Results by title
433 books match the query 'Immigrants' and 16 start with d
Dangerous Occupations
Archaeologies of Structural Violence, Immigrants, and Resilience in Early CaliforniaMarco G. Meniketti
University of Alabama Press, 2026
Addresses structural violence through history and archaeology of immigrant workers
Dangerous Occupations: Archaeologies of Structural Violence, Immigrants, and Resilience in Early California is an impactful work of historical archaeology combined with social history that addresses structural violence in key California industries from the Gold Rush in 1849 until 1920. Monopolistic industries, such as railroading, mining, timbering, explosive manufacturing, lime production, meatpacking, textile milling, and fishing/whaling, relied on immigrant laborers who were recruited and perceived as expendable. Restrictive laws and lack of employment opportunities based on bigotry often forced immigrants into the most dangerous occupations. In the days before workmen’s compensation insurance and strict labor safety laws, laborers often risked their health and even their lives for employment.
Marco G. Meniketti’s analysis comes from examining excavation of labor camps and housing, landscape studies, bioarchaeological data, architectural footprints, and archival sources. Each chapter offers a case study of industries to exemplify structural violence and its broader consequences among various immigrant labor groups, such as Chinese, Scandinavian, Irish, Italian, Chilean, Cornish, and Portuguese. The narrative includes a historical overview of the industries, identifies who the immigrant laborers were and how they came to be there, examines the dangers and health risks of their jobs, and details their living conditions and daily life, including foodways, leisure, and efforts to treat their job-inflicted maladies. Dangerous Occupations introduces a new generation of readers to how immigrants built the West Coast and at what great cost.
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Dead in Their Tracks
Crossing America’s Desert Borderlands in the New EraJohn Annerino
University of Arizona Press, 2009
Alarmed by breaking news reports of thirteen men, women, and children who died of thirst on American soil—and twenty-two other human beings saved by Border Patrol rescue teams—John Annerino left the cool pines of his mountain retreat and journeyed into one of the most inhospitable places on earth, the heart of the 4,100-square-mile “empty quarter” that straddles the desolate corner of southwest Arizona and northwest Sonora, Mexico.
During the Sonoran Desert’s glorious and brutal summer season Annerino, a photojournalist, author, and explorer, watched four border crossers step off a bus and nonchalantly head into the American no-man’s land. On assignment for Newsweek, Annerino did more than just watch on that blistering August day. He joined them on their ultramarathon, life-or-death quest to find work to feed their families, amid temperatures so hot your parched throat burns from breathing and drinking water is the ultimate treasure.
As their water dwindled and the heat punished them, Annerino and the desperate men continued marching fifty miles in twenty-four hours and managed to survive their harrowing journey across the deadliest migrant trail in North America, El Camino del Diablo, “The Road of the Devil.” Driven by the mounting death toll, John returned again and again to the sun-scorched despoblado (uninhabited lands)—where hidden bighorn sheep water tanks glowed like diamonds—to document the lives, struggles, and heartbreaking remains of those who continue to disappear and perish in a region that’s claimed the lives of more than 9,700 men, women, and children.
Following the historic paths of indigenous Hia Ced O’odham (People of the Sand), Spanish missionary explorer Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, and California-bound Forty-Niners, Annerino’s journeys on foot, crisscrossed the alluring yet treacherous desert trails of the El Camino del Diablo, Hohokam shell trail, and O’odham salt trails where hundreds of gambusinos (Mexican miners) and Euro-American pioneers succumbed during the 1850s.
As the migrants kept coming, the deaths kept mounting, and Annerino kept returning. He crossed celebrated Sonoran Desert sanctuaries—Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Barry M. Goldwater Range, sacred ancestral lands of the Tohono O’odham—that had become lost horizons, killing grounds, graveyards, and deadly smuggling corridors that also claimed the lives of National Park rangers and Border Patrol agents. John Annerino’s mission was to save someone, anyone, everyone—when he could find them.
Dead in Their Tracks is the saga of a merciless despoblado in the Great Southwest, of desperate yet hopeful migrants and refugees who keep staggering north. It is the story of ranchers, locals, and Border Patrol trackers who’ve saved countless lives, and heavily armed smugglers who haunt an inhospitable, if beautiful, wilderness that remains off the radar for journalists and news organizations that dare not set foot in the American desert waiting to welcome them on its terms.
