A sobering, well-reported history in which no one emerges a winner.
A New Yorker staff writer examines the tragedy of Central America against the backdrop of U.S. immigration policy.
From the beginning, the U.S. has meddled in the affairs of Central America’s nations, some of them autocracies. This tinkering, particularly in the Reagan years, led to murder, civil war, and, decades later, a stream of migrants desperate to flee rampant poverty and violence. “For more than a century, the U.S. has devised one policy after another to keep people out of the country,” writes Blitzer. “For more than a century, it has failed.” Elements of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy were so oppressive that Salvadoran government torturers called one technique “the Carter,” and Barack Obama kept many of George W. Bush’s brutal policies in place. Even as American politicians wrestled with developing a comprehensive immigration policy with paths to citizenship, Central Americans continued to enter the U.S., many to be lost to gang violence. “By the early 1990s,” writes the author, “gang-related killing accounted for more than a third of all homicides in Los Angeles County.” After deportation, gang members and their victims alike became raw meat in the violence that continued to envelop El Salvador and Honduras. In the former country, the MS-13 gang, feared in immigrant communities in the U.S. just as much as back home, killed 87 people in just 72 hours, while a government crackdown reiterated the vicious suppression of the civil war years. Meanwhile, conditions on the U.S.–Mexico border have worsened as thousands of Central Americans clamor to enter the U.S., braving diversion tactics that have included separating children from their families and placing adults in conditions that resemble concentration camps. It’s a sorrowful yet urgent topic, and Blitzer navigates it with both journalistic rigor and compassion.
A sobering, well-reported history in which no one emerges a winner.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781984880802
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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