Michelle Castaneda – författare

With Love and Imagination All things are possibleA broken heart mendedDreams coming trueVisits to faraway placesMeeting someone specialDancing without limitsEmbracing the ones lostSinging to your hearts desireIn Life with Love and Imagination, an inspirational collection of poetry, author Michelle Castaneda relies on her spirituality and diverse personal experiences as she traces a lyrical journey through love, joy, heartache, and pain.Castaeda begins by sharing a poignant glimpse into the life of the mother of an autistic son and her personal struggles as she learns to cope with the judgments of others and provide the best for him. As she moves through her challenges the subsequent realization that unconditional love forever fills the heart, Castenada offers a moving message for anyone whose life journey has not been easy.Through poems that encourage forgiveness, faith, and recognition of true heroes, Castenada opens a door to her heart and takes others through a unique and unforgettable journey to learning the truth about what makes us all happy, peaceful, and accepting of everyone.

In Disappearing Rooms Michelle CastaÑeda lays bare the criminalization of race enacted every day in US immigration courts and detention centers. She uses a performance studies perspective to show how the theatrical concept of mise-en-scÈne offers new insights about immigration law and the absurdist dynamics of carceral space. CastaÑeda draws upon her experiences in immigration trials as an interpreter and courtroom companion to analyze the scenography-lighting, staging, framing, gesture, speech, and choreography-of specific rooms within the immigration enforcement system. CastaÑeda’s ethnographies of proceedings in a “removal” office in New York City, a detention center courtroom in Texas, and an asylum office in the Northeast reveal the depersonalizing violence enacted in immigration law through its embodied, ritualistic, and affective components. She shows how the creative practices of detained and disappeared people living under acute duress imagine the abolition of detention and borders. Featuring original illustrations by artist-journalist Molly Crabapple, Disappearing Rooms shines a light into otherwise hidden spaces of law within the contemporary deportation regime.Duke University of Press Scholars of Color First Book Award Recipient