During the Sonoran Desert’s glorious and brutal summer season Annerino, a photojournalist, author, and explorer, watched four border crossers step off a bus and nonchalantly head into the American no-man’s land. On assignment for Newsweek, Annerino did more than just watch on that blistering August day. He joined them on their ultramarathon, life-or-death quest to find work to feed their families, amid temperatures so hot your parched throat burns from breathing and drinking water is the ultimate treasure.
As their water dwindled and the heat punished them, Annerino and the desperate men continued marching fifty miles in twenty-four hours and managed to survive their harrowing journey across the deadliest migrant trail in North America, El Camino del Diablo, “The Road of the Devil.” Driven by the mounting death toll, John returned again and again to the sun-scorched despoblado (uninhabited lands)—where hidden bighorn sheep water tanks glowed like diamonds—to document the lives, struggles, and heartbreaking remains of those who continue to disappear and perish in a region that’s claimed the lives of more than 9,700 men, women, and children.
Following the historic paths of indigenous Hia Ced O’odham (People of the Sand), Spanish missionary explorer Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, and California-bound Forty-Niners, Annerino’s journeys on foot, crisscrossed the alluring yet treacherous desert trails of the El Camino del Diablo, Hohokam shell trail, and O’odham salt trails where hundreds of gambusinos (Mexican miners) and Euro-American pioneers succumbed during the 1850s.
As the migrants kept coming, the deaths kept mounting, and Annerino kept returning. He crossed celebrated Sonoran Desert sanctuaries—Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Barry M. Goldwater Range, sacred ancestral lands of the Tohono O’odham—that had become lost horizons, killing grounds, graveyards, and deadly smuggling corridors that also claimed the lives of National Park rangers and Border Patrol agents. John Annerino’s mission was to save someone, anyone, everyone—when he could find them.
Dead in Their Tracks is the saga of a merciless despoblado in the Great Southwest, of desperate yet hopeful migrants and refugees who keep staggering north. It is the story of ranchers, locals, and Border Patrol trackers who’ve saved countless lives, and heavily armed smugglers who haunt an inhospitable, if beautiful, wilderness that remains off the radar for journalists and news organizations that dare not set foot in the American desert waiting to welcome them on its terms.
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Debating American Identity
Southwestern Statehood and Mexican ImmigrationLinda C. Noel
University of Arizona Press, 2014
In the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt, New Mexico governors Miguel Antonio Otero and Octaviano Larrazolo, and Arizona legislator Carl Hayden—along with the voices of less well-known American women and men—promoted very different views on what being an American meant. Their writings and speeches contributed to definitions of American national identity during a tumultuous and dynamic era. At stake in these heated debates was the very meaning of what constituted an American, the political boundaries for the United States, and the legitimacy of cultural diversity in modern America.
In Debating American Identity, Linda C. Noel examines several nation-defining events—the proposed statehood of Arizona and New Mexico, the creation of a temporary worker program during the First World War, immigration restriction in the 1920s, and the repatriation of immigrants in the early 1930s. Noel uncovers the differing ways in which Americans argued about how newcomers could fit within the nation-state, in terms of assimilation, pluralism, or marginalization, and the significance of class status, race, and culture in determining American identity.
Noel shows not only how the definition of American was contested, but also how the economic and political power of people of Mexican descent, their desire to incorporate as Americans or not, and the demand for their territory or labor by other Americans played an important part in shaping decisions about statehood and national immigration policies. Debating American Identity skillfully shows how early twentieth century debates over statehood influenced later ones concerning immigration; in doing so, it resonates with current discussions, resulting in a well-timed look at twentieth century citizenship.
In Debating American Identity, Linda C. Noel examines several nation-defining events—the proposed statehood of Arizona and New Mexico, the creation of a temporary worker program during the First World War, immigration restriction in the 1920s, and the repatriation of immigrants in the early 1930s. Noel uncovers the differing ways in which Americans argued about how newcomers could fit within the nation-state, in terms of assimilation, pluralism, or marginalization, and the significance of class status, race, and culture in determining American identity.
