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In this nonlinear, loosely chronological memoir, Laurie Easter deftly navigates the rugged terrain of living off the grid in rural southern Oregon, along with the many hazards of the human heart. In quiet, searching, and sometimes experimental essays, she bravely explores the liminal spaces between guilt and forgiveness, life and death, grief and love, human society and the natural world.

Whether recounting the home birth of her second child, encounters with cougars, the fraught dynamics of mother-daughter relationships, the destructive power of wildfires, or the community bonds challenged by a tragic suicide, Easter’s writing is firmly grounded in place. She takes readers deep into the heart of a still-wild Oregon, perilous yet rich with natural beauty.

Written from one woman’s perspective as a mother, wife, and friend, All the Leavings is ultimately a book about love—for the child who faces a health crisis, for the friend dying of AIDS, for the one entangled by addiction who then disappears. Long after the final page is turned, it will resonate with readers interested in essays, memoir, alternative lifestyles, and the literature of the West.

Rooted in the ways Black women understand their lives, this collection archives practices of healing, mothering, and advocacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recognizing that Black women have been living in pandemics as far back as colonialism and enslavement, this volume acknowledges that records of the past—from the 1918 flu pandemic to the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic—often erase the existence and experiences of Black women as a whole. Writing against this archival erasure, this collection consciously recenters the real-time experiences and perspectives of care, policy concerns, grief, and joy of Black women throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nineteen contributors from interdisciplinary fields and diverse backgrounds explore Black feminine community, consciousness, ethics of care, spirituality, and social critique. They situate Black women’s multidimensional experiences with COVID-19 and other violences that affect their lives. The stories they tell are connected and interwoven, bound together by anti-Black gendered COVID necropolitics and commitments to creating new spaces for breathing, healing, and wellness.

Ultimately, this time-warping analysis shows how Black women imagine a more just society, rapidly adapt to changing experiences, and innovate ethics of care even in the midst of physical distancing, which can be instructive for thinking of new ways of living both during and beyond the era of COVID-19.

Contributors
Shamara Wyllie Alhassan
Sharnnia Artis
Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards
Candace S. Brown
Jenny Douglas
Kaja Dunn
Onisha Etkins
Rhonda M. Gonzales
Endia Hayes
Ashley E. Hollingshead
Kendra Jason
Julia S. Jordan-Zachery
Stacie LeSure
Janaka B. Lewis
Michelle Meggs
Nitya Mehrotra
Sherine Andreine Powerful
Marjorie Shavers
Breauna Marie Spencer
Tehia Starker Glass
Amber Walker

Winner of the ASA Race, Gender, and Class section's Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award

Winner of the ASA Racial and Ethnic Minorities section’s Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award

Laboring in the Shadow of Empire: Race, Gender, and Care Work in Portugal examines the everyday lives of an African-descendant care service workforce that labors in an ostensibly “anti-racial” Europe and against the backdrop of the Portuguese colonial empire. While much of the literature on global care work has focused on Asian and Latine migrant care workers, there is comparatively less research that explicitly examines African care workers and their migration histories to Europe. Sociologist Celeste Vaughan Curington focuses on Portugal—a European setting with comparatively liberal policies around family settlement and naturalization for migrants. In this setting, rapid urbanization in the late twentieth century, along with a national push to reconcile work and family, has shaped the growth of paid home care and cleaning service industries. Many researchers focus on informal work settings, where immigrant rights are restricted and many workers are undocumented or without permanent residence status. Curington instead examines workers who have accessed citizenship or permanent residence status and also explores African women’s experiences laboring in care and service industries in the formal market, revealing how deeply colonial and intersectional logics of a racialized and international division of reproductive labor in Portugal render these women “hyper-invisible” and “hyper-visible” as “appropriate” workers in Lisbon.

The inspiring life story of Minnesota’s first woman lieutenant governor: breaking political ground, navigating patriarchal tradition, and persevering through great personal loss

Marking a milestone for women in state government, Marlene M. Johnson became Minnesota’s first woman lieutenant governor under Rudy Perpich’s gubernatorial administration in January 1983. That same year, she met her husband, Peter, and their deeply loving relationship profoundly sustained her for twenty-seven years. Rise to the Challenge weaves these personal and professional stories together in a courageous portrait of dedication and leadership.

Growing up in rural Minnesota, Johnson began organizing and advocating for change early, beginning with a campaign to introduce foreign languages into her high school curriculum. Pursuing a deeply felt commitment to improving the lives of others, she continued to sharpen her leadership skills throughout her life, participating in activist work in college, cofounding organizations to support women entrepreneurs and politicians, and eventually running an international education nonprofit.

A stalwart supporter, her husband gave Marlene strength and encouragement to face the challenges of the political landscape and its gender biases. Then, in 2010, he suffered a traumatic brain injury that would change both of their lives. Learning how to be a medical advocate and, eventually, facing the sorrow of Peter’s death, Marlene relied on the hard-fought resilience and belief in herself that Peter had helped her to develop.

A story of learning and leadership in politics, business, and public service, Rise to the Challenge is a moving portrayal of spirit, perseverance, and grace in the face of daunting personal challenges, supported by unwavering faith in the public good.

The first English-language collection of Latina/x caregiving testimonios, this volume gives voice to diverse Chicana/x and Latina/x caregiving experiences. Bringing together thirteen first-person accounts, these testimonios speak to the tragic flaws in our health-care system and the woefully undervalued labor of providing care to family and community.

The book opens with an introductory chapter by the three co-editors, and then is divided into three sections exploring the caregiver voice, community caregiving, and reflections that outline a Caregiver Bill of Rights and present a call to action. Throughout, contributors discuss kinship care, including formal and informal adoptions, community care, caregiving in professional health contexts, and the implicit caregiving inherent in teaching BIPOC students, which largely falls upon faculty of color.

Testimonios of Care gives voice to those who often are voiceless in histories of caregiving and is guided by Chicana and Latina feminist principles, which include solidarity between women of color, empathy, willingness to challenge the patriarchal medical health-care systems, questioning traditional gender roles and idealization of familia, and caring for self while caring for loved ones and community.

Contributors
yvonne hurtado allen
Angie Chabram
Natalia Deeb-Sossa
Yvette G. Flores
Inés Hernández-Ávila
ire’ne lara silva
Josie Méndez-Negrete
Maria R. Palacios
Hector Rivera-Lopez
Maria Angelina Soldatenko
Anita Tijerina Revilla
Mónica Torreiro-Casal
Enriqueta Valdez-Curiel

In The Politics of Care Work, Emma Amador tells the story of Puerto Rican women’s involvement in political activism for social and economic justice in Puerto Rico and the United States throughout the twentieth century. Amador focuses on the experiences and contributions of Puerto Rican social workers, care workers, and caregivers who fought for the compensation of reproductive labor in society and the establishment of social welfare programs. These activists believed conflicts over social reproduction and care work were themselves high-stakes class struggles for women, migrants, and people of color. In Puerto Rico, they organized for women’s rights, socialism, labor standards, and Puerto Rican independence. They continued this work in the United States by advocating for migrant rights, participating in the civil rights movement, and joining Puerto Rican-led social movements. Amador shows how their relentless efforts gradually shifted the field of social work toward social justice and community-centered activism. The profound and enduring impact of their efforts on Puerto Rican communities underscores the crucial role of Puerto Rican women’s caregiving labor and activism in building and sustaining migrant communities.