An engaging and insightful book.
A Stanford anthropology professor examines the largely invisible world of Mexican community drug-rehabilitation centers known as anexos.
Garcia, author of The Pastoral Clinic, stumbled upon the anexo system when a driver she hired in Mexico City took her to the facility that had treated his daughter. She quickly learned that these informal facilities were “refuges” for substance abusers. “I grew up in a family that suffered from addiction problems,” she writes. “During my three years of research, several of the people I knew and cared for were incarcerated or had overdosed and died.” The author discovered that while officials called anexos “garbage cans for trash,” others saw them as spaces that could benefit the impoverished and protect them from the dangers of a violent society. Compelled to learn more about them, Garcia gained access to several facilities across Mexico City. Her first encounters with anexo leaders and the people they oversaw surfaced memories of her own youth, part of which she spent living with runaway teens. The author’s connection to the largely invisible community self-help network to which anexos belonged only intensified as she continued her research and learned of the methods used to purge anexados of their addictions. Garcia also learned that staff members routinely administered beatings and insults, but dedicated workers provided important space for testimony, “a way of expressing and interpreting violence on different discursive levels.” Set against the background of the ongoing drug war in Mexico, this probing book raises ethical questions about the use of violence as a rehabilitative tool. It also illuminates the role of the U.S. in perpetuating human suffering through military aid, illegally trafficked guns, and its insatiable hunger for drugs while immersing readers in Garcia’s own struggle to overcome the demons of a painful past.
An engaging and insightful book.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780374605780
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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