Noel shows not only how the definition of American was contested, but also how the economic and political power of people of Mexican descent, their desire to incorporate as Americans or not, and the demand for their territory or labor by other Americans played an important part in shaping decisions about statehood and national immigration policies. Debating American Identity skillfully shows how early twentieth century debates over statehood influenced later ones concerning immigration; in doing so, it resonates with current discussions, resulting in a well-timed look at twentieth century citizenship.
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Deciding To Be Legal
A Maya Community in HoustonJacqueline Hagan
Temple University Press, 1994
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Decolonizing the Republic
African and Caribbean Migrants in Postwar Paris, 1946–1974Félix F. Germain
Michigan State University Press, 2016
Decolonizing the Republic is a conscientious discussion of the African diaspora in Paris in the post–World War II period. This book is the first to examine the intersection of black activism and the migration of Caribbeans and Africans to Paris during this era and, as Patrick Manning notes in the foreword, successfully shows how “black Parisians—in their daily labors, weekend celebrations, and periodic protests—opened the way to ‘decolonizing the Republic,’ advancing the respect for their rights as citizens.” Contrasted to earlier works focusing on the black intellectual elite, Decolonizing the Republic maps the formation of a working-class black France. Readers will better comprehend how those peoples of African descent who settled in France and fought to improve their socioeconomic conditions changed the French perception of Caribbean and African identity, laying the foundation for contemporary black activists to deploy a new politics of social inclusion across the demographics of race, class, gender, and nationality. This book complicates conventional understandings of decolonization, and in doing so opens a new and much-needed chapter in the history of the black Atlantic.
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Defectives in the Land
Disability and Immigration in the Age of EugenicsDouglas C. Baynton
University of Chicago Press, 2016
Immigration history has largely focused on the restriction of immigrants by race and ethnicity, overlooking disability as a crucial factor in the crafting of the image of the “undesirable immigrant.” Defectives in the Land, Douglas C. Baynton’s groundbreaking new look at immigration and disability, aims to change this.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Baynton explains, immigration restriction in the United States was primarily intended to keep people with disabilities—known as “defectives”—out of the country. The list of those included is long: the deaf, blind, epileptic, and mobility impaired; people with curved spines, hernias, flat or club feet, missing limbs, and short limbs; those unusually short or tall; people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities; intersexuals; men of “poor physique” and men diagnosed with “feminism.” Not only were disabled individuals excluded, but particular races and nationalities were also identified as undesirable based on their supposed susceptibility to mental, moral, and physical defects.
In this transformative book, Baynton argues that early immigration laws were a cohesive whole—a decades-long effort to find an effective method of excluding people considered to be defective. This effort was one aspect of a national culture that was increasingly fixated on competition and efficiency, anxious about physical appearance and difference, and haunted by a fear of hereditary defect and the degeneration of the American race.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Baynton explains, immigration restriction in the United States was primarily intended to keep people with disabilities—known as “defectives”—out of the country. The list of those included is long: the deaf, blind, epileptic, and mobility impaired; people with curved spines, hernias, flat or club feet, missing limbs, and short limbs; those unusually short or tall; people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities; intersexuals; men of “poor physique” and men diagnosed with “feminism.” Not only were disabled individuals excluded, but particular races and nationalities were also identified as undesirable based on their supposed susceptibility to mental, moral, and physical defects.
In this transformative book, Baynton argues that early immigration laws were a cohesive whole—a decades-long effort to find an effective method of excluding people considered to be defective. This effort was one aspect of a national culture that was increasingly fixated on competition and efficiency, anxious about physical appearance and difference, and haunted by a fear of hereditary defect and the degeneration of the American race.
