Christina Heatherton
Christina Heatherton is a historian and interdisciplinary scholar of social movements. Her work explores the intersections of race, class, and gender. She is the author of The Color Line and the Class Struggle: The Mexican Revolution, Internationalism, and the American Century (forthcoming) and is currently editing a volume entitled The World Refuses: Global Struggles Against Racism and Imperialism, 1893-1933. Her work will appear in the volume Rising Tides of Color: Race, Radicalism, and Repression on the Pacific Coast and Beyond edited by Moon-Ho Jung (University of Washington Press, 2014) among other places. She is the co-editor with Jordan T. Camp of Freedom Now! Struggles for the Human Right to Housing in LA and Beyond (2012). She received her Ph.D. from USC’s Department of American Studies and Ethnicity in 2012 and is currently a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership.
Collected Work
Arise!: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a global event that catalyzed international radicals in unexpected sites and struggles. Tracing the paths of figures like Black American artist Elizabeth Catlett, Indian anti-colonial activist M.N. Roy, Mexican revolutionary leader Ricardo Flores Magón, Okinawan migrant organizer Paul Shinsei Kōchi, and Soviet feminist Alexandra Kollontai, Arise! reveals how activists around the world found inspiration and solidarity in revolutionary Mexico. From art collectives and farm worker strikes to prison "universities," Arise! reconstructs how this era's radical organizers found new ways to fight global capitalism. Drawing on prison records, surveillance data, memoirs, oral histories, visual art, and a rich trove of untapped sources, Christina Heatherton considers how disparate revolutionary traditions merged in unanticipated alliances. From her unique vantage point, she charts the remarkable impact of the Mexican Revolution as radicals in this critical era forged an anti-racist internationalism from below.
Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter
Combining firsthand accounts from activists with the research of scholars and reflections from artists, Policing the Planet traces the global spread of the broken-windows policing strategy, first established in New York City under Police Commissioner William Bratton. It’s a doctrine that has vastly broadened police power the world over—to deadly effect. With contributions from #BlackLivesMatter cofounder Patrisse Cullors, Ferguson activist and Law Professor Justin Hansford, Director of New York–based Communities United for Police Reform Joo-Hyun Kang, poet Martín Espada, and journalist Anjali Kamat, as well as articles from leading scholars Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Robin D. G. Kelley, Naomi Murakawa, Vijay Prashad, and more, Policing the Planet describes ongoing struggles from New York to Baltimore to Los Angeles, London, San Juan, San Salvador, and beyond.