Description
Book SynopsisFeatures the stories of undocumented mothers who reunite with their children in the US years after fleeing violence at homeFacing escalating chaos and violence in their home countries, many Central American mothers have found that a desperate flight to the north was their only choice. Many left their children behind in order to spare them the hardships of the journey. If they made it across the border without getting locked up or deported, they entered a country increasingly unwilling to recognize claims of asylum. This book features the stories of women who crossed the border without encountering immigration authorities, in some cases several times, and settled in the greater Washington, DC, area, living in the shadows for years. By centering on the voices of the women themselves, it offers an intimate look at what drove them from home and the challenges they face in reuniting years later with their children. Forced Out traces the women's evolving attitudes toward the violence emb
Trade ReviewDeft storytelling, seasoned legal and anthropological understanding, and an unflinching moral compass—these are some of the attributes that make Susan Terrio’s probing study of Central American women’s forced migration to the United States such a valuable addition to the literature on this searing, contemporary issue. -- Jacqueline Bhabha, author of Can We Solve the Migration Crisis?
Clear, vivid, and emotionally impactful. . . . The stories featured are diverse, usefully selected, and revealing. The quality of fieldwork is clear; this sort of intimacy represents a real accomplishment in ethnography. -- Josiah Heyman, The University of Texas at El Paso
Terrio does a beautiful job of articulating the experiences of the undocumented Central American women whose stories are woven throughout the book. . . . Playing with the metaphor of the mouth of the shark, she leads us through their experiences as they run from the shark, are swallowed and spit out by the shark, and escape with devastating bruises. . . . Though they escape physically from the shark that is the violence in Central America, it follows them through their complicated, difficult transnational relationships with family members. Their stories, and Terrio’s narratives, depict intergenerational histories of abuse and agency, of harm and decision making within the limited bounds available to these women and their children. -- Marjorie Zatz, University of California, Merced