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Deflecting Immigration
Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los AngelesIvan Light
Russell Sage Foundation, 2006
As international travel became cheaper and national economies grew more connected over the past thirty years, millions of people from the Third World emigrated to richer countries. A tenth of the population of Mexico relocated to the United States between 1980 and 2000. Globalization theorists claimed that reception cities could do nothing about this trend, since nations make immigration policy, not cities. In Deflecting Immigration, sociologist Ivan Light shows how Los Angeles reduced the sustained, high-volume influx of poor Latinos who settled there by deflecting a portion of the migration to other cities in the United States. In this manner, Los Angeles tamed globalization's local impact, and helped to nationalize what had been a regional immigration issue. Los Angeles deflected immigration elsewhere in two ways. First, the protracted network-driven settlement of Mexicans naturally drove up rents in Mexican neighborhoods while reducing immigrants' wages, rendering Los Angeles a less attractive place to settle. Second, as migration outstripped the city's capacity to absorb newcomers, Los Angeles gradually became poverty-intolerant. By enforcing existing industrial, occupational, and housing ordinances, Los Angeles shut down some unwanted sweatshops and reduced slums. Their loss reduced the metropolitan region's accessibility to poor immigrants without reducing its attractiveness to wealthier immigrants. Additionally, ordinances mandating that homes be built on minimum-sized plots of land with attached garages made home ownership in L.A.'s suburbs unaffordable for poor immigrants and prevented low-cost rental housing from being built. Local rules concerning home occupancy and yard maintenance also prevented poor immigrants from crowding together to share housing costs. Unable to find affordable housing or low-wage jobs, approximately one million Latinos were deflected from Los Angeles between 1980 and 2000. The realities of a new global economy are still unfolding, with uncertain consequences for the future of advanced societies, but mass migration from the Third World is unlikely to stop in the next generation. Deflecting Immigration offers a shrewd analysis of how America's largest immigrant destination independently managed the challenges posed by millions of poor immigrants and, in the process, helped focus attention on immigration as an issue of national importance.
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Democracy's Promise
Immigrants and American Civic InstitutionsJanelle S. Wong
University of Michigan Press, 2006
Given the massive demographic changes in the United States during the past few decades, understanding the place of immigrants in the public sphere has never been more critical. Democracy's Promise examines both the challenges and opportunities posed to American civic institutions by the presence of increasing numbers of immigrants. Author Janelle Wong argues that the low levels of political participation among contemporary immigrants are not due to apathy or preoccupation with their homeland, but to the inability of American political parties and advocacy organizations to mobilize immigrant voters. Wong's rich study of Chinese and Mexican immigrants in New York and Los Angeles complements traditional studies of political behavior and civic institutions while offering a nuanced examination of immigrants' political activity.
Democracy's Promise will appeal to a broad spectrum of social scientists and ethnic studies scholars who study or teach immigration, racial and ethnic politics, political participation, civic engagement, and American political institutions. In addition, it will appeal to community organizers and party activists who are interested in issues of race and ethnicity, immigration, political participation, and political mobilization.
Janelle Wong is Assistant Professor of Political Science and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
--Jennifer L. Hochschild, Harvard University
"Wong draws on the Latino and Asian immigrant experience, with specific examples from the Chinese and Mexican communities of New York and Los Angeles, to show how the political parties have largely failed to organize these groups and why labor unions and immigrant advocacy organizations have stepped in to take their place. Far from 'disuniting' America, she clearly shows that bringing these groups into the political fray is central to the project of renewing American democracy."
--John Mollenkopf, CUNY Graduate Center
"A scathing critique of the role of parties in the mobilization of new immigrants and an invaluable analysis of alternative pathways of mobilization through community organizations."
--Michael Jones-Correa, Cornell University
"By employing multiple empirical methods, including in-depth interviews and sophisticated survey analyses, Janelle Wong provides a compelling account of the political activities and allegiances of America's Asian and Latino immigrants that challenges much conventional wisdom. Often the political parties are failing to reach out to these groups, and often immigrants remain concerned about their home countries; but they are nonetheless increasingly active in American politics, in ways that may do much to shape the course of American political development in the 21st century. Democracy's Promise is a major contribution to our understanding of this crucial dimension of American politics."
--Rogers M. Smith, University of Pennsylvania
"Democracy's Promise challenges political parties to reexamine their priorities for mobilizing new voters, and identifies the critical role civic institutions play in invigorating participation among immigrant citizens. Wong's analysis is at once precise and expansive; illuminating the contours of Latino and Asian American political incorporation and provoking thoughtful debate on inclusion in democratic theory."
