Description

Imprisonment, Deportation, and Family Separation: My American Nightmare

Esther Morales Guzman provides testimony on her experiences after her deportation to Tijuana, B.C., Mexico. She was imprisoned in California for five years and narrates some of the barriers that imprisoned migrants face during and after their deportation. Her daughter Eliza joined her in Tijuana and both became involved in the immigrant rights movement. They were asked to be representatives for migrant families affected by deportation. Her story speaks to the dominant discourse in the immigrant rights movement, which attempts to distance migrants from criminality and demonstrates that the line between “innocent” and “criminal” shifts to meet political interests.

undocumented migration, criminalization/immigrant rights movement, migrant family separation

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 36:2 (2009): 106-109