Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance

by Terry Greene Sterling, Jude Joffe-Block

Overview

"A smart, well-documented book about a group of people determined to hold the powerful to account."—2021 NPR "Books We Love" 
"Journalism at its best."—2022 Southwest Books of the Year: Top Pick
A 2021 Immigration Book of the Year, Immigration Prof Blog
Investigative Reporters & Editors Book Award Finalist 2021

How Latino activists brought down powerful Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Journalists Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block spent years chronicling the human consequences of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s relentless immigration enforcement in Maricopa County, Arizona. In Driving While Brown, they tell the tale of two opposing movements that redefined Arizona’s political landscape—the restrictionist cause advanced by Arpaio and the Latino-led resistance that rose up against it.

The story follows Arpaio, his supporters, and his adversaries, including Lydia Guzman, who gathered evidence for a racial-profiling lawsuit that took surprising turns. Guzman joined a coalition determined to stop Arpaio, reform unconstitutional policing, and fight for Latino civil rights. Driving While Brown details Arpaio's transformation—from "America’s Toughest Sheriff," who forced inmates to wear pink underwear, into the nation’s most feared immigration enforcer who ended up receiving President Donald Trump’s first pardon. The authors immerse readers in the lives of people on both sides of the battle and uncover the deep roots of the Trump administration's immigration policies.

The result of tireless investigative reporting, this powerful book provides critical insights into effective resistance to institutionalized racism and the community organizing that helped transform Arizona from a conservative stronghold into a battleground state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520294080
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/20/2021
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,117,660
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Terry Greene Sterling is affiliated faculty and writer-in-residence at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. She is the author of Illegal. Her writing has been published in the Washington Post, the Rolling Stone, Newsweek, the Atlantic, Slate, the Daily Beast, the Village Voice, High Country News, the Guardian, the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, and other publications. Greene Sterling is Editor-at-Large for the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.

Jude Joffe-Block joined the Associated Press as a reporter and editor in 2020. Before that, she reported on immigration for more than a decade for outlets that include NPR, the Guardian, The World and Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. She was a visiting journalist at the Russell Sage Foundation and a fellow with New America, the Center for the Future of Arizona, and the Logan Nonfiction Program while coauthoring this book. She began her journalism career in Mexico.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Authors' Note xv

List of Selected People in This Book xix

Maps xxiii

Prologue: Lydia and the Sheriff (2017) xxv

Part I Origins (1848-2006)

1 An Immigrant's Son (1923-1993) 3

2 The Valley Girl (1967-1997) 17

3 What Made Arizona Chicanos (1848-1983) 28

4 Restrictionism Takes Root (2003-2005) 44

5 Arpaio Transformed (2005-2006) 51

Part II Battles (2006-2016)

6 The Movement Rises Up (2006) 65

7 Hopes and Letdowns (2006-2007) 73

8 Cave Creek (2007) 84

9 Tensions at a Phoenix Furniture Store (2007) 97

10 Mayonnaise Tacos and Easter Baskets (2008) 109

11 Payback (2008-2009) 120

12 Drowning in a Glass of Water (2010) 139

13 Licking Their Chops (2009-2012) 156

14 Driving While Brown (2012) 169

15 Why Are You Trembling? (2012-2013) 183

16 "Ganamos!" (2013-2014) 195

17 Conspiracy Theories and Videos (2013-2015) 205

18 "Build the Wall!" (2015-2016) 223

19 Bazta Arpaio (2016) 238

Part III Changes (2016-2019)

20 The National Arpaio (2016-2017) 253

21 The Rescue (2017) 265

22 I Don't Want It to Come Back (2017-2019) 274

Afterword (2020 and Beyond) 293

Acknowledgments 301

Appendix I Selected Arizona Immigration Laws 305

Appendix II Selected Federal Lawsuits 309

On Sources 313

Notes 315

List of Author Interviews 359

Bibliography of Unpublished Sources 363

Index 369

Editorial Reviews

"As engaging as it is enraging. . . . Greene Sterling and Joffe-Block do a superb job. . . . Driving While Brown [is] 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."
 

Los Angeles Review of Books

"Immigration Book of the Year"

Immigration Prof Blog

"An ‘I-can’t-put-it-down’ book. Even as one who has followed the career of Arpaio for over 25 years, I found it fascinating to learn in detail of the grass-roots movement that arose in opposition to his policies. . . . The authors don’t just relate events, they tell the stories of some of the most noteworthy players in this drama. We get a sense of their humanity, their conflicts, and their struggles. This makes the book not only a definitive treatment of the Arpaio phenomenon, but also a highly readable, gripping story."

KTAR/Think Tank with Mike ONeil

"A comprehensive, readable, and compelling explanation of how a sheriff’s department can veer into illegal activities. . . .An excellent book that shows the resilience of a marginalized community organizing and standing up for its rights."

Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books

2021-02-23
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

"In their new book, journalists Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block tell the story of the Latinx activists who brought about his downfall – it’s a smart, well-documented book about a group of people determined to hold the powerful to account."

NPR Books/ “Books We Love”

"Meticulously reported. . . .  A story of hope, however tentative."

Arizona Republic