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Social Death 6RFLDO'HDWK Lisa Marie Cacho 3XEOLVKHGE\1<83UHVV For additional information about this book http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780814723777 Access provided by Indiana University Libraries (18 Sep 2014 09:55 GMT) Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Violence of Value 1 1. White Entitlement and Other People’s Crimes 35 2. Beyond Ethical Obligation 61 3. Grafting Terror onto Illegality 97 4. Immigrant Rights versus Civil Rights 115 Conclusion: Racialized Hauntings of the Devalued Dead 147 Notes 169 Index 213 About the Author 224 >> vii This page intentionally left blank 6RFLDO'HDWK Lisa Marie Cacho 3XEOLVKHGE\1<83UHVV For additional information about this book http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780814723777 Access provided by Indiana University Libraries (18 Sep 2014 09:55 GMT) Acknowledgments This has been a difficult book for me to write, and because it was, I had to rely on many people during all its stages. While I claim all its flaws and short- comings, the people I acknowledge in these pages helped me conceptualize and clarify all its best and most interesting parts. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge Liz Gonzalez, my first-rate research assistant; I would not have been able to come close to deadlines without her. I extend my ap- preciation to her with deep sincerity. Kevin Dolan’s early edits provided me with expert help in clarifying my arguments and making the book clearer overall. His assistance, too, was invaluable. Eric Zinner, the best editor ever, has been more than supportive of this project. I am so grateful for all his help, his patience, and his persistence. I also thank Eric for choosing my excellent reviewers. My anonymous review- ers and my non-anonymous reviewer, James Kyung-Jin Lee, pushed the book in important directions I didn’t even know it could go. I believe it is a much better book because of their comments and critiques, recommendations and encouragement, and I really appreciate the care and attention that each per- son provided. At the University of Illinois, I’ve been lucky to have support from the Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society and from the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, where I completed my postdoctoral fellow- ship. I thank the university for granting me humanities release time, and I thank the Latina/Latino Studies department for awarding me much needed course release right before tenure. I’ve been fortunate and privileged to work with exceptional faculty on this campus. I would like to recognize my col- leagues Ricky T. Rodríguez, Eileen Díaz McConnell, Mireya Loza, Jonathan Inda, Julie Dowling, Edna Viruell-Fuentes, Gilberto Rosa, Alejandro Lugo, Rolando Romero, Arlene Torres, William Berry, Yutian Wong, Junaid Rana, Moon-kie Jung, Susan Koshy, Yoon Pak, Nancy Abelman, Esther Lee, Caro- line Yang, Augusto Espiritu, Lisa Nakamura, Kent Ono, Karen Flynn, Ruth Nicole Brown, David Roediger, Antonia Darder, Jose Capino, Adrian Burgos, Dara Goldman, Clarence Lang, Erik McDuffy, Mark Perry, C. L. Cole, and Sundiata Cha-Jua. I also thank Siobhan Somerville for making the campus >> ix x<<Acknowledgments such a productive space for intellectual engagement by bringing scholars to campus, and I thank her for reading pieces of my work and offering me very helpful comments. To Martin Manalansan and Angharad Valdivia, I owe a special thanks as my senior faculty mentors in Asian American Studies and Latina/La- tino Studies. As they learned, I am not an easy person to mentor. I am grateful for their invaluable insights about my research, teaching, and pro- fessionalization. I also thank Martin and Anghy for helping me to navi- gate the more difficult aspects of a joint appointment, for being advocates and strategists, and for having confidence in me when my own tended to waver. This book itself would not have been possible to write without the men- torship of the brilliant scholars who taught me how to be thoughtful, careful, analytical, and responsible. George Lipsitz’s support has been essential, and I am grateful that he has always been so giving. His remarkable ability to find hope anywhere in anything can make writing about the most depressing topics still rewarding. Yen Espiritu, Lisa Lowe, and Denise Ferreira da Silva have always pushed me intellectually as well as supported me professionally and personally. I thank Denise Ferreira da Silva for training me to be smart enough to read her book and teach it and for teaching me how to question what is easier to take for granted. I thank Lisa Lowe for teaching me to look for the politics of poetics, for making literature so important to