Breaks in the Chain ─ What Immigrant Workers Can Teach America About Democracy

"Theoretically illuminating, politically engaged, and of vital importance, Breaks in the Chain lucidly interwines subtle reflections in the interview narratives about the ways immigrants negotiate and contest power. It exemplifies the very best of contemporary political theory."---Romand Coles, Northern Arizona University

"Breaks in the Chain is tremendously important and timely, treating as it does the intersection between immigration and unionization that is currently a critical edge of left politics and a new frontier of biopolitical power."---Lisa Disch, University of Michigan

In Breaks in the Chain, Paul Apostolidis investigates the personal life stories of a group of Mexican immigrant meatpackers who are at once typical and extraordinary. After clandestinely crossing the border and navigating the treacherous world of the undocumented, they waged a campaign to democratize their union and their workplace in the most hazardous industry in the United States.

Breaks in the Chain shows how immigrant workers---individually and sometimes collectively---both reinforce and contest a tacit but lethal form of biopolitics that differentiates the life chances of racial groups. Linking stories of immigration to stories about working on the meat production line (the chain), Apostolidis reveals the surprising power of activism by immigrant workers and their allies and demonstrates how it can---and should ---promote social and political democracy in America.

Paul Apostolidis holds the Judge and Mrs. Timothy A. Paul Chair of Political Science at Whitman College. He is the author of Stations of the Cross: Adorno and Christian Right Radio and coeditor of Public Affairs: Politics in the Age of Sex Scandals.