Violence Against Latina Immigrants
Roberta Villalon
Caught between violent partners and the bureaucratic complications of the US Immigration system, many immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse. For two years, Roberta Villalón volunteered at a nonprofit group that offers free legal services to mostly undocumented immigrants who had been victims of abuse. Her innovative study of Latina survivors of domestic violence explores the complexities at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, and violence, and shows how inequality is perpetuated even through the well-intentioned delivery of vital services. Through archival research, participant observation, and personal interviews, Violence Against Latina Immigrants provides insight into the many obstacles faced by battered immigrant women of color, bringing their stories and voices to the fore. Ultimately, Villalón proposes an active policy advocacy agenda and suggests possible changes to gender violence-based immigration laws, revealing the complexities of the lives of Latina immigrants as they confront issues of citizenship, gender violence, and social inequalities.
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About Roberta Villalon
Reviews for Violence Against Latina Immigrants
Jenell Navarro
Women's Studies
"Villalón is able to provide a nuanced analysis of immigration law in such a manner that ordinary individuals...can easily understand the contradictions that are codified in the laws...it is the preseverance of the women chornicled in the book...that remains with the reader long after finishing the last page."
Kristin Carbone-Lopez
Race and Justice
"[Villalón]'s book engages the reader with personal stories...[she] gives a well-written, detailed and sensitive account of how intersections of race, class, nationality and the bureaucratic complexities of the U.S. legal system affect the path to citizenship..."
Laurie Paul
Feminism & Psychology
"By going beyond 'abstract notions of agency' and giving concrete examples that are placed within a historical and social context, the authors uncover the multidimensionality of women's agency and the role that the multiple patterns of oppression have in restraining it."
Maria Isabel Ayala
Gender & Society
"Roberta Villalon's Violence Against Latina Immigrants tells a timely and compelling story illustrated by a refreshingly thorough application of ethnographic methods."
Karen James Williams
Journal of Immigrant Minority Health
"A stunning documentation of the ways in which structural and cultural conditions in current immigration and Violence Against Women laws in the United States reinforce the hierarchies and intersections of race, class, and heterosexuality that impact on the lives of battered Latina immigrants."
Natalie J. Sokoloff,author of Domestic Violence at the Margins: Readings in Race, Class, Gender, and Culture "By locating the experiences of immigrant women and their advocates within a rich ethnographic study of state policies and organizational practices, Villalón paints a complex picture of the contradictions that contribute to the reproduction of inequality. This is activist scholarship at its best."
Nancy A. Naples,author of Grassroots Warriors: Activist Mothering, Community Work and the War Against Poverty "This book has a lot to offer and can be read as an analysis of an organization, how its vision changed from the pursuit for social justice when they were a grass roots group to providing a social service as the organization became formalized and professionalized and in the process more cautious about social change.The book is also an important contribution to other fields, notably women and immigration and violence against women as well as sociological and citizenship studies."
Social Forces