Detaining Our Own

Abstract

This chapter, Daily pairs nonfiction and immigration detention, demonstrating that twenty-first-century detainment is more dangerous, more secretive, and more destructive than previous decades owing to links to terrorism that are both spoken and implicit. Daily reads Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter and Edwidge Danticat's Brother I'm Dying as narratives that explore detention as central to multiple generations of immigrant experience. The detainment of immigrants on American soil is a component of certain narratives of assimilation, and Sone's Nisei Daughter is a standout example. When paired with Sone, Danticat's Brother I'm Dying reveals a shift in those narratives, exposing links to criminality and a move away from affiliation, instead criticizing and rejecting America on the basis of its treatment of immigrants.