Author(s): John Washington

American Society & Politics

The Dispossessed is a detailed, novelistic account of one family's search for safety that lays bare US-in concert with other western nations-gutting of asylum protections. The narrative takes the reader through the inhumane debacle of family separation and the growing global refugee crisis at large. Adding historical, literary, and current political context to the immigration and refugee crises of today, Washington unearths the ancient origins of hospitality practices and traces the rise of asylum law through the Ancient Greeks, the early religious traditions, the international agreements of the twentieth century, and the unmet promises of today's US refugee policies.

Throughout, he traces one man's saga of seeking asylum, the separation from his daughter by US Border Patrol agents, and his ongoing struggles to find security after being repeatedly deported back to a gang-ruled rural community in El Salvador. The Dispossessed also delivers a host of other haunting and heartrending asylum stories. The book is a gripping and critical account of the US practices of welcome and refusal.

About the Author

John Washington is a writer, translator, and activist. A regular contributor to The Nation magazine and The Intercept, he writes about immigration and border politics, as well as criminal justice, photography, and literature. Washington is an award winning translator, having translated Oscar Martinez, Anabel Hernandez, and Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, among others. A long term volunteer with No More Deaths, he has been working with activist organizations in Mexico, California, Arizona, and New York for more than a decade. He is currently based in Brooklyn.