life, and for helping me to articulate what I mean to say. I would not be where I am — in fact, I would not be who I am — had I not had the privilege of working with Yen Le Espiritu. Yen’s undergraduate ethnic studies class gave my life a new story and a new direction. And in graduate school and afterward, I carried around her books as models for how to make and write smart arguments as clearly as possible. Whenever I have one of those teaching moments — when what I’ve been saying finally “clicks” — I believe I am channeling Yen Le Espiritu. While my committee members trained me to be careful and socially ac- countable, the men and women with whom I spent most of my free time during graduate school taught me how to take risks, how to find my writing voice, and most importantly, how to ask questions that I was not yet smart enough to answer. (If only they could have given me the answers too . .) After talking with the occupants of the Marlborough House and their many guests, I always left awed, inspired, and humbled — I am ever grateful to and still inspired by Albert Lowe, Barry Masuda, Boone Nguyen, and Randall Williams. I thank Randy also for reading parts of this manuscript and for al- ways being so generous with his time and expertise. Ofelia Cuevas and Tony Acknowledgments >> xi Tiongson — I thank both for going through all the hard parts of graduate school with me and for making it worthwhile. I also feel indebted to Grace Hong, Rod Ferguson, Chandan Reddy, Vic- tor Bascara, Gregory Lobo, Dylan Rodríguez, Rachel Buff, Suzanne Oboler, Jane Rhodes, Jordana Rosenberg, and Mike Murashige for producing and supporting paradigm-shifting work that has been really important to my in- tellectual development as a scholar. I thank Jodi Melamed for exchanging her amazing work with me and providing me with thoughtful comments. I thank Helen Jun for being brilliant and giving, for making sure I don’t take myself too seriously, and for always making it worth waiting for the next high tide. Ruby Tapia always gave me the help I never could ask for and that I didn’t always know I needed. I thank Ruby for being a beautiful writer, profound scholar, and beloved friend, whom I can always count on to take my side. When I first came to Urbana-Champaign, people told me it was like the Berkeley of the Midwest. That’s not true at all, but because Urbana-Cham- paign lacks the wonderful distractions of urban spaces, I’ve made relation- ships here that nurture and sustain me. I thank Steve Hocker for intellectu- ally engaging conversations and delicious desserts. I thank Ian Sprandel for feeding me, fixing my clothes, worrying about me, and for keeping me smart outside my areas of knowledge and always in the most entertaining way pos- sible. I thank Luciano Molina-Sprandel for reminding us to let hope happen and for motivating us to look for everyday magic. I thank Soo Ah Kwon for her friendship, support, and remarkable ability to make sure we’re all on task. I also thank Soo Ah, Dustin Allred, and Max for hosting gourmet dinners and spontaneous activities afterward to burn all the calories. I am thank- ful to Fiona Ngô for being a wonderful writing partner, careful reader, and easygoing deadline enforcer. I am grateful to her for being generous with her time, for keeping me on track, and for helping me let the work go. Fiona has read many parts of the manuscript at various stages, and for this I am deeply thankful. When I get lost in my own words, her genius always points me in the right direction. I thank Mimi Nguyen, who has read very difficult drafts of this book and yet somehow still understood it; I’m especially grateful that she helped me organize it and clarify it so that others could understand it too. I am very appreciative that Mimi has been so generous with her time and her expertise, so giving in all her friendships. For Isabel Molina-Guzmán, my gratitude overwhelms me. From “check- ins” through tenure, from drafting to revising, Isabel has worked through this book with me on so many levels. I thank her for helping me to work through arguments, brainstorm examples, talk out contradictions, and find “what’s another word for . ?” It has been my honor to work with her in the xii << Acknowledgments truest sense of the word. I thank Isabel for caring so much and for working so hard, for always being right and for putting herself wholeheartedly into everything she does. I profoundly appreciate that she uses her many powers for good — fierce and savvy, courageous and passionate, brilliant and incred- ibly stubborn. I thank her for ensuring that travelling with her is always an adventure and that everyday life in Champaign is amusing, exciting, rejuve- nating, and precious.
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