The United States detains and deports several hundred thousand migrants every year. Many spend significant amounts of time in immigration detention as they await adjudication of their immigration cases. The Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey is located in a converted warehouse, managed by a private, for-profit prison company. Over three decades, migrants and asylum seekers have been brought to EDC directly from Newark Airport or have been transferred to the site from elsewhere in the United States, including from the US-Mexico border region.

Through a longitudinal, site-specific study unique in its kind, this volume unites the voices and perspectives of formerly detained migrants, scholars, journalists, lawyers, and social and faith movement leaders, who share their experiences of Elizabeth Detention Center and reconstruct its social history, its location in New Jersey's political economy, and in the changing legal landscapes of immigration detention in the USA.

Since the 1890s, New Jersey has attracted hundreds of thousands of Caribbean and Latin American migrants. The state’s rich economic history, high-income suburbs, and strong public sector have all contributed to attracting, retaining, and setting the stage for Latin American and Caribbean immigrants and secondary-step migrants from New York City. Since the 1980s, however, Latinos have developed a more complex presence in the state’s political landscape and institutions. The emergence of Latino-majority towns and cities and coalition politics facilitated the election of Latino mayors, council persons, and many social and community leaders, as well as the election of statewide officers. This collection brings together innovative and empirically grounded scholarship from different disciplines and interdisciplinary fields of study and addresses topics including the demographic history of Latinos in the state, Latino migration from gateway cities to suburban towns, Latino urban enclaves, Latino economic and social mobility, Latino students and education, the New Jersey Dream Act and in-state tuition act organizing, Latinos and criminal justice reform, Latino electoral politics and leadership, and undocumented communities. 

Contributors: Yamil Avivi; Jennifer Ayala; Ulla D. Berg; Giovani Burgos; Elsa Candelario; Laura Curran; Lilia Fernández; Ismael García Colón; Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim; Benjamin Lapidus; Aldo A. Lauria Santiago; Johana Londoño; Kathleen Lopez; Giancarlo Muschi; Melanie Z. Plasencia; Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas; Elena Sabogal; Raymond Sanchez Mayers; William Suárez Gómez; Alex F. Trillo; Daniela Valdez; Anil Venkatesh; Lyna L. Wiggins

Reflections on the Pandemic: COVID and Social Crises in the Year Everything Changed is a collection of essays, poems, and artwork that captures the raw energy and emotion of 2020 from the perspective of the Rutgers University community. The project features work from a diverse group of Rutgers scholars, students, staff, and alumni. Reflecting on 2020 from a number of perspectives – mortality, justice, freedom, equality, democracy, family, health, love, hate, economics, history, medicine, science, social justice, the environment, art, food, sanity – the book features contributions by Evie Shockley, Joyce Carol Oates, Naomi Jackson, Ulla Berg, Grace Lynne Haynes, Jordan Casteel, and President Jonathan Holloway, among others. This book, through its rich and imaginative storytelling at the intersection of scholarly expertise and personal narrative, brings readers into the hearts and minds of not just the Rutgers community but the world.

Contributors include: Patricia Akhimie, Marc Aronson, Ulla D. Berg, Stephanie Bonne, Stephanie Boyer, Kimberly Camp, Jordan Casteel, Kelly-Jane Cotter, Mark Doty, David Dreyfus, Adrienne E. Eaton, Katherine C. Epstein, Leah Falk, Paul G. Falkowski, Rigoberto González, James Goodman, David Greenberg, Angelique Haugerud, Grace Lynne Haynes, Leslieann Hobayan, Jonathan Holloway, James W. Hughes, Naomi Jackson, Amy Jordan, Vikki Katz, Mackenzie Kean, Robert E. Kopp, Christian Lighty, Stephen Masaryk, Louis P. Masur, Revathi V. Machan, Yalidy Matos, Belinda McKeon, Susan L. Miller, Yehoshua November, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary E. O’Dowd, Katherine Ognyanova, David Orr,  Gregory Pardlo, Steve Pikiell, Teresa Politano, en Purkert, Nick Romanenko, Evie Shockley, Caridad Svich, and Didier William​.