Much has been written In English about the experiences and treatment of immigrants from south of the Rio Grande once they have entered the United States. But this account, by the itinerant, effervescent and highly original journalist Belen Fernandez, offers a different and wholly original take.

Belen Fernandez shows us what life is like for would-be migrants, not just from the Mexican side of the border but inside Siglo XXI, the notorious migrant detention center in the south of the country.

Journalists are prohibited from entering Siglo XXI; Fernandez only gained access because she herself was detained as a result of faulty paperwork when she attempted to return to the US to renew her passport. Once inside the facility, Fernandez was able to speak with detained women from Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Bangladesh, and beyond. Their stories, detailing the hardships that prompted them to leave their homes, and the dangers they have experienced on an often-tortuous journey north, form the core of this unique book. The companionship and support they offer to Fernandez, whose antipathy to returning to the United States, the country they are desperate to enter, is a source of bemusement and perplexity, demonstrates a spirited generosity that is deeply moving.

In the end, the Siglo XXI center emerges as a strikingly precise metaphor for a 21st century in which poor people, effectively imprisoned by American political and economic policies, nevertheless display astonishing resilience.

• Run extensive social media campaign to promote the book.
• Pitch excerpts and reviews to wide array of publications including Al Jazeera, Jacobin, The Intercept, The Nation, NACLA, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, The Observer, New Statesman, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Washington Post, Bookforum, Literary Hub, Tribune, Current Affairs, Morning Star, Red Pepper, and more.
• Pitch television, radio, and podcast interviews to shows including Democracy Now!, The Mehdi Hasan Show, Al Jazeera's UpFront, The Dig, Intercepted, Start Making Sense, On Contact, Breaking Points, American Prestige, and more.

About the Author

Belen Fernandez, is a contributing editor at Jacobin, and has written for The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye. She is the author of Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work.

Reviews

"A chilling vision of the 'imperial fucking holding pen' in Mexico, where the US exportation of public misery meets Fernandez's penetrating critique. Precisely in a moment when we need more and better knowledge about how US policies perpetuate police death, mass incarceration and imperial femicide, Fernandez's unsettling book gives it to us."
-Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, Professor, Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayaguez

"One of the most poignant, searing, and, at times, deadpan critiques of the United States and its mass media that I have ever read... An extraordinary and unorthodox travelogue."
-The Los Angeles Review of Books on Fernandez's Exile

"This is a travel memoir like no other: incredibly funny, observant, humane, anarchic, politically incisive, sophisticated, and raffish. Belen Fernandez is a dangerously enchanting siren."
-Francisco Goldman, author of Monkey Boy, on Fernandez's Exile

Book Information
ISBN 9781682193556
Author Beln Fernndez
Format Paperback
Page Count 120
Imprint OR Books
Publisher OR Books