Aviva Chomsky

Explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic and historical context In this illuminating work, immigrant rights activist Aviva Chomsky shows how “illegality” and “undocumentedness” are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. With a focus on US policy, she probes how people, especially Mexican and Central Americans, have been assigned this status—and to what ends. Blending history with human drama, Chomsky explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic, and historical context. The result is a powerful testament of the complex, contradictory, and ever-shifting nature of status in America.

How Immigration Became Illegal

Undocumented

Restores the region's fraught history of repression and resistance to popular consciousness and connects the United States' interventions and influence to the influx of refugees seeking asylum today. At the center of the current immigration debate are migrants from Central America fleeing poverty, corruption, and violence in search of asylum in the United States. In Central America's Forgotten History, Aviva Chomsky answers the urgent question "How did we get here?" She outlines how we often fail to remember the circumstances and ongoing effects of Central America's historical political strife, which is a direct result of colonial and neocolonial development policies and the cultures of violence and forgetting needed to implement them. Chomsky expertly recounts Central Americans' valiant struggles for social and economic justice to restore these vivid and gripping events to popular consciousness. She traces the roots of displacement and migration in Central America to the Spanish conquest and brings us to the present day, where she concludes that the more immediate roots of migration from the three Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) lie in the wars and in the US interventions of the 1980s and the peace accords of the 1990s that set the stage for neoliberalism in Central America. Chomsky also examines how and why histories and memories are suppressed, and the impact of losing historical memory. Only by erasing history can we claim that Central American countries created their own poverty and violence, while the United States' enjoyment and profit from their bananas, coffee, vegetables, clothing, and export of arms are simply unrelated curiosities. Central America's Forgotten History shows that if we want to create a more just world, we need to acknowledge the many layers of complicity and forgetting that underlie today's inequalities.

Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

Central America's Forgotten History

A History of the Cuban Revolution presents a concise socio-historical account of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, an event that continues to spark debate 50 years later. Balances a comprehensive overview of the political and economic events of the revolution with a look at the revolution’s social impact Provides a lively, on-the-ground look at the lives of ordinary people Features both U.S. and Cuban perspectives to provide a complete and well-rounded look at the revolution and its repercussions Encourages students to understand history through the viewpoint of individuals living it Selected as a 2011 Outstanding Academic Title by CHOICE

A History of the Cuban Revolution

"They take our jobs!": and 20 other myths about immigration

Matt Vidal

Neil Larsen

Ramaa Vasudevan

Alex Gourevitch

Abbie Rhodes

Prospects for left renewal dominate this issue of Catalyst. Around the world, progressive forces continue to rebuild after decades retreat. In the process, fundamental questions of strategy are reemerging — from organized labor to electoral strategy to the function of culture and ideology in solidifying capitalist domination.

This issue asks not only how we might achieve power, but what we should prioritize once we have it. We question both the theory and viability of fashionable post-work utopias, give political context to the leftist victory in Colombia’s recent election, which broke with decades of right-wing rule, and analyze how socialists should think about public debt. We also turn a critical eye on C. L. R. James’s cricket memoir Beyond a Boundary and debunk the new discourse on “decoloniality,” the latest incarnation of postcolonial studies.

