The **#ImmigrationDetentionSyllabus** is a sixteen-part series of readings and tools to support education, research, and action to dissect and dismantle the U.S. immigration detention system. The syllabus is organized by theme and curated by historian [Tina Shull](https://medium.com/u/6e34ba3479d9) at [Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)](http://endisolation.org).
Part Two, “On History,” provides readings, primary sources, and multimedia resources for understanding the history of the U.S. immigration detention system including the era of Chinese exclusion, Japanese internment, Great Depression deportations and Operation Wetback, the War on Drugs, 9/11, and the War on Terror.
*Introductory Reading:
*“Finding the Disappeared: The Immigration Detention Archive Conundrum,” by Mary Rizzo:
- Foucault, Michel. [*Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison*](https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_Prison_1977_1995.pdf). Random House, 1977.
- Goodman, Adam, “[Nation of Migrants, Historians of Migration](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=adam+goodman+nation+of+migrants%2C+historians+of+migration&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C24),” *Journal of American Ethnic History*, Vol. 34 (2015): 7–16.
- Morris, Norval and David Rothman, eds. [*The Oxford History of the Prison*](%25E2%2596%25AA%2509Norval%20Morris%20and%20David%20Rothman,%20eds.,%20The%20Oxford%20History%20of%20the%20Prison%20%28Oxford%20University%20Press,%201995%29.%20%2509%25E2%2596%25AA%2509Caleb%20Smith,%20The%20Prison%20and%20the%20American%20Imagination%20%28Yale%20University%20Press,%202011%29.). Oxford University Press, 1995.
- Silverman, Sarah, “[Immigration Detention in America: A History of its Expansion and a Study of its Significance](https://www.academia.edu/1154976/Immigration_Detention_in_America_A_History_of_its_Expansion_and_a_Study_of_its_Significance),” Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, working paper 80, University of Oxford, 2010.
- Smith, Caleb. [*The Prison and the American Imagination*](https://www.worldcat.org/title/prison-and-the-american-imagination/oclc/586098252&referer=brief_results). Yale University Press, 2011.
- Spickard, Paul, “[Immigration, Race, Ethnicity, Colonialism](https://books.google.com/books?id=fz2UAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false),” in *Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity. *Routledge, 2007.
Silencing the Past by Michel Trouillot
- Thompson, Heather Ann, “[Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History](http://www.endnewjimcrownj.org/resources/Thompson_2010.pdf).” *Journal of American History* 97 (2010) 703–34.
- Trouillot, Michel. [*Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History*](http://www.beacon.org/Silencing-the-Past-P329.aspx). Beacon Press, 1995.
- Zolberg, Aristide R. *A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America.* Russell Sage Foundation, 2006.
- Lee, Erika. [*At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943*.](https://books.google.com/books?id=uy3XQOsIXU4C&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false) University of North Carolina Press, 2007; “[The Yellow Peril: Asian Exclusion in the Americas](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2007.76.4.537),” *Pacific Historical Review* 76 (2007) 537–62.
- Miller, Stuart Creighton. [*The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1785–1882*](https://www.amazon.com/Unwelcome-Immigrant-American-Chinese-1785-1882/dp/0520026209)*.* University of California Press, 1969.
- Ngai, Mae M. [*Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America*](http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10241.html)*. *Princeton University Press, 2005.
- Saxton, Alexander. [*The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California*](http://www.powells.com/partner/37407/biblio/9780520029057?p_isbn). University of California Press, 1971.
Angel Island Poetry and Profiles:
[http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/history/angelisland/](http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/history/angelisland/)
[http://www.cetel.org/angel_poetry.html](http://www.cetel.org/angel_poetry.html)
[http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/polster.htm](http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/polster.htm)
- Daniels, Roger. [*Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II*](https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Without-Trial-Japanese-Americans/dp/0809078961/ref=sr_1_3%3Fs=books%26ie=UTF8%26qid=1502991472%26sr=1-3%26keywords=roger+daniels). Hill and Wang: 2004.
- Iritani, Evelyn, “[The other Japanese internment America still hasn’t fully acknowledged](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-iritani-japanese-latin-american-internment-20170320-story.html),” *Los Angeles Times*, March 20, 2017.
- Lee, Erika, “‘Military Necessity’: The Uprooting of Japanese Americans,” “‘Grave Injustices’: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans,” and “Good War/Cold War,” in [*The Making of Asian America*](https://books.google.com/books?id=7PpwCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false). Simon and Schuster, 2015.
- Robin, Ron. [*The Barbed-Wire College: Reeducating German POWs in the United States During World War II*](https://www.amazon.com/Barbed-Wire-College-Ron-Theodore-Robin/dp/0691037000/ref=sr_1_1%3Fie=UTF8%26qid=1502992180%26sr=8-1%26keywords=barbed+wire+college). Princeton University Press: 1995.
