NPR’s “Books We Love” 2021

Best Books of 2021

“Best nonfiction book” 2021

BEST of phoenix - phoenix new times

Southwest BookS of the year 2022

top pick - nonfiction

Investigative reporters and editors 2022 FINALIST BOOK CATEGORY

arizona new mexico book award 2022

first place multicultural books

“BEst Immigration book” 2021

IMMIGRATION PROF BLOG

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media

NPR Books We Love ~ The Los Angeles Review of Books ~ The Border Chronicle ~ The Arizona Mirror ~ The Arizona Republic ~ KAWC Part One ~ KAWC Part Two ~ The Zeitgeist with Jane Roper ~ Axios ~ UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration and UCSD Center for Comparative Immigration Studies ~ The Daily Beast ~ High Country News ~ Slate ~ NBC 12 Sunday Square Off ~Texas Public Radio ~ Conversations Live ~ Arizona PBS Horizon ~ East Side Freedom Library ~ Now This News ~ KJZZ Here and Now ~ Here and Now NPR ~ Copper Courier ~ WORT FM ~ Wade Rathke - Latin Post ~ Guardian ~ Immigration Prof ~ ASU Now ~ Cronkite ~ Agencia EFE ~ New America ~ Kirkus ~ PHOENIX Magazine ~ Nicole Sandler ~ KTAR Think Tank ~ Azcentral ~ Jefferson Public Radio ~ ABC 15 News ~ Immigration Prof Guest Blog ~ What Matters Most Podcast ~ Arizona Daily Star ~ Berkeley Public Library ~ ~ Harvard Bookstore ~ Phoenix Magazine ~

events

March 12-13, 2022

Tucson Festival of Books - This is very exciting! For more information on this remarkable event, which is mostly outdoors, click here.

JANUARY 28, 2022

“Lessons From the Front: The Fight for Immigrant and Latinx Rights in Arizona.” University of Arizona Law School 12p.m. to 1:15 p.m. - Virtual and in person - Free. Register here for in person. Register here for Zoom. Free lunch for in-person folks!!

JANUARY 26, 2022

Arizona Authors Series - Online only - Sponsored by Arizona State Library - 1-2 p.m. To register, click here.

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Ohio State University College of Law

NOVEMBER 12, 2021

The Nonfiction Sessions - Goucher College — 2 p.m. Arizona Time - 4 p.m. Eastern - To register click here.

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

ASU Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law - in person event 5:30 p.m.

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Brattleboro Literary Festival - In virtual conversation with Bryan Burrough - 2-3 p.m. Arizona Time; 5-6 p.m. Eastern

september 28, 2021

In virtual conversation with District 28 Democrats book club. 6:30 p.m. Az time. All welcome. To register click here.

AUGUST 11, 2021

In conversation with Cronkite School book club.

July 29, 2021

Commonwealth Club - in conversation with Michelle Meow and John Zipperer 12 p.m. Pacific/AZ - Details and register here.

July 14, 2021

National Association of Hispanic Journalists - in conversation with Valeria Fernandez - 8 a.m. Pacific/AZ

june 26, 2021

Arizona State University - in conversation with fellows of Study of United States Institute - 7 a.m. AZ/ Pacific

June 26, 2021

The Last Negroes at Harvard Podcast -in conversation with Kent Garrett - 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific

June 14, 2021

Berkeley Public Library - in conversation with Monica Campbell - 4 p.m. AZ and PDT, 7 p.m. EDT. Details and register here.

June 10, 2021

The Zeitgeist - in conversation with Jane Roper - Streamed live on YouTube and Facebook. 1 p.m. AZ & PDT - 4 p.m. EDT. Details to follow.

May 27, 2021

Bookworks Bookstore - in conversation with Russell Contreras - 5 p.m AZ and Pacific, 6 p.m. Central, 8 p.m. Eastern - for registration, click here.

MAY 14, 2021

Harvard Bookstore, Cambridge, Massachusetts in conversation with Walter V. Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winner and leader of the Boston Globe’s famous Spotlight Team - 9 a.m. AZ/Pacific, 12 p.m. Eastern - For info/registration, click here.

MAY 14, 2021

UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration and UCSD Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, in conversation with Amada Armenta, Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA 12 p.m. AZ & PDT/ 3 p.m. EDT. For information and registration, click here.

MAY 11, 2021

Center for the Future of Arizona, ASU Center on the Future of War. 5:30 p.m. PDT/8:30 p.m. EDT. Book presentation and discussion. For registration click here.

APRIL 28, 2021

New America—In Conversation with New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer 9 a.m. AZ/Pacific; 12 p.m. Eastern, for registration click here.

