ABOUT THIS BOOK

Through a sociological analysis of Hmong former refugees’ grassroots movements in the United States between the 1990s and 2000s, Immigrant Agency shows how Hmong, despite being one of America’s most economically impoverished ethnic groups, were able to make sustained claims on and have their interests represented in public policies. The author, Yang Sao Xiong argues that the key to understanding how immigrants incorporate themselves politically is to understand how they mobilize collective action and make choices in circumstances far from racially neutral. Immigrant groups, in response to political threats or opportunities or both, mobilize collective action and make strategic choices about how to position themselves vis-à-vis other minority groups, how to construct group identities, and how to deploy various tactics in order to engage with the U.S. political system and influence policy. In response to immigrants’ collective claims, the racial state engages in racialization which undermines immigrants’ political standing and perpetuates their marginalization.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

YANG SAO XIONG is an assistant professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at California State University, Fresno. He teaches courses on social movements, race and ethnicity, Hmong American experiences, and immigrants and refugees.

REVIEWS

"An important contribution to understanding processes of migrant political incorporation into the racialized state. The book will be especially useful for scholars and students of migration studies, social movements, race and ethnicity, postcolonial and decolonization studies, and the sociology of states, public policies, and citizenship."— Contemporary Sociology

"In attending to the racial dimensions of immigrant incorporation—racialized both in terms of overt prejudice and discrimination as well as subtler, cultural forms of marginalization as well as assumptions about whiteness and privilege—Xiong and his sociological counterparts move well beyond the ethnic-assimilationist assumptions that dominated American social thought for so many years."— Ethnic and Racial Studies

"Xiong's research findings and analysis offer a much fuller understanding of the dynamic interactive process of immigrant political incorporation. . . . This book is timely and important as the United States continues to experience the migration of millions of refugees and immigrants who have been displaced by war, climate crisis, extreme poverty, and violence."— Contemporary Sociology

"A meticulous discussion of the process through which Hmong Americans have struggled for political incorporation, this book also provides inspiration for other actors involved in collective actions to realize political incorporation against restrictive and racialized immigration policies."— Journal of Refugee Studies

"An empirically grounded and theoretically illuminating text. Immigrant Agency highlights the agency of an immigrant group in the political incorporation process and identifies the conditions and strategies that facilitate their success. This is a text for academics who study social movements and immigrant political incorporation, Hmong Studies researchers, and anyone interested in Hmong American experiences."— Hmong Studies Journal

"Immigrant Agency provides new insights about the Hmong American experience and puts race at the center of its analysis to understand the complex ways in which the state constrains political incorporation and how refugees themselves have engaged in political action to shape public policy. Xiong's well-crafted and informative book changes the way in which we understand refugee populations and their political incorporation in the U.S."

— Dina Okamoto, author of Redefining Race: Asian American Panethnicity and Shifting Ethnic Boundaries

"In Immigrant Agency, Xiong offers a thoughtful and rigorous analysis of immigrant collective action and political incorporation through the case of Hmong Americans. He sheds light on how a vulnerable group of refugees from Laos, in response to political threats or opportunities, strategically interacts with the state and other minority groups to effectively influence public policies. This is an important contribution to the fields of migration studies, ethnic politics and Asian American studies."

— Min Zhou, Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies, UCLA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures
List of Maps
List of Abbreviations
1 Immigrant Agency
2 History and Contexts of Exit
3 Campaign for Justice
4 Battle for Naturalization
5 Movement for Inclusion
6 Racialized Political Incorporation and Immigrant Rights
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index