Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"You have to take the children away"--Donald Trump
Scenes of children of asylum-seekers being torn from their parents' arms at the American border have riveted the world's attention. Many Americans are shocked and ashamed at what's happening in our country's name. Yet as this urgent book shows, the most vulnerable amongst us have always been under the threat of losing our children.
Taking Children provocatively argues that the very statecraft of the United States has depended on taking children for over two hundred years. Black children, Native children, Latino children, and the children of gay people and the poor have all been seized from their families. As Laura Briggs' sweeping but concise narrative shows, the practice existed on the slave block, in the boarding schools meant to civilize the Native American population, in the growth of the foster care system, in the US's anti-Communist coups in Central America, and in the moral panic about "crack babies." In chilling detail we see that every US administration since Reagan has put the children of immigrants and refugees in detention camps and we continue to do so today. Yet this history of terror has met resistance from every generation, and Laura Briggs inspires our generation to stand up and resist in this powerful corrective to American history.
Synopsis
"You have to take the children away"--Donald Trump
Taking Children provocatively argues that the United States has taken children for political ends for four hundred years. Black children, Native children, Latinx children, and the children of the poor have all been seized from their families. As Laura Briggs' sweeping but concise narrative shows, the practice existed on the auction block, in the boarding schools designed to pacify the Native American population, in the growth of the foster care system to put down the Black freedom movement, in the US's anti-Communist coups in Central America, and in the moral panic about "crack babies." In chilling detail we see how Central Americans were made into a population that could be stripped of their children and that every US administration beginning with Reagan has put children of immigrants and refugees in detention camps. Yet this history of terror has met resistance from every generation, and Laura Briggs challenges us to stand and resist in this powerful corrective to American history.