About
Dr. Marisol LeBrón is an Associate Professor in Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to arriving at UCSC, Dr. LeBrón held appointments at the University of Texas at Austin, Dickinson College, and Duke University. Dr. LeBrón received her PhD in American Studies from New York University and her bachelor's degree in Comparative American Studies and Latin American Studies from Oberlin College.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. LeBrón’s research and teaching focus on social inequality, policing, violence, and protest. She is the author of Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019) and Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua (Editora Educación Emergente, 2021). Along with Yarimar Bonilla, Dr. LeBrón is the co-editor of Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (Haymarket Books, 2019). Dr. LeBrón has published her research in a variety of venues including Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Modern American History, Radical History Review, Journal of Urban History, Souls: A Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, NACLA Report on the Americas, and the edited volume Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter.
Dr. LeBrón is currently at work on two major book projects. The first, tentatively titled Up Against the Wall: Policing and the Making of Latinxs (under contract with University of California Press), aims to uncover the centrality of policing to the emergence and consolidation of Latinx identity in the United States. The book demonstrates that policing has played an essential, although chronically underexamined, role in shaping how we understand Latinxs and their place within American society. When and how diverse Latinx communities have come into contact with the United States’ law enforcement apparatus tell us a great deal about how Latinx groups are positioned within hierarchies of belonging related to race, citizenship, class, and spatial location in ways that continue to have deadly reverberations. In particular, Up Against the Wall traces how policing functions as a structuring component of everyday life for Latinxs that both facilitates and manages the effects of (settler) colonial dispossession, imperialist expansion, economic exploitation, and racial differentiation.
Her second project, tentatively titled Shared Geographies of Resistance: Puerto Ricans and the Uses of Solidarity, explores the role of Puerto Rican activists in international radical politics and freedom struggles over the course of the twentieth century. Drawing from rich archival data, this project will document how Puerto Ricans in the archipelago and in the diaspora have connected their struggles against U.S. colonial rule with other struggles against colonialism, racism, and military violence taking place around the globe.
Dr. LeBrón is an active contributor to popular conversations about policing as well as Puerto Rico and its diaspora. She has published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Guardian and Truthout and has been interviewed by a number of news outlets. Dr. LeBrón is one of the co-creators and project leaders for the Puerto Rico Syllabus (#PRsyllabus), a digital resource for understanding the Puerto Rican debt crisis. She is also one of the editors for The Abusable Past, a digital project that features unique and original content related to the praxis of radical history in this social and political moment. Dr. LeBrón is currently the Vice President/President Elect of the Puerto Rican Studies Association and a member of the Executive Committee of the American Studies Association.
Follow her on Twitter @marisollebron
Writing
BOOks
Edited Volume
Edited Special Issues and Forums
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
“Puerto Rico, Colonialism, and the U.S. Carceral State,” Modern American History (2019).
"Mano Dura Contra El Crimen and Premature Death in Puerto Rico," in Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter (2016).
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries
Review of Johanna Fernandez’s Young Lords: A Radical History in Socialism and Democracy (2020).
Other writing
“Governance,” exhibition catalog essay in Designs for Different Futures (2019).
“Policing is the Crisis” in 80 Grados (published online on May 10, 2019).
“Puerto Rico and the Colonial Circuits of Policing” NACLA Report on the Americas (2016).
“Neocolonial Policing in Puerto Rico,” NACLA Report on the Americas (2012).
"The Reggaetón Factor in the U.S. Elections," NACLA Blog (published online on October 21, 2008).
Policing Life and Death
About the Book
In her exciting new book, Marisol LeBrón traces the rise of punitive governance in Puerto Rico over the course of the twentieth century to the present moment. Punitive governance emerged as a way for the Puerto Rican state to manage the deep and ongoing crises stemming from the archipelago’s incorporation into the United States as a colonial territory. Experienced as a structuring component of everyday life for many Puerto Ricans, police power has reinforced social inequality and worsened conditions of vulnerability in marginalized communities.
Far from a totalizing narrative of state violence, this book provides powerful examples of how Puerto Ricans negotiate and resist their subjection to increased levels of segregation, criminalization, discrimination, and harm. Policing Life and Death shows how Puerto Ricans are actively rejecting punitive solutions and working toward alternative understandings of safety and a more just future.
Preview the book on Google Books.
Awards
Honorable Mention, Outstanding Book Award 2021, LASA Latino Studies Section
Honorable Mention, Lora Romero First Book Prize 2020, American Studies Association
Juan E. Méndez Book Award 2019 Shortlist, Duke Human Rights Center
Reviews
"In this extraordinary book, Marisol LeBrón does a brilliant job of helping us see the everyday activism and cultural inventiveness of Puerto Ricans figuring out how to respond to state repression and colonial capitalism. It’s a genuinely thrilling read."—Laura Briggs, author of How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics: From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump
"Policing Life and Death deftly illuminates the long historical presence of 'punitive governance' in Puerto Rico, demonstrating the depth to which gendered, racist state violence defines the US colonial/neocolonial relationship with the island and its people. This indispensable study not only focuses on the normalized, cross-generational violence generated by the policing and criminological regimes, but also pays rigorous attention to the ways Puerto Rican activists, artists, community leaders, and others respond to—and potentially transform—this punitive condition."—Dylan Rodríguez, author of Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the US Prison Regime
"LeBrón's rigorously researched, trenchant examination of how everyday life is sectioned, monitored, and controlled is an essential read for understanding modern-day Puerto Rico and all communities and societies negotiating and defending themselves from the layered execution of power."—Zaire Dinzey-Flores, author of Locked In, Locked Out: Gated Communities in a Puerto Rican City
***
Included in the Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0, compiled by Dan Berger, Garrett Felber, Kali Gross, Elizabeth Hinton, and Anyabwile Love for the African American Intellectual History Society’s Black Perspectives Blog.
Selected as a Progressive Pick by Truthout. Read “Puerto Ricans are Resisting Policing as a Solution to Crisis” an interview with Anton Woronczuk and read an excerpt of Policing Life and Death here.
Selected as one of The Best Latino and Latin American History Books of 2019 by Remezcla.
Included in the Disciplining The City Review Essay 2019 compiled by Matt Guariglia and Charlotte Rosen for Urban History Association’s The Metropole Blog.
Included in the Histories Of Police, Policing, And Police Unions In The United States reading list compiled by Matt Guariglia and Charlotte Rosen for Urban History Association’s The Metropole Blog.
Reviewed alongside Naomi Klein’s The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists in “Confronting Colonial Capitalism” by Alex Standen for New Labor Forum.
Reviewed in “Policing Life and Death: The Perverse Consequences of an Iron Fist Policy Against Crime” by José Caraballo-Cueto for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books.
Reviewed by Sheilla Rodríguez‑Madera for Latino Studies.
Book Review Forum with contributions by Joaquín Villanueva, Micol Seigel, Jordan Camp, Stuart Schrader, Beverley Mullings, Jenna M. Loyd in the AAG Review of Books.
Reviewed by Alberto Ortiz Díaz for H-LatAm.
Selected as one of The Best Histories of U.S. Policing, According to Experts compiled by New York Magazine.
Reviewed by Angel Rodriguez Rivera for Lateral.
Reviewed by Don S. Polite Jr. for Black Perspectives.
Reviewed by Miranda Martinez for Contemporary Sociology.
Reviewed by Bárbara I. Abadía-Rexach for New West Indian Guide.
Buying Options
Aftershocks of Disaster
About the Book
An in-depth look at Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and the preexisting crisis that conditioned this historic disaster.
The concept of "aftershocks" is used in the context of earthquakes to describe the jolts felt after the initial quake, but no disaster is a singular event. Aftershocks of Disaster examines the lasting effects of hurricane Maria, not just the effects of the wind or the rain, but delving into what followed: state failure, social abandonment, capitalization on human misery, and the collective trauma produced by the botched response.
Reviews
"In this gripping collection of essays, poems and photos, Aftershocks of Disaster captures both the roots of Puerto Rico's current crisis in its continuing colonial status and the determination of the island's people to persevere and forge a better future." —Juan González, author of Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, and co-host of Democracy Now!
"Broad in scope, passionate, and urgent, Aftershocks is a necessary anthology of Puerto Ricans telling the story not just of Maria but of resistance to colonialism, austerity and disaster capitalism." —Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood
"Hurricane Maria was a major disaster. It is also, potentially, a transformative event. The contributors to this powerful volume explain how big structural forces - climate change, colonialism, corruption, and capitalism - contributed to the devastation, but they also chart a radical path forward, towards a more just and sustainable world." —Eric Klinenberg, author of Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
“For those of us who were forced out of Puerto Rico and who watched the hurricane from outside, this book provides beautiful and painful clarity about how we got here and the struggles behind our survival.” —Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez, Boricua Activist, artist and Chicago Council member
***
Reviewed by Laura Hiatt in “Puerto Rico Past and Present” for Library Journal
Reviewed alongside Ed Morales’ Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico for Antipode by Joaquín Villanueva.
Selected as one of The Best Latino and Latin American History Books of 2019 by Remezcla.
