In the press release announcing the WOLA-Duke award, Broughton observes that “After an election cycle filled with divisive sloganeering about trade and immigration, I believe it’s critical to move beyond demagoguery in order to understand these complex social and policy issues as they are felt in the everyday lives of working people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. I hope “Boom, Bust, Exodus” has contributed to the effort to amplify their voices and their cause.”
Recommended Reading: “Boom, Bust, Exodus,” A Nuanced Account of Globalization and Dislocation in Two Cities
This year’s Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)-Duke Human Rights Book Award goes to “Boom, Bust, Exodus: The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities” (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Authored by University of Chicago lecturer Chad Broughton, the book “uses a transnational and longitudinal approach to tell a human and humane story of the NAFTA-era from the point of view of those most caught up in its dislocation. These include former industrial workers and their families in the Rust Belt; assemblers and activists in the borderland factories known as maquiladoras; and migrant laborers from the Mexican countryside.” The Chicago Tribune calls the book “exhaustive and rewarding.” The Publisher’s Weekly review reports that “Broughton has written a powerful indictment of corporate greed and poor public policy, balanced by a tribute to the perseverance of the working-class people of two nations.”