Journalists Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block spent years chronicling the human consequences of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s relentless immigration enforcement in Maricopa County, Arizona. In Driving While Brown, they tell the tale of two opposing movements that redefined Arizona’s political landscape—the restrictionist cause embraced by Arpaio and the Latino-led resistance that rose up against it.

The story follows Arpaio, his supporters, and his adversaries, including Lydia Guzman, who gathered evidence for a racial-profiling lawsuit that took surprising turns. Guzman joined a coalition determined to stop Arpaio, reform unconstitutional policing, and fight for Latino civil rights. Driving While Brown details Arpaio’s transformation—from “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” who forced inmates to wear pink underwear, into the nation’s most feared immigration enforcer who ended up receiving President Donald Trump’s first pardon. The authors immerse readers in the lives of people on both sides of the battle and uncover the deep roots of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The result of tireless investigative reporting, this powerful book provides critical insights into effective resistance to institutionalized racism and the community organizing that helped transform Arizona from a conservative stronghold into a battleground state.

Join us for virtual book events

All events are free and open to the public

April 19

Must See Mondays, ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication

6pm AZ&PT/9pm ET. “Driving While Brown” – A Discussion with the Authors and  Southwest Borderlands Initiative Professor, Rick Rodriguez. Zoom details: https://bit.ly/3wu6TOF

April 20

Live event at East Side Freedom Library, St. Paul, MN.

5pm AZ&PT/7pm CT/8pm ET. Live author Q&A hosted by East Side Freedom Library and KFAI. https://bit.ly/3dbrnUD

April 21

Book launch at Changing Hands Bookstore

6pm AZ&PT/9pm ET. Virtual book launch and discussion with Alberto Ríos, Arizona’s inaugural poet laureate and the director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU. Sign up in advance for a free ticket or purchase a book with your ticket: https://bit.ly/3cWC8Kz

April 28

New America 

9am AZ&PT/12pm ET. Book presentation and conversation with immigration journalist Jonathan Blitzer of The New Yorker. RSVP for webcast details: https://bit.ly/2PIGPP1

May 11

Center for the Future of Arizona, ASU Center on the Future of War 

5:30pm AZ&PT/8:30pm ET. Book presentation and discussion with Valeria Fernández, independent journalist, Harvard University Nieman Visiting Fellow and co-director of Two Americans, a documentary that contrasts then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio with a 9-year-old trying to stop her parents’ deportations. Registration details: https://bit.ly/3uvSH5S

May 14

Harvard Bookstore

9:00am AZ&PT/12:00pm ET. Virtual book presentation and conversation with Walter V. Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winner, leader of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team that inspired the Academy Award-winning film, Spotlight. 

May 14

UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration and UCSD Center for Comparative Immigration Studies

12:00pm AZ&PT/3:00pm ET. Book presentation and discussion with Amada Armenta, Associate Professor, Urban Planning, UCLA. Zoom details to come.

June 10

Live interview with The Zeitgeist’s Jane Roper

1:00pm AZ&PT/4:00pm ET. Interview will be streamed on Facebook and YouTube. Details to follow.

Buy the Book

• Changing Hands 

• Palabras Bilingual Bookstore

• Bookshop

• Barnes & Noble

• Amazon

What people are saying…

“Sterling and Joffe-Block diligently chronicle the work of immigration rights activists and undocumented workers while also focusing closely on Arpaio, who, like Trump, professed to despise the press while craving its attention… a work of exemplary reporting”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Long before Donald J. Trump, there was Joe Arpaio, the Bull Connor-esque sheriff notorious for his mistreatment of immigrants and Latinos in Arizona’s largest county. But the authors of Driving While Brown have masterfully documented the previously unknown story of the Latino activists who organized to bring him down and help turn Arizona into a new battleground state. Investigative journalism, storytelling, at its best.”
—Alfredo Corchado, author of Midnight in Mexico and Homelands

“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: an irresistible subject, a white sheriff so consumed by the perceived threat of brown immigrants that he’ll defy the federal judiciary. Add two of the best reporters in the Southwest—really, anywhere—and you get a searing, decades-long portrait of racism in America and the criminal justice system that has perpetuated it, and the deconstruction of an ignorant and self-absorbed elected official who is very much like the president who pardoned him. 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

We would love to hear from you. We are also available to join book clubs and for speaking engagements. To reach our publicist: brianne@pressshoppr.com