Selected as a Favorite Book From 2019 by LibrarianShipwreck.
Reviewed by Pedro J. Rolón Machado for E3W Review of Books.
Listen to this episode of Piragua Podcast that reflects on the third anniversary of Hurricane Maria through a discussion of Aftershocks of Disaster.
Reviewed by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo for The Americas.
Buying Options
Panel conversation between Aftershocks of Disaster contributors Rima Brusi, Sarah Molinari, and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, moderated by Yarimar Bonilla and Marisol LeBrón.
Against Muerto Rico
About the book
The series reVolucionA offers here the bilingual publication Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua /Contra Muerto Rico: lecciones del Verano Boricua. The book approaches the Verano Boricua 2019 from a sociological standpoint, highlighting what its author, Marisol LeBrón, considers the six most significant political lessons to be garnered from the rebellion for the ongoing struggle against the forces of death in Puerto Rico. These lessons are: (1) the struggle must be intersectional; (2) the criollo elite are a murderous class; (3) debt is death, protest is life; (4) protests are sites of pleasure; (5) la policía ≠ el pueblo; and (6) the diaspora must be a part of the struggle for Puerto Rico’s future.
***
Listen to this interview with Karma Chavez for the LatinXperts podcast where we discuss Against Muerto Rico and the legacies of the Verano Boricua.
La vida y la muerte ante el poder policiaco
About the Book
En La vida y la muerte ante el poder policiaco: raza, violencia y resistencia en Puerto Rico, Marisol LeBrón traza la historia de la aparición, desarrollo y consolidación del poder estatal colonial en Puerto Rico como poder policiaco y punitivo. Éste se dirige abrumadoramente contra las poblaciones espacial, económica y racialmente marginadas y vulnerables, quienes son continuamente responsabilizadas por los estragos violentos que ocasiona el régimen colonial capitalista. El fin del pacto social del estado de bienestar y el alza del neoliberalismo en EEUU en los años setenta pusieron en jaque, respectivamente, las mejores caras de la ficción del ELA –en particular, el proyecto muñocista de “industrialización por invitación”– y la incentivación de la migración puertorriqueña a los EEUU como válvula de escape del desempleo y la precariedad en el archipiélago. A partir de los gobiernos de Carlos Romero Barceló y Rafael Hernández Colón, en los setenta y ochenta, el estado colonial puertorriqueño comenzó a volcarse a la regulación y el patrullaje policiacos como formas preferentes de gobernanza y “manejo de crisis” sociales, económicas y hasta culturales. La apoteosis de la gobernanza punitiva se alcanzaría en el violento gobierno neoliberal de Pedro Rosselló en los años noventa, con su infame campaña “mano dura contra el crimen,” a la que se dedica una importante porción de este libro. A partir de entonces, la estrategia represiva y punitiva se ha mantenido incólume en gobiernos tanto del PNP como del PPD, tal como LeBrón destaca al considerar los gobiernos de Sila Calderón, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá y Luis Fortuño.
Al mismo tiempo, este estudio interdisciplinario constituye una oda a las múltiples formas de oposición, resistencia y creación que organizaciones, comunidades e individuos, en el archipiélago y en la diáspora, en las calles y en las redes, han adelantado en pos de un Puerto Rico justo, libre e inclusivo. Destacan el movimiento estudiantil y la huelga de 2010 en la UPR, los movimientos antirracistas, feministas y cuir, el underground y el reggaetón, y la extraordinaria labor comunitaria de Taller Salud. El epílogo, por su parte, recoge algunos de los más luminosos esfuerzos de soberanía comunitaria tras el paso del huracán María por el país.
Puerto Rico Syllabus
I worked with Yarimar Bonilla (Rutgers University) and Sarah Molinari (CUNY Graduate Center) to develop the Puerto Rico Syllabus, a digital syllabus project that compiles essential primary and secondary sources for understanding the contemporary debt crisis in Puerto Rico. The #PRSyllabus grew out of the Unpayable Debt working group at Columbia University led by Frances Negrón-Muntaner and Sarah Muir, and is the first in a series of public syllabi to be released by the working group.
We hope that this resource can serve as a springboard for discussion and analysis of how the debt crisis is affecting the lives and futures of millions of Puerto Ricans across the territory and in the diaspora. As educators committed to social justice, we hope that this syllabus project not only educates a greater public about what is occurring in Puerto Rico, but also serves as a call to action against the imposition of even greater neoliberal austerity measures, which will only increase harm and insecurity in the lives of more and more Puerto Ricans.
You can follow the #PRsyllabus on Facebook and Twitter the latest updates and news.
