City of Inmates, Kelly Lytle Hernandez
City of Inmates, Kelly Lytle Hernandez
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City of Inmates
Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965

Author: Kelly Lytle Hernández

Narrator: Lisa Reneé Pitts

Unabridged: 12 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/24/2020


Synopsis

City of Inmates explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration. But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

Author Bio

Kelly Lytle Hernandez holds the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair in History and directs the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. A 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient, she is the author of the award-winning books Migra! and City of Inmates. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

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