City of Inmates

Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965

By: Kelly Lytle Hernández

Narrated by: Lisa Reneé Pitts

City of Inmates explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world's leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and Black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. In this telling, which spans from the Spanish colonial era to the outbreak of the 1965 Watts Rebellion, Hernandez documents the persistent historical bond between the racial fantasies of conquest, namely its settler colonial form, and the eliminatory capacities of incarceration.

But City of Inmates is also a chronicle of resilience and rebellion, documenting how targeted peoples and communities have always fought back. They busted out of jail, forced Supreme Court rulings, advanced revolution across bars and borders, and, as in the summer of 1965, set fire to the belly of the city. With these acts those who fought the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles altered the course of history in the city, the borderlands, and beyond. This book recounts how the dynamics of conquest met deep reservoirs of rebellion as Los Angeles became the City of Inmates, the nation's carceral core. It is a story that is far from over.

©2017 Kelly Lytle Hernández (P)2020 Tantor

Interesting and thought provoking history

This is an interesting history of how incarceration has been used to demonize and remove marginalized communities from the community of the settlers.

Lytle Hernandez looks at the early days of the Tongva people, who were original inhabitants of the greater LA area, and traces how abuse, incarceration, and murder were used to remove them from the area.

She goes on to illustrate how incarceration has been used to control Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants, as well as the growing Black community.

Lytle Hernandez uses historical events both local to LA, as well as, legislation at the federal level to support her supposition that mass incarceration is used as a weapon of control whose roots began in the City of Angels.

My only complaint is that the narrator reads many Spanish language excerpts, but her Spanish pronunciation is very poor and difficult to understand. Although, the content is also read in English thereafter, listening to the bad pronunciation is a distraction.

Such an important history

I wanted to get through this. As an Angeleno and abolitionist I had heard this was an important education in the history of the worlds largest jail system — the LA County jails. Unfortunately I found it very difficult to stay engaged with the narrative because the voice sounds like a kindergarten teacher from the 1950s is reading to you. Elocution is excellent, so it’s easy to hear, but I found the style of her delivery oppressive to my ears and brain. I can’t tell how much it has to do with the author’s style (she starts every other sentence with “Therefore,”) or just the reader. Anyhow I would like to get my eyes on the print version & see if I can get through it better because it is a fascinating and enlightening history. I imagine the research went into it was extensive. Seems like a PhD paper — well researched and important but not written by a natural writer.

Great content

I was disappointed with the narrators inability to pronounce A LOT of the Spanish text. I understand that the book was written by an African American woman, which I safely assume is the motive for not selecting a bilingual narrator. However, the narrator reads ENTIRE sentences in Spanish and could not properly pronounce the words - plenty gets lost.
Other than the extremely bad Spanish translation, which plays a significant role in several chapters, the content was great.