--Jane Junn, Rutgers University
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Devotion to the Adopted Country
U.S. Immigrant Volunteers in the Mexican WarTyler V. Johnson
University of Missouri Press, 2012
In Devotion to the Adopted Country, Tyler V. Johnson looks at the efforts of America’s Democratic Party and Catholic leadership to use the service of immigrant volunteers in the U.S.–Mexican War as a weapon against nativism and anti-Catholicism. Each chapter focuses on one of the five major events or issues that arose during the war, finishing with how the Catholic and immigrant community remembered the war during the nativist resurgence of the 1850s and in the outbreak of the Civil War. Johnson’s book uncovers a new social aspect to military history by connecting the war to the larger social, political, and religious threads of antebellum history.
Having grown used to the repeated attacks of nativists upon the fidelity and competency of the German and Irish immigrants flooding into the United States, Democratic and Catholic newspapers vigorously defended the adopted citizens they valued as constituents and congregants. These efforts frequently consisted of arguments extolling the American virtues of the recent arrivals, pointing to their hard work, love of liberty, and willingness to sacrifice for their adopted country.
However, immigrants sometimes undermined this portrayal by prioritizing their ethnic and/or religious identities over their identities as new U.S. citizens. Even opportunities seemingly tailor-made for the defenders of Catholicism and the nation’s adopted citizens could go awry. When the supposedly well-disciplined Irish volunteers from Savannah brawled with soldiers from another Georgia company on a Rio Grande steamboat, the fight threatened to confirm the worst stereotypes of the nation’s new Irish citizens. In addition, although the Jesuits John McElroy and Anthony Rey gained admirers in the army and in the rest of the country for their untiring care for wounded and sick soldiers in northern Mexico, anti-Catholic activists denounced them for taking advantage of vulnerable young men to win converts for the Church.
Using the letters and personal papers of soldiers, the diaries and correspondence of Fathers McElroy and Rey, Catholic and Democratic newspapers, and military records, Johnson illuminates the lives and actions of Catholic and immigrant volunteers and the debates over their participation in the war. Shedding light on this understudied and misunderstood facet of the war with Mexico, Devotion to the Adopted Country adds to the scholarship on immigration and religion in antebellum America, illustrating the contentious and controversial process by which immigrants and their supporters tried to carve out a place in U.S. society.
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Diaspora Identities
Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and PresentEdited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn
Campus Verlag, 2009
Historical work on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suggests that as nation-states were solidifying throughout Western Europe, exiled groups tended to develop rival national identities—an occurrence that had been fairly uncommon in the two preceding centuries. Diaspora Identities draws on eight case studies, ranging from the early modern period through the twentieth century, to explore the interconnectedness of exile, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism as concepts, ideals, attitudes, and strategies among diasporic groups.
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Displacements and Diasporas
Asians in the AmericasAnderson, Wanni W.
Rutgers University Press, 2005
Asians have settled in every country in the Western Hemisphere; some are recent arrivals, other descendents of immigrants who arrived centuries ago. Bringing together essays by thirteen scholars from the humanities and social sciences, Displacements and Diasporas explores this genuinely transnational Asian American experience-one that crosses the Pacific and traverses the Americas from Canada to Brazil, from New York to the Caribbean.
With an emphasis on anthropological and historical contexts, the essays show how the experiences of Asians across the Americas have been shaped by the social dynamics and politics of settlement locations as much as by transnational connections and the economic forces of globalization. Contributors bring new insights to the unique situations of Asian communities previously overlooked by scholars, such as Vietnamese Canadians and the Lao living in Rhode Island. Other topics include Chinese laborers and merchants in Latin America and the Caribbean, Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Brazil, Afro-Amerasians in America, and the politics of second-generation Indian American youth culture.
Together the essays provide a valuable comparative portrait of Asians across the Americas. Engaging issues of diaspora, transnational social practice and community building, gender, identity, institutionalized racism, and deterritoriality, this volume presents fresh perspectives on displacement, opening the topic up to a wider, more interdisciplinary terrain of inquiry and teaching.
With an emphasis on anthropological and historical contexts, the essays show how the experiences of Asians across the Americas have been shaped by the social dynamics and politics of settlement locations as much as by transnational connections and the economic forces of globalization. Contributors bring new insights to the unique situations of Asian communities previously overlooked by scholars, such as Vietnamese Canadians and the Lao living in Rhode Island. Other topics include Chinese laborers and merchants in Latin America and the Caribbean, Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Brazil, Afro-Amerasians in America, and the politics of second-generation Indian American youth culture.
