
City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 by American historian Kelly Lytle Hernández
From the MacArthur Foundation: Hernández is honored for “challenging long-held beliefs about the origins, ideology, and evolution of incarceration and immigrant detention practices in the United States.”
Kelly Lytle Hernández is a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her 2010 book Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol is considered the first academic history of the organization. Her latest book, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, chronicles how Los Angeles became the No. 1 incarcerator city in the country. The Journal of American History calls it “a beautifully narrated, deeply insightful historical assessment of the dynamics of American settler colonialism.”