Vol.6, No.2

Catalyst

Why social, racial, and economic justice is just as crucial as science in determining how humans can reverse climate catastrophe. We are facing a climate catastrophe. A plethora of studies describe the damage we’ve already done, the droughts, the wildfires, the super-storms, the melting glaciers, the heat waves, and the displaced people fleeing lands that are becoming uninhabitable. Many people understand that we are facing a climate emergency, but may be fuzzy on technical, policy, and social justice aspects. In Is Science Enough?, Aviva Chomsky breaks down the concepts, terminology, and debates for activists, students, and anyone concerned about climate change. She argues that science is not enough to change course: we need put social, racial, and economic justice front and center and overhaul the global growth economy. Chomsky’s accessible primer focuses on 5 key issues: 1) Technical questions: What exactly are “clean,” “renewable,” and “zero-emission” energy sources? How much do different sectors (power generation, transportation, agriculture, industry, etc.) contribute to climate change? Can forests serve as a carbon sink? 2) Policy questions: What is the Green New Deal? How does a cap-and-trade system work? How does the United States subsidize the fossil fuel industry? 3) What can I do as an individual?: Do we need to consume less? What kinds of individual actions can make the most difference? Should we all be vegetarians? 4) Social, racial, and economic justice: What’s the relationship of inequality to climate change? What do race and racism have to do with climate change? How are pandemics related to climate change? 5) Broadening the lens: What is economic growth? How important is it, and how does it affect the environment? What is degrowth?

Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice

Is Science Enough?

A fully-revised and updated new edition of a concise and insightful socio-historical analysis of the Cuban revolution, and the course it took over five and a half decades. Now available in a fully-revised second edition, including new material to add to the book’s coverage of Cuba over the past decade under Raul Castro All of the existing chapters have been updated to reflect recent scholarship Balances social and historical insight into the revolution with economic and political analysis extending into the twenty-first century Juxtaposes U.S. and Cuban perspectives on the historical impact of the revolution, engaging and debunking the myths and preconceptions surrounding one of the most formative political events of the twentieth century Incorporates more student-friendly features such as a timeline and glossary

Barry Carr

Pamela Maria Smorkaloff

Cuba is often perceived in starkly black and white terms—either as the site of one of Latin America’s most successful revolutions or as the bastion of the world’s last communist regime. The Cuba Reader multiplies perspectives on the nation many times over, presenting more than one hundred selections about Cuba’s history, culture, and politics. Beginning with the first written account of the island, penned by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the selections assembled here track Cuban history from the colonial period through the ascendancy of Fidel Castro to the present. The Cuba Reader combines songs, paintings, photographs, poems, short stories, speeches, cartoons, government reports and proclamations, and pieces by historians, journalists, and others. Most of these are by Cubans, and many appear for the first time in English. The writings and speeches of José Martí, Fernando Ortiz, Fidel Castro, Alejo Carpentier, Che Guevera, and Reinaldo Arenas appear alongside the testimonies of slaves, prostitutes, doctors, travelers, and activists. Some selections examine health, education, Catholicism, and santería; others celebrate Cuba’s vibrant dance, music, film, and literary cultures. The pieces are grouped into chronological sections. Each section and individual selection is preceded by a brief introduction by the editors. The volume presents a number of pieces about twentieth-century Cuba, including the events leading up to and following Castro’s January 1959 announcement of revolution. It provides a look at Cuba in relation to the rest of the world: the effect of its revolution on Latin America and the Caribbean, its alliance with the Soviet Union from the 1960s until the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, and its tumultuous relationship with the United States. The Cuba Reader also describes life in the periodo especial following the cutoff of Soviet aid and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. For students, travelers, and all those who want to know more about the island nation just ninety miles south of Florida, The Cuba Reader is an invaluable introduction.

History, Culture, Politics

The Cuba Reader

This collection of essays by the historian and activist Aviva Chomsky includes work on topics ranging from immigration, to labor history, to popular culture. Chomsky’s incisive prose brings the perspective of a historian to bear on current events in a way that adds depth and nuance to topics that are of the utmost importance at this moment in world history. Unwanted People fits into Chomsky’s larger project to debunk the mythical history of the United States as a nation of immigrants or a melting pot. Her work uncovers centuries of racially motivated immigration policies that inform the current rhetoric surrounding immigration and displaced peoples. Her essays build on that foundation and expand into new territory. Exploring history as a discipline that works from the ground up rather than from the top down, Chomsky challenges the dominant narratives and gives voice to disenfranchised and unwanted people. Touching on topics from revolutionary violence and race to colonialism and its aftermath, this collection of lucid thoughts reveals the hidden histories of the people who shape our modern political and economic landscape.