- Rodriguez, Pedro and Pat Lauderdale, “Hegemony and Collective Memories: Japanese-American Relocation and Imprisonment on American Indian ‘Land’,” in [*Color Behind Bars: Racism in the U.S. Prison System*](https://www.amazon.com/Color-behind-Bars-volumes-Institutions/dp/0313399034). Praeger, 2014.
- Russell, Jan Jarboe. [*The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II*](https://www.amazon.com/Train-Crystal-City-Prisoner-Internment/dp/1451693672/ref=sr_1_1%3Fs=books%26ie=UTF8%26qid=1502992325%26sr=1-1%26keywords=train+to+crystal+city). Scribner, 2016.
- Grandin, Greg. [*Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism*](http://americanempireproject.com/empires-workshop/). Henry Holt, 2007.
- Hamm, Mark S. [*The Abandoned Ones: The Imprisonment and Uprising of the Mariel Boat People*](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Abandoned_Ones.html?id=r4jxoMTs67wC). Northeastern University Press, 1995.
- Kahn, Robert S. [*Other People’s Blood: U.S. Immigration Prisons in the Reagan Decade*](https://books.google.com/books/about/Other_People_s_Blood.html?id=5tRfpk478A4C)*. *Westview Press, 1996.
- Lipman, Jana K. “[A Refugee Camp in America: Fort Chaffee and Vietnamese and Cuban Refugees, 1975–1982](http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jamerethnhist.33.2.0057),” *Journal of American Ethnic History* 33 (2014) 57–87.
Finding Mañana by Mirta Ojito
- Ojito, Mirta. [*Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus*](https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Ma%C3%B1ana-Memoir-Cuban-Exodus/dp/1594200416)*.* New York: Penguin, 2005.
- Rabe, Stephen G. [*The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America*](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-killing-zone-9780190216252?cc=us&lang=en&). New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Rosas, Ana Elizabeth. [Abrazando el Espíritu: Bracero Families Confront the US-Mexico Border](https://www.amazon.com/Abrazando-Esp%C3%ADritu-Families-US-Mexico-Crossroads/dp/0520282671/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503616792&sr=8-1&keywords=ana+rosas). University of California Press, 2014.
- Shull, Kristina, “‘[A Recession-Proof Industry’: Reagan’s Immigration Crisis and the Birth of the Neoliberal Security State](https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2015/04/%E2%80%98-recession-proof).” *Border Criminologies,* 2015; “[Nobody Wants These People: Reagan’s Immigration Crisis and the Containment of Foreign Bodies](https://www.academia.edu/8754714/_Nobody_Wants_These_People_Reagans_Immigration_Crisis_and_the_Containment_of_Foreign_Bodies),” in *Body/Nation: The Global Realms of U.S. Body Politics in the Twentieth Century*. Duke University Press, 2014.
- Fernandez, Deepa, “The Border Crackdown” and “Roundups and Registration, Detention and Deportation,” in [*Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration*](https://www.amazon.com/Targeted-Homeland-Security-Business-Immigration/dp/1583227288/ref=sr_1_1%3Fs=books%26ie=UTF8%26qid=1502933382%26sr=1-1%26keywords=targeted%3A+homeland+security). Seven Stories Press, 2007.
- Jamal, Amaney A. and Nadine Christine Naber. [*Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects*](http://www.powells.com/partner/37407/biblio/9780815631774?p_isbn). Syracuse University Press, 2008.
- Malone, Dan, “Immigration, Terrorism, and Secret Prisons,” in [*Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today*](https://www.amazon.com/Keeping-Out-Other-Introduction-Immigration/dp/0231141297/ref=sr_1_1%3Fs=books%26ie=UTF8%26qid=1502930248%26sr=1-1%26keywords=keeping+out+the+other). Columbia University Press, 2008.
- McCoy, Alfred. [*A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror*](https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Question_of_Torture.html?id=FVwUYSBwtKcC)*.* Henry Holt, 2006.
- Nguyen, Tram. [*We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories From Immigrant Communities After 9/11*](https://books.google.com/books?id=C2_cPrSWo3IC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)*. *Beacon Press, 2005.
- Shiekh, Irum. [*Detained Without Cause: Muslims’ Stories of Detention and Deportation in America After 9/11*](https://www.amazon.com/Detained-without-Cause-Detention-Deportation/dp/0230103812). Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
- Volpp, Leti, “[The Citizen and the Terrorist](http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1514&context=facpubs),” *UCLA Law Review* (2002): 1575–1600.
- Zilberg, Elena. [*Space of Detention: The Making of a Transnational Gang Crisis between Los Angeles and San Salvador*](https://www.dukeupress.edu/Space-of-Detention/)*.* Duke University Press, 2011.