"This will be an illuminating study for scholars who want to understand discrimination and racism in America, as well as the nation's long-standing reluctance to provide childcare for the benefit of working mothers and fathers."—Moramay Lopez-Alonso, California History
"Thoroughly researched and insightfully written, Choosing to Care uses case records to detail the conditions faced by individual families and brings local specificity to the national history of childcare. By placing that history against the backdrop of women’s and urban history, the book increases our understanding of gender and social policy in the United States. It also points the way for creating forms of childcare that can support, rather than threaten, the parent-child relationship."—Sonya Michel, Journal of Arizona History
“A vividly constructed historical account, Choosing to Care provides a remarkably comprehensive and readable account of a painful but important chapter in California history. The amount and breadth of research are most impressive, enabling the author to place the San Diego story in a broad historical context yet move beyond it.”—David W. Adams, professor emeritus at Cleveland State University
“This is an important contribution to the sociological aspects of history as well as to the practical fields of childcare and child welfare. As a historian of San Diego history myself, I can assure anyone that Dr. Ciani has utilized sources from not only San Diego history but also the Baja California Peninsula and throughout the nation. As a person grounded in women’s studies, she is familiar with all aspects of the literature in the field. Choosing to Care has excellent style—it is very readable.”—Iris Engstrand, professor emerita of history at the University of San Diego
