‘DISILLUSIONED’

“Disillusioned” jumps among the suburbs of Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, following one family in each — a wealthy white family; a middle-class Black clan; a family of struggling undocumented immigrants; and two

led by single moms, one Black, one multiracial.

comes off as a “typical Black single mother, struggling and too small-minded to think or contribute to the problems of society that white people created.” Herold, though, avoids this pitfall. His portraits of families are nuanced and moving, and he speaks to other parents, school administrators and city officials to widen his lens.

“Disillusioned” excels in documenting the effects racial exclusion and intimidation had on suburban growth, and Herold offers eye-opening details like the fact that Compton (Los Angeles County)

was once home to George Herbert Walker Bush and his young children. For readers like me, who previously only thought of Compton as a burning epicenter of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Herold reminds us that places don’t start out in disrepair. They’re shaped by forces that cause decay.

He also makes clear that these forces — “the burning crosses, racial real-estate covenants and gerrymandered school boundaries” that historically kept nonwhite families out — aren’t relegated to the past. We see the coded language of people who “thought of themselves as color-blind” but like living where the community has “similar values,” and we understand the implications of zoning regulations that prevent apartments from being built.

As Herold jumps between cities and decades, it can be hard to keep track of the exact rulings in different cases regarding desegregation. But the patterns are clear and continuing, cementing the idea that equal rights and opportunity exist only in theory in this country, not in practice.

Naomieh Jovin Benjamin Herold wrote “Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs.”