The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance

Abstract

In The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance , Karma R. Ch (cid:1) avez offers a meticu-lous critique of citizenship in the United States by analyzing the government ’ s response to the early AIDS crisis. The text focuses on two responses in particular: proposed quarantines for people living with HIV and a subsequent ban on HIV-positive migrants. Ch (cid:1) avez argues that quarantines and bans — which had limited basis in epidemiological science on HIV transmission — illustrate how disease response and state authority intertwine to perpetuate divides between citizens and aliens in the US. Through an analysis of policy language, political debate, news reports, congressional records, and archival activist materials, Ch (cid:1) avez shows how the US government used the HIV epidemic to further oppress and scapegoat groups that had been traditionally denied full citizenship in the US, particularly Black communities, Haitian immigrants, queer and trans communities, and sex workers. Crucially, The Borders of AIDS not only critiques state-enacted strategies that reinforced long-held divides between citizen and alien, but also catalogs how activists and those living with HIV crafted coalitions to fight back and resist oppressive policies. The book details coalitional rhetorics of resistance, including alternative media, boycotts, and protests, that queer and immigration activists developed to combat racist policies. The Borders of AIDS has broad appeal — in part because of its interdisciplinary analytic lens and its timely critique of an infectious disease pandemic. Ch (cid:1) avez ’ s discussion of immigration in studies and race and ethnic studies, and her detailed analysis of the public responses to will resonate with those in public health, queer studies, and the humanities. Ch (cid:1) s work most book within studies, particularly its analysis of persuasive enacted by and the arguments made in social justice, citizenship, and rhetorical theory.