APRIL 21, 2021

In Conversation with Alberto Ríos, Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate and the director of the Virginia Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU. Sign up in advance for a free ticket or purchase a book with your ticket. 6 p.m. AZ/Pacific and 9 p.m. Eastern. Registration click here.

APRIL 20 2021

In conversation with Tom O’Connell, East Side Freedom Library, St. Paul, Minnesota 5 p.m. AZ/Pacific ; 7 p.m. Central, 8 p.m. Eastern. Registration information here.

APRIL 19, 2021

In conversation with Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor Rick Rodriguez, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University 6 p.m. Arizona and Pacific time and 9 p.m. Eastern. For registration, click here.

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What people are saying

“As engaging as it is enraging…a superb job of reintroducing people into the discussion and exposing how white supremacy is the unspoken root of much of today’s political discourse…a necessary read that is more than a biography of a blowhard sheriff—it is a chronicle of how seemingly impossible battles are the ones that matter most.”

Gabino Iglesias, The Los Angeles Review of Books

Long before Donald J. Trump, there was Joe Arpaio, the Bull Connor-esque sheriff notorious for his mistreatment of immigrants and Latinos in Arizona’s largest county. But the authors of Driving While Brown have masterfully documented the previously unknown story of the Latino activists who organized to bring him down and help turn Arizona into a new battleground state. Investigative journalism, storytelling, at its best.
— Alfredo Corchado, author of Midnight in Mexico and Homelands
Arpaio is, if it’s possible, even Trumpier than Trump. This splendid book is a lively portrait of a demagogic anti-immigration crusader and the people who helped bring him down. But the authors have nonetheless let Arpaio’s own voice be heard, and have listened carefully to people on both sides of the immigration debate that seems certain to rage for decades to come.
— Adam Hochschild, author of Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays
This is combustible nonfiction: an irresistible subject, a white sheriff so consumed by the perceived threat of brown immigrants that he’ll defy the federal judiciary. Add two of the best reporters in the Southwest—really, anywhere—and you get a searing, decades-long portrait of racism in America and the criminal justice system that has perpetuated it, and the deconstruction of an ignorant and self-absorbed elected official who is very much like the president who pardoned him. To read this book is to understand America in the twenty-first century.
— Walter V. Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winner, leader of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team that inspired the Academy Award–winning film Spotlight
Driving While Brown is an engaging chronicle of hate disguised as populism, from its short shelf life to how it inspired courageous activists to stand up, push back, and launch a movement that’s remaking our political landscape.
— Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, PBS Public Editor and coauthor of The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement
In Driving While Brown, Greene Sterling and Joffe-Block expertly fill in the blanks and connect the dots to build a compelling, comprehensive narrative of the immigration battles that have defined and redefined Arizona, offering a window into the ethnic and racial animus in the United States today and the transformative power of hope and purpose shared by younger generations. This is a book for our times.
— Fernanda Santos, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post and author of The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
As Arizona goes, so goes the nation, according to this searing book of reportage from Phoenix.

Joe Arpaio liked to call himself “America’s toughest sheriff.” A New England transplant to Phoenix, he ran for sheriff at an age when most of his peers were retiring, winning on a law-and-order ticket that targeted undocumented immigrants. Journalists Sterling and Joffe-Block were there for much of Arpaio’s 24-year tenure, during which he became infamous for housing inmates in tents in the summer heat and serving them “gloppy, tasteless, and sometimes moldy” food. As the authors note, Arpaio was an early ally of Donald Trump. Importantly, he also set the stage for Trump by making villains of undocumented workers and by ignoring numerous court orders to cease race-based policing. In the end, that led to a conviction for contempt of court, which might have earned Arpaio jail time but instead led to a Trump pardon. Inarguably, Arpaio’s strong-arm tactics had an effect: “One estimate found that about 92,000 unauthorized immigrants of working age—about 17 percent of that cohort—left Arizona between 2008 and 2009.” Sterling and Joffe-Block diligently chronicle the work of immigration rights activists and undocumented workers while also focusing closely on Arpaio, who, like Trump, professed to despise the press while craving its attention. They also turn in shocking stories of official malfeasance, including a case where a sheriff’s deputy victimized innocent suspects and malefactors alike, stealing a garage full of evidence, including Schedule 1 narcotics. Yet he was kept on the force because he produced “high stats,” immigrant arrests that enhanced Arpaio’s bragging rights. Finally turned out of office, Arpaio lost a primary race for U.S. Senate to a Republican candidate who herself lost because Arizona was turning blue—one reason for which, the authors hint, was a direct repudiation of Arpaio and his policies.

Though it runs a touch long, this is a work of exemplary reporting.
— KIRKUS Reviews