In fear of becoming havens for illegal immigrants, numerous local communities adopted and implemented their own immigration laws during the 2000s. Suburban Crossroads chronicles the debates and policy responses that emerged over laws like the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, an...

The political debate over comprehensive immigration reform in the United States reached a pinnacle in 2006. When Congress failed to implement federal immigration reform, this spurred numerous local and state governments to confront immigration policy in their own jurisdictions. In fear of becoming sanctuaries for immigrants, numerous local communities confronted and implemented their own policies to limit immigration. Thomas J. Vicino unravels the political debate behind local ordinances such as the controversial Illegal Immigration Relief Act and similar laws. He examines the evolution of the struggle for local control in three cities and suburbs—beginning in Carpentersville, Illinois, then in Farmer’s Branch, Texas, and ending in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Drawing on numerous interviews, census data analysis, and field visits, Thomas J. Vicino carefully explains how and why the definition of local neighborhood problems determined the policy outcomes. These provocative findings offer new perspectives on the local and state immigration debate as well as new reflections on future directions in policy and planning for local communities.

Suburban Empire takes readers to the US missile base at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, at the matrix of postwar US imperial expansion, the Cold War nuclear arms race, and the tide of anti-colonial struggles rippling across the world. Hirshberg shows that the displacement of indigenous Marshallese within Kwajalein Atoll mirrors the segregation and spatial politics of the mainland US as local and global iterations of US empire took hold. Tracing how Marshall Islanders navigated US military control over their lands, Suburban Empire reveals that Cold War–era suburbanization was perfectly congruent with US colonization, military testing, and nuclear fallout. The structures of suburban segregation cloaked the destructive history of control and militarism under a veil of small-town innocence.

"In Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight, Eric Avila offers a unique argument about the restructuring of urban space in the two decades following World War II and the role played by new suburban spaces in dramatically transforming the political culture of the United States. Avila's work helps us see how and why the postwar suburb produced the political culture of 'balanced budget conservatism' that is now the dominant force in politics, how the eclipse of the New Deal since the 1970s represents not only a change of views but also an alteration of spaces."—George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Suburban High Book Two: Crossroads By: Talen Williams With a little help from this friends, both past and present, fourteen-year-old William Moon was able to overcome the nightmares of this past. Now he is committed to living his life as he promised the spirit of his childhood friend, April, he would. But Will isn’t the only one with unpleasant memories of the past. His friend, Nathan Stone, must confront the person who took his first love away. And Ashley Baker’s former-best-friend-turned-bitter-nemesis makes a surprising return. As Will continues to adapt to both life in the suburbs and in high school, he’s presented with choices that will either help him fulfill the promises he made to his friends, both old and new, or will cost him everything he’s accomplished so far.

‘His best novel yet ... A Middlemarch-like triumph’ Telegraph