Together the essays provide a valuable comparative portrait of Asians across the Americas. Engaging issues of diaspora, transnational social practice and community building, gender, identity, institutionalized racism, and deterritoriality, this volume presents fresh perspectives on displacement, opening the topic up to a wider, more interdisciplinary terrain of inquiry and teaching.
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Diverse Pathways
Race and the Incorporation of Black, White, and Arab-Origin Africans in the United StatesKevin J. A. Thomas
Michigan State University Press, 2014
Africans are among the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States. Although they are racially and ethnically diverse, few studies have examined how these differences affect their patterns of incorporation into society. This book is the first to highlight the role of race and ethnicity, Arab ethnicity in particular, in shaping the experiences of African immigrants. It demonstrates that American conceptions of race result in significant inequalities in the ways in which African immigrants are socially integrated. Thomas argues that suggestions that Black Africans are model-minorities who have overcome the barriers of race are misleading, showing that Black and Arab-ethnicity Africans systematically experience less favorable socioeconomic outcomes than their White African counterparts. Overall, the book makes three critical arguments. First, historical and contemporary constructions of race have important implications for understanding the dynamics of African immigration and settlement in the United States. Second, there are significant racial inequalities in the social and economic incorporation of contemporary African immigrants. Finally, Arab ethnicity has additional implications for understanding intra-racial disparities in incorporation among contemporary African immigrants. In general, these arguments are foundational for understanding the diversity of African immigrant experiences.
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Dollar, Dove, and Eagle
One Hundred Years of Palestinian Migration to HondurasNancie L. Gonzalez
University of Michigan Press, 1993
Examination of the dynamics of the Palestinian diaspora in Honduras
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Dreamer Nation
Immigration, Activism, and NeoliberalismAna Milena Ribero
University of Alabama Press, 2023
Illustrates how the Dreamer community was created rhetorically—in the discourse, messages, actions, and visual representations of undocumented youth
Dreamer Nation tells the story of how Dreamers in the Obama era creatively confronted a complex sociopolitical landscape to advocate for immigrant rights and empower undocumented youth to proudly represent their lives and identities, all while under the ever-present threat of detention and deportation. Contributing to rhetorical studies of social movements, immigration, and minoritized rhetorics, Ribero argues that even though Dreamer rhetorics were reflective of the discursive limits of the neoliberal milieu, they also worked to disrupt neoliberal constraints through activism that troubled the primacy of the nation-state and citizenship, refused to adhere to respectability politics, forwarded embodied identity and transnational belonging, and looked for liberation in community—not solely in legislative action.
Each chapter presents a different rhetorical situation within the US “crisis” of immigration and the rhetoric that Dreamers used to respond to it. Organized chronologically, the chapters document Dreamer activism during the Obama presidency, from the 2010 hunger strikes advocating for the DREAM Act to undocuqueer “artivism” responding to Trump’s presidential campaign. The author draws not only on the methods and theories of rhetorical studies but also on women of color feminisms, ethnic studies, critical theory, and queer theory. In this way, the book looks across disciplines to illustrate the rhetorical savvy of one of the most important US social movements of our time.
Dreamer Nation tells the story of how Dreamers in the Obama era creatively confronted a complex sociopolitical landscape to advocate for immigrant rights and empower undocumented youth to proudly represent their lives and identities, all while under the ever-present threat of detention and deportation. Contributing to rhetorical studies of social movements, immigration, and minoritized rhetorics, Ribero argues that even though Dreamer rhetorics were reflective of the discursive limits of the neoliberal milieu, they also worked to disrupt neoliberal constraints through activism that troubled the primacy of the nation-state and citizenship, refused to adhere to respectability politics, forwarded embodied identity and transnational belonging, and looked for liberation in community—not solely in legislative action.
Each chapter presents a different rhetorical situation within the US “crisis” of immigration and the rhetoric that Dreamers used to respond to it. Organized chronologically, the chapters document Dreamer activism during the Obama presidency, from the 2010 hunger strikes advocating for the DREAM Act to undocuqueer “artivism” responding to Trump’s presidential campaign. The author draws not only on the methods and theories of rhetorical studies but also on women of color feminisms, ethnic studies, critical theory, and queer theory. In this way, the book looks across disciplines to illustrate the rhetorical savvy of one of the most important US social movements of our time.
