I was hoping for a more entertaining piece of historical reading, but I have to admit I couldn’t finish this.

At the turn of the XX Century, a group of Catholic nuns in NYC arranged to place some (mostly Irish) orphans with Catholic families out West. They arrived in Arizona, to the mining towns of Clifton and Morenci, only to realize that the Catholic families were Mexican. This caused a huge controversy, as it accentuated the racial divide that existed in these towns between the Anglo and Mexican communities. A group of vigilantes took “justice” into their own hands and removed the children from their placements and gave them to "proper" white families. The nuns sued, and this case went all the way to the Arizona Supreme Court. I will not spoil the ending (which by the way will become very obvious if you look at the photos in the center of the book, so don’t).

The story of the children and their odyssey and the more contextual story of Arizona’s life at that time are in alternating chapters. The narrative is slow and very academic, as is to be expected. After all, a college professor wrote this book. Still, I was hoping for more brilliance. I found the array of names confusing, even though there is a cast of characters at the very beginning of the book.

One comment really stood out for me: if this situation had happened in the age of television, this trial would have been more popular than OJ’s.

But, whichever era is free of sin should cast the first stone. I watched on TV some years ago a piece of state-run adoption agencies whose policy is that black children should not be placed in non-black families.

RELEASE NOTES:

On the bottom shelf area, towards the left