Unwanted People

Alfredo Prieto

Tracking Cuban history from 1492 to the present, The Cuba Reader includes more than one hundred selections that present myriad perspectives on Cuba's history, culture, and politics. The volume foregrounds the experience of Cubans from all walks of life, including slaves, prostitutes, doctors, activists, and historians. Combining songs, poetry, fiction, journalism, political speeches, and many other types of documents, this revised and updated second edition of The Cuba Reader contains over twenty new selections that explore the changes and continuities in Cuba since Fidel Castro stepped down from power in 2006. For students, travelers, and all those who want to know more about the island nation just ninety miles south of Florida, The Cuba Reader is an invaluable introduction.

Restores the region’s fraught history of repression and resistance to popular consciousness and connects the United States' interventions and influence to the influx of refugees seeking asylum today. At the center of the current immigration debate are migrants from Central America fleeing poverty, corruption, and violence in search of refuge in the United States. In Central America’s Forgotten History, Aviva Chomsky answers the urgent question “How did we get here?” Centering the centuries-long intertwined histories of US expansion and Indigenous and Central American struggles against inequality and oppression, Chomsky highlights the pernicious cycle of colonial and neocolonial development policies that promote cultures of violence and forgetting without any accountability or restorative reparations. Focusing on the valiant struggles for social and economic justice in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras, Chomsky restores these vivid and gripping events to popular consciousness. Tracing the roots of displacement and migration in Central America to the Spanish conquest and bringing us to the present day, she concludes that the more immediate roots of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras lie in the wars and in the US interventions of the 1980s and the peace accords of the 1990s that set the stage for neoliberalism in Central America. Chomsky also examines how and why histories and memories are suppressed, and the impact of losing historical memory. Only by erasing history can we claim that Central American countries created their own poverty and violence, while the United States’ enjoyment and profit from their bananas, coffee, mining, clothing, and export of arms are simply unrelated curiosities.

An analysis of migration, labor-management collaboration, and the mobility of capital based on case studies in New England and Colombia.

New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class

Linked Labor Histories

Revised edition of the author's "They take our jobs!," c2007.

And 20 Other Myths about Immigration

"They Take Our Jobs!"

Daniel James

Andrew Gordon

Aldo Lauria-Santiago

Identity and Struggle at the Margins of the Nation-State brings together new research on the social history of Central America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Aviva Chomsky and Aldo A. Lauria Santiago have gathered both well-known and emerging scholars to demonstrate how the actions and ideas of rural workers, peasants, migrants, and women formed an integral part of the growth of the export economies of the era and to examine the underacknowledged impact such groups had on the shaping of national histories. Responding to the fact that the more common, elite-centered “national” histories distort or erase the importance of gender, race, ethnicity, popular consciousness, and identity, contributors to this volume correct this imbalance by moving these previously overlooked issues to the center of historical research and analysis. In so doing, they describe how these marginalized working peoples of the Hispanic Caribbean Basin managed to remain centered on not only class-based issues but on a sense of community, a desire for dignity, and a struggle for access to resources. Individual essays include discussions of plantation justice in Guatemala, highland Indians in Nicaragua, the effects of foreign corporations in Costa Rica, coffee production in El Salvador, banana workers in Honduras, sexuality and working-class feminism in Puerto Rico, the Cuban sugar industry, agrarian reform in the Dominican Republic, and finally, potential directions for future research and historiography on Central America and the Caribbean. This collection will have a wide audience among Caribbeanists and Central Americanists, as well as students of gender studies, and labor, social, Latin American, and agrarian history. Contributors. Patricia Alvarenga, Barry Carr, Julie A. Charlip, Aviva Chomsky, Dario Euraque, Eileen Findlay, Cindy Forster, Jeffrey L. Gould, Lowell Gudmundson, Aldo A. Lauria Santiago, Francisco Scarano, Richard Turits

Aviva Chomsky

About

Books

Join the club