Reading against the grain, finding the voices of the detained

Every day approximately 34,000 people are held in immigration detention centers across the United States, including asylum seekers fleeing persecution and violence. Yet they are often invisible in our public discourse about immigration and mass incarceration. For the Humanities Action Lab’s States of Incarceration traveling exhibition, students at Rutgers University-Newark researched a “riot” that occurred at a New Jersey detention center in 1995. To center the voices of the detainees, we used the technique of reading against the grain, or interpreting documentary evidence to gain information counter to the perspective of the original creators, with news articles, photos, and legal depositions. This article discusses difficulties finding archival information about immigration detention and using the practice of reading against the grain to emphasize the agency of detainees, developing a practice of use to museum professionals eager to contend with contemporary social issues when there are few or compromised sources.