Awards

• Commended for Edwin H. Sutherland Book Award Honorable Mention 2021 (United States)
• Short-listed for C. Wright Mills Award 2020 (United States)
• Winner of C. Wright Mills Award 2020
• Winner of Edwin H. Sutherland Book Award Honorable Mention 2021

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9781538131008

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Childers (American Institutes for Research) presents an ethnographic study of race embedded in place, resulting in dichotomies of free versus unfree and citizen versus resident. Through her field research, she enables undocumented Haitians in the Dominican Republic to tell their stories of racism and alienation that attest to the stigma associated with Haitian-ness. Anti-Haitian racism is institutionalized in the DR, creating a liminal space in which Haitians live and work in enclaves, unable to leave without documentation and also unable to acquire the necessary documents in a system stacked against them. In the absence of formal identification, skin color, features, and accent are most often used to identify Haitians and to deny them the formal identification they lack. In a perpetual circle of legal codes, Haitians in the DR exist as low-cost, second-class labor, exploited by their Dominican employers. They have no legal identity, only the shared stigma of being Haitian. This book's strength lies in using subjects' own words to discuss their plight. . . Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates.-- Choice This beautifully executed ethnography pairs the process of excising multiple generations of a people from a country's polity with its myriad manifestations, small and consequential, in everyday life. The result is an outstanding analysis of the intersection of race and liminal legality, shedding light on a case that has enormous theoretical significance. Highly recommend!--Cecilia Menjivar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Inequities, UCLA This text does an excellent job of unpacking the nuances and complexities of Haitians and people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. It is a story of labor exploitation, the residual and persistent impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the continued obsession in the Americas of constructing race through political mechanisms.--Angela J. Hattery, George Mason University

Childers (American Institutes for Research) presents an ethnographic study of race embedded in place, resulting in dichotomies of free versus unfree and citizen versus resident. Through her field research, she enables undocumented Haitians in the Dominican Republic to tell their stories of racism and alienation that attest to the stigma associated with Haitian-ness. Anti-Haitian racism is institutionalized in the DR, creating a liminal space in which Haitians live and work in enclaves, unable to leave without documentation and also unable to acquire the necessary documents in a system stacked against them. In the absence of formal identification, skin color, features, and accent are most often used to identify Haitians and to deny them the formal identification they lack. In a perpetual circle of legal codes, Haitians in the DR exist as low-cost, second-class labor, exploited by their Dominican employers. They have no legal identity, only the shared stigma of being Haitian. This book's strength lies in using subjects' own words to discuss their plight. . . Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates.--CHOICE This beautifully executed ethnography pairs the process of excising multiple generations of a people from a country's polity with its myriad manifestations, small and consequential, in everyday life. The result is an outstanding analysis of the intersection of race and liminal legality, shedding light on a case that has enormous theoretical significance. Highly recommend!--Cecilia Menjivar, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Inequities, UCLA This text does an excellent job of unpacking the nuances and complexities of Haitians and people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. It is a story of labor exploitation, the residual and persistent impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the continued obsession in the Americas of constructing race through political mechanisms.--Angela J. Hattery, George Mason University

"This text does an excellent job of unpacking the nuances and complexities of Haitians and people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. It is a story of labor exploitation, the residual and persistent impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the continued obsession in the Americas of constructing race through political mechanisms.--Angela J. Hattery, George Mason University This text does an excellent job of unpacking the nuances and complexities of Haitians and people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. It is a story of labor exploitation, the residual and persistent impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the continued obsession in the Americas of constructing race through political mechanisms. Childers (American Institutes for Research) presents an ethnographic study of race embedded in place, resulting in dichotomies of free versus unfree and citizen versus resident. Through her field research, she enables undocumented Haitians in the Dominican Republic to tell their stories of racism and alienation that attest to the stigma associated with ""Haitian-ness."" Anti-Haitian racism is institutionalized in the DR, creating a liminal space in which Haitians live and work in enclaves, unable to leave without documentation and also unable to acquire the necessary documents in a system stacked against them. In the absence of formal identification, skin color, features, and accent are most often used to identify Haitians and to deny them the formal identification they lack. In a perpetual circle of legal codes, Haitians in the DR exist as low-cost, second-class labor, exploited by their Dominican employers. They have no legal identity, only the shared stigma of being Haitian. This book's strength lies in using subjects' own words to discuss their plight. . . Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates. -- ""Choice Reviews"" This beautifully executed ethnography pairs the process of excising multiple generations of a people from a country's polity with its myriad manifestations, small and consequential, in everyday life. The result is an outstanding analysis of the intersection of race and liminal legality, shedding light on a case that has enormous theoretical significance. Highly recommend! --Cecilia Menj�var, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Inequities, UCLA This beautifully executed ethnography pairs the process of excising multiple generations of a people from a country's polity with its myriad manifestations, small and consequential, in everyday life. The result is an outstanding analysis of the intersection of race and liminal legality, shedding light on a case that has enormous theoretical significance. Highly recommend! Childers (American Institutes for Research) presents an ethnographic study of race embedded in place, resulting in dichotomies of free versus unfree and citizen versus resident. Through her field research, she enables undocumented Haitians in the Dominican Republic to tell their stories of racism and alienation that attest to the stigma associated with ""Haitian-ness."" Anti-Haitian racism is institutionalized in the DR, creating a liminal space in which Haitians live and work in enclaves, unable to leave without documentation and also unable to acquire the necessary documents in a system stacked against them. In the absence of formal identification, skin color, features, and accent are most often used to identify Haitians and to deny them the formal identification they lack. In a perpetual circle of legal codes, Haitians in the DR exist as low-cost, second-class labor, exploited by their Dominican employers. They have no legal identity, only the shared stigma of being Haitian. This book's strength lies in using subjects' own words to discuss their plight. . . Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates."

This text does an excellent job of unpacking the nuances and complexities of Haitians and people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic. It is a story of labor exploitation, the residual and persistent impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the continued obsession in the Americas of constructing race through political mechanisms.--Angela J. Hattery, George Mason University

Author Information

Trenita Brookshire Childers is a health care policy researcher at the American Institutes of Research. Previously, Dr. Childers was a NRSA postdoctoral research fellow funded by the National Institutes of Health at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNCChapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University in 2017. Dr. Childers has received numerous fellowships to support this research including a Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and a Fulbright scholarship.

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