***
“Puerto Rico Syllabus pays careful attention to both the history of Puerto Rico’s colonial economy and its present crisis, presenting its multidisciplinary materials chronologically. This multidisciplinarity is key to its success, since the syllabus succeeds in providing a broad selection of materials that can be just as useful to the economist aiming to present a broad spectrum of the various impacts of the crisis on Puerto Rico’s population as to the literary or art historian seeking to offer students an understanding of the crisis as a springboard to more nuanced cultural analysis.”
Read Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert’s review of the Puerto Rico Syllabus for SX Archipelagos, a Small Axe platform for digital practice.
Teaching
I teach a range of introductory and advanced level courses across the fields of American Studies, Latina/o Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies. Click on the course titles below to see the syllabi.
The University of Texas at Austin
Introduction to Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (Spring 2019).
Policing Latinidad, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Cross-listed with American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies (Fall 2018, Fall 2020).
Black and Latinx Intersections, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (Fall 2020).
Theories in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (Spring 2021).
Research Methods Seminar in Women’s and Gender Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies (Spring 2021)
Dickinson College
Black and Latinx Intersections, Department of American Studies, Cross-listed with Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, Africana Studies elective course (Spring 2018)
Learning Injustice: The School-to-Prison Pipeline, First Year Seminar Program (Fall 2017).
Workshop in Cultural Theory: Theories of Power and Resistance in the Americas, Department of American Studies (Fall 2017).
Writing in American Studies, Department of American Studies (Spring 2015).
Prisons and Punishment in American Society, Department of American Studies, Cross-listed with Sociology (Spring 2015 and Spring 2018).
Introduction to American Studies, Department of American Studies (Fall 2014 and Spring 2018).
Latina/o Studies, Department of American Studies, Cross-listed with Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies (Spring 2014, Fall 2014).
Photo by Neal Vaidya for the Duke Chronicle.
Duke University
Black and Latinx Intersections: Race and Power in the U.S., Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Cross-listed with African & African American Studies, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, and Romance Studies (Spring 2017).
Policing Latinidad: From Border Wars to Mass Incarceration, Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Cross-listed with Sociology, Public Policy, and Romance Studies (Fall 2016 and Fall 2015).
Capstone Seminar: Queer Latino/a Studies, Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Cross-listed with Women’s Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Latin American Studies and Romance Studies (Spring 2016).
***
My course Policing Latinidad was listed as a resource in Vera Institute of Justice Think Justice Blog’s “Lesson Plans for Justice Reform: A Call to Action for Students and Teachers.” Check out all of the great educational resources on the criminal justice system compiled by Kevin Keenan and Britt Masback.
Media
Alex Vitale interviews Marisol LeBrón of the University of Texas about her book "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico."
“Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm,” interviewed with Yarimar Bonilla by Jonathan Cortez for New Books in Latino Studies, October 4, 2019.
“DJ Sessions: The Music that Helped Oust Puerto Rico’s Governor,” Verónica Dávila and I were interviewed by Jeremy Hobson for WBUR’s Here and Now, August 7, 2019.
“Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico,” interview with Jesse Zarley for New Books in Latin American Studies, June 18, 2019.
“The lines between race, capital and state violence in Puerto Rico,” interview with Chuck Mertz for WNUR’s This Is Hell, April 27, 2019.
“Marisol LeBrón on Anti-colonial Abolitionist Praxis,” interview with Cathy Hannabach for the Imagine Otherwise Podcast, March 14, 2019.
Interviewed by Scott LaMar about the impact of Hurricane Maria and the Puerto Rican debt crisis for WITF’s Smart Talk, April 2, 2018.
Interviewed by Doug Henwood about how Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is shaping hurricane recovery efforts for KPFA’s Behind the News, October 5, 2017.
“Policing and Recovery in Puerto Rico,” interview with Helen Hazelwood Isaac for the NACLA Podcast, October 2, 2017.
“Austerian Disaster,” interview with Daniel Denvir for The Dig (Jacobin Podcast), September 29, 2017.
“What To Do About The Disaster In Puerto Rico,” interview with Esty Dinur for WORT Community Radio’s Public Affairs, September 29, 2017.
Interviewed by Joe Donahue about effects of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico for WAMC Northeast Public Radio’s The Roundtable, September 28, 2017.
“Trump Sees Devastated Puerto Rico as Captive Market,” interview with Aaron Maté for The Real News Network, September 28, 2017.
Interviewed by Frank Stasio for WUNC North Carolina Public Radio's The State of Things, October 10, 2016.
Upcoming Talks & Events
Stay tuned here for upcoming talks!