Charting of a History of Immigrant Incarceration in California: Space of Impunity and Movements of Solidarity, 1945-01

Jessica Ordaz
History
UC Davis

“Charting a History of Immigrant Incarceration in California: Spaces of Impunity and Movements of Solidarity, 1945-2001,” investigates the immigrant detention boom. The PBS website on detention centers features a map that charts the development of this prison explosion. Moving from 1981 to 2011, the map indicates that immigrant detention facilities increased during the 1980s. Historicizing this development suggests that incarcerating immigrants has a longer historical trajectory. My project elucidates why immigration detention became so central to the national landscape thus deepening our understanding of the transition from informal places of detention to contemporary privatized centers. My project charts the historical development of immigration detention in California between 1945, when immigration officials started detaining and deporting immigrants on a massive scale, and 9/11. Centering on California allows for the plotting of one point on a national landscape of immigration detention facilities.