Lee Ann S. Wang, "The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women" (Duke UP, 2026)

In this episode of The New Books Network, host Aileen Zhou interviews Professor Lee Ann S. Wang about her groundbreaking book, *The Violence of Protection: Policing, Immigration Law, and Asian American Women*, published by Duke University Press in 2026. Wang critically examines how U.S. legal frameworks—particularly the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), U visas, and T visas—purport to protect immigrant survivors of gender and sexual violence while simultaneously requiring cooperation with law enforcement, thereby reinforcing state violence. Drawing on ethnographic research with legal advocates and community organizers, Wang argues that the legal construction of the 'victim' is racialized, gendered, and deeply entangled with anti-Blackness, the model minority myth, and neoliberal state structures. She challenges the notion that legal protection is inherently benevolent, revealing how it often functions as a mechanism of punishment and surveillance, especially for Asian American women who are pressured to 'perform innocence' to qualify for aid. Wang advocates for abolition feminism as a transformative framework that centers care, community accountability, and refusal of state-centric solutions. Her work reorients Asian American studies toward radical political praxis, emphasizing that protection should not be conflated with care, and that true safety emerges from collective liberation rather than policing. Wang reflects on the tensions between academic scholarship and grassroots activism, rejecting the idea of 'bridging' these worlds in favor of recognizing that scholars of color are already engaged in political work. She details how her research evolved through participant observation, community organizing, and critical engagement with abolitionist traditions. The book’s central argument—that protection and punishment are co-constitutive—challenges dominant narratives in both feminist and immigration scholarship. Wang highlights real-life cases where survivors downplay trauma to appear 'clean' and 'innocent' to immigration officials, illustrating the internalized violence of legal systems. She calls for a radical reimagining of safety through world-building abolition politics, grounded in solidarity across racial and class lines. Ultimately, the conversation underscores the urgency of refusing legal fictions that naturalize state violence and instead building alternative futures rooted in care, refusal, and collective liberation.