Cities as Chokepoints and Resistance Available to Purchase

Centering migrant transgender women of color, chapter 4 analyzes a 2016 public hunger strike that demanded the closure of the LGBT immigrant detention pod in Santa Ana, California, and the release of all detained transgender and queer migrants around the United States. The hunger strikers connected the abusive conditions that detained migrants endure with the suffering and deprivation experienced by many Santa Ana residents in their everyday lives and identified city officials and institutions as having a critical role in addressing these interlinked struggles.