Acknowledgments

From the beginning, the idea behind this anthology was to build connections between diverse fields of scholarship that considered the carceral state across different regions, times, and spaces. I think in this endeavor the project met its aim and left me, as editor, with many to thank and appreciate.

This project first began at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies, a foundational research institution at Southern Methodist University whose gracious support of an annual cohort of postdoctoral research fellows always results in a vibrant intellectual space of scholarship and intellectual dialogue. When Benjamin Johnson first suggested the idea of this collection to me in 2009, the field of carceral studies as a subject of history was still developing and not yet fully formed, but that only made the prospect of helping to shape such a pioneering field all the more exciting. At that time, David Weber, the Clements Center founding director and one of the country’s leading pioneers of borderlands scholarship, welcomed the idea of an anthology that would consider how incarcerations and migrant detentions were interconnected in the U.S. Southwest. Although David was in a life struggle with cancer at that time, he was always so welcoming and supportive to young scholars with new ideas. As the dynamic trio of scholarly leadership for the Clements Center, David, Sherry Smith, and Benjamin Johnson immediately saw the benefit of bringing together a diverse group of scholars in a variety of academic fields to consider how incarcerations, migrant detentions, and resistance shaped borders, interconnections, and regional variety and difference. I owe them great thanks for having supported such a project before there was even much published literature from historians to justify its aim. As the project developed from conceptual idea to book, the Clements Center’s stewardship changed hands to that of Andrew Graybill, who offered this anthology a wealth of ongoing support, guidance, and mentorship from workshop stage to public seminar to editing and final revision. We thank the Clements Center for all the gracious financial, intellectual, and personal support it provided to bring this anthology to fruition.

In the fall of 2011, the Clements Center partnered with the Center for the American West at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to host our first workshop seminar. As an early introduction to one another’s contributions, the workshop series brought together many new approaches to carceral studies that led to a thought-provoking seminar and a day of vibrant exchange. We especially appreciated the opportunity to put the collective scholarship of the contributors in dialogue with the incredibly dedicated activists and collaborators whom the Center for the American West made available to our authors. Many thanks to Patty Limerick and Kurt Gutjahr for hosting the seminar, supporting our collective work, and formally launching the project and wider scholarly conversation.

During the spring of 2012, we held a public seminar, then entitled “Sunbelt Prisons and Carceral States: New Frontiers of State Power, Resistance and Racial Oppression.” The conference participants included the anthology contributors alongside a final evening panel that invited our authors to engage in a public dialogue with formerly incarcerated activists, civil rights attorneys, and policy makers. Many thanks for the incredible dialogue and the active participation of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (Thirtieth District of Texas); Ernest McMillan, activist and founder of the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program; Ray Hill, activist and founder of the Prison Radio Program; William T. Habern, civil rights attorney and state expert on postconviction law; Lisa Graybill, then a civil rights attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union; and Rick Halperin, activist and director of the program’s cosponsor the Embrey Human Rights Program at Southern Methodist University. Their participation made the seminar more than an academic conference, transforming it into a forum for public engagement on the urgent crisis of mass incarceration. For helping it reach an even wider audience, we thank David Babb of the Prison Radio Show, who aired the public panel live on KPFT Radio 90.1. We also thank activists Michael Jewell and Joan Covici, who kept the conversation going by opening their home to us as an after-conference reception. Thanks and appreciation to Norwood Andrews, who collaborated with me on the call for papers, the author selection, and the organization of the two conferences. Organizing and editing a volume of this kind required the emotional and personal support of Gloria Rios, who was always there for me when needed. The incredible behind-the-scenes organizational work of the Clements Center’s executive directors Andrea Boardman and Ruth Ann Elmore was beyond invaluable and made possible both the workshop and the public seminar. I am very thankful to Andrea and Ruth Ann, who do so much to make good scholarship part of a public dialogue.

At the University of North Carolina Press, Heather Ann Thompson and Rhonda Y. Williams, press series editors for Justice, Power, and Politics, never wavered in their continuous support, mentorship, and wise advice. Their commitment to publishing critical historical work on pressing social problems served as inspiration to bring these essays together in a single volume. A special note of appreciation is due to Brandon Proia at UNC Press, whose editorial oversight and patience shepherded this anthology to publication.

This was a project of scholarly collaboration, and I am grateful to each of the contributors, who not only provided scholarship to the anthology but also offered their time to one another, their mentorship to me as editor, and their dedication to the project as publication. As a collection that gathers senior scholars alongside new, pioneering work, the volume has greatly benefited from the mentorship of several authors who provided keen insight on the project as a whole. At each stage of the anthology process—from the initial drafts, to our workshop dialogue, to our public presentations, and finally to the editing and final revision process—the contributors pulled their intellectual talent together to create a thoughtful, supportive, and especially collaborative group. All of the contributors fully engaged with one another’s papers during the workshop series, and newly formed collaborations continued beyond the seminar and blossomed into a series of essays that seemed to build naturally on one another’s work. As editor, it was a great joy to witness such collaboration, and it made the job of putting these pieces together in a single volume part of a natural evolution where everything seemed to fit. With that collaborative organizing principle in mind, the acknowledgment for making this anthology possible goes to those who offered to this volume a piece of their cutting-edge scholarship. Many thanks for the contributions of David M. Hernández, Ethan Blue, Kelly Lytle Hernández, George T. Díaz, Talitha L. LeFlouria, Pippa Holloway, Vivien Miller, Heather McCarty, Volker Janssen, Keramet Reiter, Donna Murch, Dan Berger, and Douglas K. Miller. The conversation that we created led to great camaraderie and collaboration—and I can only hope that the dialogue continues.