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Dreams Achieved and Denied
Mexican Intergenerational MobilityRobert Courtney Smith
Russell Sage Foundation, 2024
U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City have achieved perhaps the biggest single generation jump in mobility in American immigration history. In 2020, 42-percent of second-generation U.S.-born Mexican men and 49-percent of U.S.-born Mexican women in New York City had graduated from college – versus a 13-14-percent second-generation college graduation rate for most places for most studies done in recent decades. How did U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City achieve such remarkable mobility? In Dreams Achieved and Denied, sociologist Robert Courtney Smith examines the laws, policies, and individual and family practices that promoted – and inhibited – their social mobility.
For over twenty years, Smith followed the lives and mobility of nearly one hundred children of Mexican immigrants in New York City. Smith’s longitudinal, ethnographic data enabled him to intimately describe how specific mechanisms blocked or promoted mobility for years as his participants moved from adolescence through early adulthood and into established adulthood. Smith documents how having or gaining legal status made certain New York City or New York State policies and practices more efficacious in supporting individual and family efforts and strategies for mobility. Such immigrant-inclusive and mobility-promoting measures include enabling undocumented people to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates, and later to get driver’s licenses, offering healthcare to all in New York City, and the City’s subway and school choice systems, which enabled students to attend better schools or take opportunities outside their neighborhoods.
Smith finds that keeping the immigrant bargain – whereby children of immigrants redeem their parents’ sacrifice by doing well in school, helping their parents and siblings, and becoming “good” people (in their parents’ words) – helped them towards better adult outcomes and lives. Having mentors, picking academically stronger schools and friends, and using second chance mechanisms also promoted more adult mobility. However, lacking legal status blocked mobility, by preventing them from benefiting from these same mobility-promoting city and state policies, from mentors, or from working hard and keeping the immigrant bargain.
Dreams Achieved and Denied deeply analyzes the historic upward mobility of U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City. Itcounters the dominant story research and public discourse tell about Mexican mobility in the U.S. and shows how thoughtful public policy can improve the lives of young immigrants and families.
For over twenty years, Smith followed the lives and mobility of nearly one hundred children of Mexican immigrants in New York City. Smith’s longitudinal, ethnographic data enabled him to intimately describe how specific mechanisms blocked or promoted mobility for years as his participants moved from adolescence through early adulthood and into established adulthood. Smith documents how having or gaining legal status made certain New York City or New York State policies and practices more efficacious in supporting individual and family efforts and strategies for mobility. Such immigrant-inclusive and mobility-promoting measures include enabling undocumented people to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates, and later to get driver’s licenses, offering healthcare to all in New York City, and the City’s subway and school choice systems, which enabled students to attend better schools or take opportunities outside their neighborhoods.
Smith finds that keeping the immigrant bargain – whereby children of immigrants redeem their parents’ sacrifice by doing well in school, helping their parents and siblings, and becoming “good” people (in their parents’ words) – helped them towards better adult outcomes and lives. Having mentors, picking academically stronger schools and friends, and using second chance mechanisms also promoted more adult mobility. However, lacking legal status blocked mobility, by preventing them from benefiting from these same mobility-promoting city and state policies, from mentors, or from working hard and keeping the immigrant bargain.
Dreams Achieved and Denied deeply analyzes the historic upward mobility of U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City. Itcounters the dominant story research and public discourse tell about Mexican mobility in the U.S. and shows how thoughtful public policy can improve the lives of young immigrants and families.
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Dutch in Michigan
Larry Ten Harmsel
Michigan State University Press, 2002
Even though they are historically one of the smaller immigrant streams, nineteenth-century Dutch migrants and their descendants have made parts of West Michigan their own. The first Dutch in Michigan were religious dissenters whose commitment to Calvinism had long-reaching effects on their communities, even in the face of later waves of radicalized industrial immigrants and the challenges of modern life. From Calvin College to Meijer Thrifty Acres and the Tulip Festival, the Dutch presence has enriched and informed people throughout the state. Larry ten Harmsel skillfully weaves together the strands of history and modern culture to create a balanced and sensitive portrayal of this vibrant community.
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