I am a journalist and audio producer specializing in deeply reported stories. I am currently based in Phoenix, and in July 2020, I joined The Associated Press. I also serve as an editor on a forthcoming Spanish-language narrative podcast about music and identity. Previously, I contributed stories on immigration, border issues, public health and politics to various public radio shows, podcasts and online news outlets.

I am the co-author with Terry Greene Sterling of a new narrative nonfiction book that tells the story of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unprecedented local immigration crackdown, the grassroots Latino-led movement that organized against him and sued him for racial profiling, and the battle over immigration enforcement that culminated with a presidential pardon.

DRIVING WHILE BROWN: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance was published in April 2021 and is available for sale where you buy your books.

“Greene Sterling and Joffe-Block do a superb job. . . . Driving While Brown [is] a necessary read that is more than a biography of a blowhard sheriff — it is a chronicle of how seemingly impossible battles are the ones that matter most.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Meticulously reported. . . . A story of hope, however tentative.”
—Arizona Republic

“A work of exemplary reporting.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Greene Sterling and Joffe-Block dive into the real stories of people on both sides of the lightning-rod politician for a gripping and, at times, heartbreaking chronicle of immigration, activism and policing that remains timely today.”
—PHOENIX Magazine

“Best Nonfiction 2021”
—Phoenix New Times

“Arpaio is, if it’s possible, even Trumpier than Trump. This splendid book is a lively portrait of a demagogic anti-immigration crusader and the people who helped bring him down. But the authors have nonetheless let Arpaio’s own voice be heard, and have listened carefully to people on both sides of the immigration debate that seems certain to rage for decades to come.”
—Adam Hochschild, author of Lessons from a Dark Time and Other Essays

“This is combustible nonfiction. . .To read this book is to understand America in the twenty-first century.”
—Walter V. Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winner, leader of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team that inspired the Academy Award–winning film, Spotlight

 

“Driving While Brown is an engaging chronicle of hate disguised as populism, from its short shelf life to how it inspired courageous activists to stand up, push back, and launch a movement that’s remaking our political landscape.”
—Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, PBS Public Editor and coauthor of The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement

“In Driving While Brown, Greene Sterling and Joffe-Block expertly fill in the blanks and connect the dots to build a compelling, comprehensive narrative of the immigration battles that have defined and redefined Arizona, offering a window into the ethnic and racial animus in the United States today and the transformative power of hope and purpose shared by younger generations. This is a book for our times.”
—Fernanda Santos, a contributing columnist for The Washington Post and author of The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots