Invisible Mothers - by Janet Garcia-Hallett

About the Book

"Drawing on interviews conducted throughout New York City, Black feminist criminologist Janet Garcia-Hallett shares the traditionally silenced voices of formerly incarcerated mothers of color. Patriarchy, misogyny, and systemic racism marginalize and criminalize these mothers, pushing them into the grasp of penal control and exacerbating their racialized and gendered oppression after incarceration. Invisible Mothers exposes the difficult realities that African American, West Indian, and Latina mothers experience when reentering the community after incarceration and navigating motherhood. Armed with critical insight, Invisible Mothers demonstrates the paradox of visibility: social institutions treat mothers of color as invisible, restricting them from equal opportunities, and simultaneously as hypervisible, penalizing them for the ways they survive their marginalization. Though formerly incarcerated mothers of color are forced to live in a state of disempowerment and hypersurveillance, Invisible Mothers reveals and contests their marginalization and highlights how mothers of color perform motherwork on their own terms"--

Book Synopsis

Drawing on interviews conducted throughout New York City, Black feminist criminologist Janet Garcia-Hallett shares the traditionally silenced voices of formerly incarcerated mothers of color and exposes the difficult realities they face when reentering the community and navigating motherhood. Patriarchy, misogyny, and systemic racism marginalize and criminalize these mothers, pushing them into the grasp of penal control and forcing them to live in a state of disempowerment and hypersurveillance after imprisonment.

Armed with critical insight, Invisible Mothers demonstrates the paradox of visibility: social institutions treat mothers of color as invisible by restricting them from equal opportunities, and simultaneously as hypervisible by penalizing them for the ways they survive their marginalization. This thoughtful book reveals and contests their marginalization and highlights how mothers of color perform motherwork on their own terms.

From the Back Cover

"This book is filled with the voices and understandings of marginalized mothers, and we come to see how their invisibility and hypervisibility delineate their lives and their experiences as mothers after incarceration."--Michelle Hughes Miller, coeditor of Bad Mothers: Regulations, Representations, and Resistance

"An extremely valuable window into a particularly marginalized group, one that is often left out of criminal justice-reform conversations. Few books examine criminalized women's experiences with such a wide-angle lens."--Allison McKim, author of Addicted to Rehab: Race, Gender, and Drugs in the Era of Mass Incarceration

"With rich, powerful narratives and analysis, Invisible Mothers exposes the mechanisms of oppression and hypersurveillance that produce unrelenting obstacles for formerly incarcerated African American, West Indian, and Latina mothers."--Hillary Potter, author of Intersectionality and Criminology: Disrupting and Revolutionizing Studies of Crime

Review Quotes

"Garcia-Hallett's work tells a story of visibility and recognition, acknowledging the full humanity of these women whose identities are often fragmented in society. By weaving in testimonies and real-life experiences, she challenges prevailing narratives that depict these women as deviant or invisible."-- "American Sociological Association"

"A valuable contribution to our knowledge about the lives of justice-involved African American, West Indian, and Latina mothers who are navigating the carceral state in the face of intersecting forms of oppression."-- "Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work"

About the Author

Janet Garcia-Hallett, an Afro-Latina mother and a product of Harlem, is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven's Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences.