A welcome, necessary rejoinder to critics of border policy on this side of the line.
A gathering of critical responses to the border crisis by Mexican poets, scholars, and activists.
Donald Trump is unquestionably the dark lord of this piece. Writes novelist Boullosa, “his peculiar blend of racism and xenophobia, opportunism and cynicism, foolishness and cunning, cruelty and hypocrisy demands attention.” Yet Trump is not alone. As several of the contributors to this anthology point out, Barack Obama deported more Mexicans than has Trump, though there were more arriving during Obama’s administration. Mexico, as linguist Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil points out, has its own brand of xenophobic nativists who wish to block off the country’s southern border: “Fear becomes hatred, and that hatred is given a legal justification, when in reality it’s nothing more than an administrative offense: coming into Mexico without papers is not a crime.” Walls, by the account of several contributors, speak to a failure of imagination, to say nothing of humanity. As Reforma founder and former editor René Delgado writes, the Trumpian wall to the north in particular represents "the deterioration of diplomacy, the perversion of politics, and something even worse: the capitalization of the misfortune of those who are forced to leave their country in search of opportunity.” Under Trump, in the guise of safeguarding the nation from “bad hombres,” the U.S. “has constructed the largest immigration detention infrastructure in the world,” infamous for holding illegal crossers—including many thousands of children—in what are called perreras, or dog pounds. When asked by novelist Valeria Luiselli whether she regretted trying to enter the U.S., one imprisoned woman said, “now I regret it, a thousand times. I think I’d rather die of one gunshot in my own country than let them kill me slowly in this one.” That one sentence speaks volumes about a system of injustice on both sides of the border that no wall, however high, can contain.
A welcome, necessary rejoinder to critics of border policy on this side of the line.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62097-618-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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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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