Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction. Starting Over  1

Part I. The Assault on Workers  35

1. Dangerous Labor: Migrant Workers and Sex Workers  37

2. Chains of Fear: The Subjectivity of Coercion  75

Part II. Life after Forced Labor  113

3. Imagining the Possible: Creating Home  115

4. Living the Possible: Settling into Home  145

5. Laboring after Forced Labor  163

Closing Comments  185

Appendix. Ideas and Resources for Action  193

Notes  199

References  243

Index  273

"Life Interrupted is a powerful investigation of the often invisible exploitation of migrants—whether on farms, in factories, or in domestic work. The first-hand accounts of trafficking paint a vivid and painful picture of the trauma and cruelty of forced labor and the struggle of these migrants to rebuild their lives afterward. These very personal histories shed light on lives in the shadows of our globalized economy. Life Interrupted is a must-read for anyone who cares about fairness and justice for workers."—Filmmaker, Activist Morgan Spurlock (Director of Super Size Me, Executive Producer/Host CNN’s Inside Man).

"Denise Brennan makes it crystal clear that forced labor isn't 'over there.' It is right here. One of the many strengths of this fine ethnography is its letting us see how those women and men who have managed to escape such acute exploitation go about rebuilding their lives, step-by-difficult-step."—Cynthia Enloe, author of Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises as if Women Mattered

"Denise Brennan's Life Interrupted is a wonderful synthesis of analysis and empathy. Based on extensive fieldwork, Brennan's valuable book is part of a new wave of scholarship into the darkest side of the world's political economy, an important corrective to celebratory odes to 'globalization' and 'cosmopolitanism' that pass for critical thinking."—Greg Grandin, author of Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City

"Denise Brennan's intimate conversations with survivors of forced labor in the US puts the human back into 'human trafficking.' Introducing us to the trafficking survivors next door, Brennan steers us away from the sensationalism of sex trafficking and toward the real—and much bigger—story of how the ordinary exploitation of all kinds of migrant workers leads to abuse, violence, and forced labor. Readable, personal, and authoritative, Life Interrupted takes us into the legal limbo where 'trafficked persons' linger after their escape from bondage. No one knows more about this urgent issue than Denise Brennan."—Cindy Hahamovitch, author of No Man's Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor

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