Portside

Conditions at Adelanto Detention Center, a privately operated prison currently used to detain undocumented immigrants, are said to be grim. Nine detainees, all of whom came to the U.S. seeking asylum, were so fed up that they staged a hunger strike. Guards responded with violence and pepper spray.

Todd Ashker is one of the leaders of the Pelican Bay hunger strikers and the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit Ashker v. Governor of California. Sometime between 2008 and 2009, Ashker managed to get his hands on “Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Inspired a Generation." What does a book have to do with the movement that ended indefinite solitary confinement in California?