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Undocumented Lives

Undocumented Lives

The Untold Story of Mexican Migration

Ana Raquel Minian

ISBN 9780674244832

Publication date: 05/12/2020

Frederick Jackson Turner Award Finalist
Winner of the David Montgomery Award
Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Book Award
Winner of the Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award
Winner of the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize
Winner of the Américo Paredes Book Award

“A deeply humane book.”
—Mae Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects

“Necessary and timely…A valuable text to consider alongside the current fight for DACA, the border concentration camps, and the unending rhetoric dehumanizing Mexican migrants.”
PopMatters

“A deep dive into the history of Mexican migration to and from the United States.”
—PRI’s The World

In the 1970s, the Mexican government decided to tackle rural unemployment by supporting the migration of able-bodied men. Millions of Mexican men crossed into the United States to find work. They took low-level positions that few Americans wanted and sent money back to communities that depended on their support. They periodically returned to Mexico, living their lives in both countries. After 1986, however, US authorities disrupted this back-and-forth movement by strengthening border controls. Many Mexican men chose to remain in the United States permanently for fear of not being able to come back north if they returned to Mexico. For them, the United States became a jaula de oro—a cage of gold. Undocumented Lives tells the story of Mexican migrants who were compelled to bring their families across the border and raise a generation of undocumented children.

Praise

  • Undocumented Lives is a deep dive into the history of Mexican migration to and from the United States and how, many times, migrants can feel ni aquí, ni allá, neither here, nor there—not fully recognized by any one place.

    —Monica Campbell, PRI’s The World

Awards

  • 2018, Winner of the Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award
  • 2019, Winner of the David Montgomery Award
  • 2019, Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Book Award
  • 2019, Winner of the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize
  • 2019, Winner of the Américo Paredes Book Award

Author

  • Ana Raquel Minian is Associate Professor of History and of Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University.

Book Details

  • 336 pages
  • 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches
  • Harvard University Press

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