Working the Boundaries

“Working the Boundaries is a timely book that will likely make waves in a number of fields in the social sciences and the humanities.” - Peter Benson, Journal of Latin American Anthropology

“De Genova has produced a work that will serve as a model for future research. Working the Boundaries is a study that will help scholars to further frame questions about the connections between the state, racism, labor and capital migration, class relations, and borders.” - David R. Smith, Journal of American Ethnic History

“De Genova’s book provides a substantial contribution to the literature at a very timely moment in both American academia and society.” - Matthew Gritter, International Labor and Working-Class History

“Professor Genova is a rare scholar that provides groundbreaking theory and research, making it accessible, interesting, and enjoyable for the reader. In short, this new book provides challenging and thoughtful analyses for studying immigration.” - Lisa Magaña, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies

“This arresting work of anthropology, American studies and ethnic studies will be of great interest to historians of labor, of race, of transnationalism and empire, of cities and of migration. . . . A splendid, learned and spirited study, Working the Boundaries deserves the widest possible readership inside and outside of the academy.” - David Roediger, Journal of Social History

“Emphasizing a processual ethnographic approach that historicizes subjectivity, Working the Boundaries analyzes transnational migration, racialization, class struggle, and state repression expressed through ‘illegality’ toward Mexicans in late-twentieth-century Chicago. Nicholas De Genova vividly renders ‘Mexican Chicago,’ where social relations are simultaneously imbricated in the U.S. political project of regulating labor and immigration and Mexican workers’ immersion in regional economies and politics in Mexico. His at times provocative assessments of current scholarship will engender further clarity in research and policy discussions about Mexican migration, contributing to American studies, Chicana/o studies, and the ethnography of North America.” - Patricia Zavella, coeditor of Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader

“In this stunning ethnographic achievement, the Mexican workers of Chicago reinvent the city, the labor process, the United States, and ‘our America’ as a whole: a region that knows no borders. But at the same time the nation-state, the systems of law and politics, and their working lives confine and encumber them. Working the Boundaries shows how much agency and insight are built into the realities of immigration, how limited and self-defeating are the core politics of U.S. nationalism and racism, and how powerful a weapon ethnography can be in the fight for freedom and justice. Nicholas De Genova has produced a book of great insight and beauty. Highly recommended!” - Howard Winant, author of The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice