened, new "hot spots" have appeared across nontraditional sites such as neighborhoods, roads, worksites, hospitals, grocery stores, and homes. Undercurrents of fear, anxiety, and loss permeate the everyday lives of the families navigating these terrains of enforcement.

Carolina Valdivia reveals the emotional and material labor of young adults that often underpins families' sanctuary making efforts--strategies to shield against the worst outcomes of enforcement. Many young adults are compelled to take on parental responsibilities and serve as a primary source of emotional support for family members while also brokering legal processes tied to their family's immigration cases. How might policymakers, organizers, educators, and the wider community better support these young people in their efforts to create sanctuary for their families in an increasingly hostile landscape?

From the Back Cover

"Amid the widening scope of immigration enforcement--now extending into private spaces and neighborhoods and involving an ever-expanding range of actors--Sanctuary Making reveals how families are reconfigured, centering the vital emotional and material labor of young adults in fostering a sense of safety and belonging for their families. The book is filled with experiences that are shared by millions of immigrant families as they confront today's sweeping interior enforcement. A timely and insightful contribution that merits wide readership."--Cecilia Menjívar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

"In an era when immigration enforcement is overtaking American public spaces to an astonishing degree, Carolina Valdivia's book presents an extraordinarily timely, probing, rigorous, and eloquent analysis of the intersection of space, enforcement, and sanctuary among immigrant families. Based on a sample of over one hundred members of immigrant families, Valdivia recounts moving narratives of immigrants carving safety out of spaces that have become increasingly surveilled, policed, and dangerous, with pointed recommendations for what individuals, networks, organizations, and advocates can do in response."--Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education and University Professor, New York University

"This is a book with a sense of urgency. From the first line--'They took Dad'--you know that something is changing in the United States and that immigrants are being targeted. Families respond in many different ways when one of their members is deported, and Valdivia's fantastic research is so deep, so compelling. It's impossible not to be touched by the human tragedy we are living. This is an essential book to understand the new United States."--Jorge Ramos, Emmy Award-winning journalist and former Univision News anchor

"The scholarship is excellent--the work is well researched, thoroughly analyzed, and expertly written. This sort of intimate exploration of the daily navigation of illegality and deportability is rare and critically important. It takes a very particular kind of scholar to do this work and to do it well; Carolina Valdivia is that scholar, and this book is a testament to her position as a new, leading voice in the field."--Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, Professor, University of San Francisco School of Education

About the Author

Carolina Valdivia is Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine.