Disenchanting Citizenship
Disenchanting Citizenship

Author: Luis F. B. Plascencia

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2012-07-04

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0813553342

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Central to contemporary debates in the United States on migration and migrant policy is the idea of citizenship, and—as apparent in the continued debate over Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070—this issue remains a focal point of contention, with a key concern being whether there should be a path to citizenship for “undocumented” migrants. In Disenchanting Citizenship, Luis F. B. Plascencia examines two interrelated issues: U.S. citizenship and the Mexican migrants’ position in the United States. The book explores the meaning of U.S. citizenship through the experience of a unique group of Mexican migrants who were granted Temporary Status under the “legalization” provisions of the 1986 IRCA, attained Lawful Permanent Residency, and later became U.S. citizens. Plascencia integrates an extensive and multifaceted collection of interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, ethno-historical research, and public policy analysis in examining efforts that promote the acquisition of citizenship, the teaching of citizenship classes, and naturalization ceremonies. Ultimately, he unearths citizenship’s root as a Janus-faced construct that encompasses a simultaneous process of inclusion and exclusion. This notion of citizenship is mapped on to the migrant experience, arguing that the acquisition of citizenship can lead to disenchantment with the very status desired. In the end, Plascencia expands our understanding of the dynamics of U.S. citizenship as a form of membership and belonging.

Citizen, Student, Soldier
Citizen, Student, Soldier

Author: Gina M. Pérez

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2015-11-27

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 147980780X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the 1990s, Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) programs have experienced unprecedented expansion in American public schools. The program and its proliferation in poor, urban schools districts with large numbers of Latina/o and African American students is not without controversy. Public support is often based on the belief that the program provides much-needed discipline for "at risk" youth. Meanwhile, critics of JROTC argue that the program is a recruiting tool for the U.S. military and is yet another example of an increasingly punitive climate that disproportionately affect youth of color in American public schools. Citizen, Student, Soldier intervenes in these debates, providing critical ethnographic attention to understanding the motivations, aspirations, and experiences of students who participate in increasing numbers in JROTC programs. These students have complex reasons for their participation, reasons that challenge the reductive idea that they are either dangerous youths who need discipline or victims being exploited by a predatory program. Rather, their participation is informed by their marginal economic position in the local political economy, as well as their desire to be regarded as full citizens, both locally and nationally. Citizenship is one of the central concerns guiding the JROTC curriculum; this book explores ethnographically how students understand and enact different visions of citizenship and grounds these understandings in local and national political economic contexts. It also highlights the ideological, social and cultural conditions of Latina/o youth and their families who both participate in and are enmeshed in vigorous debates about citizenship, obligation, social opportunity, militarism and, ultimately, the American Dream.

Undocumented Immigrants in the United States [2 volumes]
Undocumented Immigrants in the United States [2 volumes]

Author: Anna Ochoa O'Leary

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 941

ISBN-13: 0313384258

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This two-volume reference work addresses the dynamic lives of undocumented immigrants in the United States and establishes these individuals' experiences as a key part of our nation's demographic and sociological evolution. This two-volume work supplies accessible and comprehensive coverage of this complex subject by consolidating the insights of hundreds of scholars who have studied the issues of undocumented immigration in the United States for years. It provides a historical perspective that underscores the exponential growth of the undocumented population in the last three decades and presents a more nuanced, more detailed, and therefore more accurate portrait of undocumented immigrants than is available in general media. Also included are recommended resources that will serve researchers seeking more information on topics regarding undocumented immigrants.

Specters of Belonging
Specters of Belonging

Author: Adrián Félix

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 019087936X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As the United States hardens its border with Mexico, how do migrants make transnational claims of citizenship in both nation-states? By enacting citizenship in both countries, Mexican migrants are challenging the meaning of membership and belonging from the margins of both citizenship regimes. With their incessant border-shattering political practices, Mexican migrants have become the embodiment of transnational citizenship on both sides of the divide. Drawing on his experiences leading citizenship classes for Mexican migrants and working with cross-border activists, Adri n F lix examines the political lives (and deaths) of Mexican migrants in Specters of Belonging. Tracing transnationalism across the different stages of the migrant political life cycle - beginning with the so-called political baptism of naturalization and ending with the practice by which migrant bodies are repatriated to Mexico for burial after death - F lix reveals the varied ways in which Mexican transnational subjects practice citizenship in the United States as well as Mexico. As such, F lix unearths how Mexican migrants' specters of belonging perennially haunt the political projects of nationalism, citizenship, and democracy on both sides of the border.

The Integration of Immigrants into American Society
The Integration of Immigrants into American Society

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-03-17

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 0309374014

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and the country has a long history of successfully absorbing people from across the globe. The integration of immigrants and their children contributes to our economic vitality and our vibrant and ever changing culture. We have offered opportunities to immigrants and their children to better themselves and to be fully incorporated into our society and in exchange immigrants have become Americans - embracing an American identity and citizenship, protecting our country through service in our military, fostering technological innovation, harvesting its crops, and enriching everything from the nation's cuisine to its universities, music, and art. Today, the 41 million immigrants in the United States represent 13.1 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S.-born children of immigrants, the second generation, represent another 37.1 million people, or 12 percent of the population. Thus, together the first and second generations account for one out of four members of the U.S. population. Whether they are successfully integrating is therefore a pressing and important question. Are new immigrants and their children being well integrated into American society, within and across generations? Do current policies and practices facilitate their integration? How is American society being transformed by the millions of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades? To answer these questions, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine summarizes what we know about how immigrants and their descendants are integrating into American society in a range of areas such as education, occupations, health, and language.

Migration Control in Practice
Migration Control in Practice

Author: Federica Infantino

Publisher: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles

Published: 2022-11-17

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 280041829X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The book presents the results of several qualitative research project with different actors that put migration policies into practice. It shows the different ways in which day-to-day activities of organisations shape migration policies on the ground. This book offers a comprehensive exploration on how different migration policies are implemented day by day. Such an approach allows to show the different ways in which migration policies on the ground take a life of their own when compared to the letter of the law. The book shows the need to understand the specific logics and workings of the implementation of policies, while taking into account the continued role played by politicians and the judiciary, non-state actors and migrants. Qualitative research with different public institutions implementing migration policies are combined with an exploration of the role of NGOs, supranational institutions and the migrants themselves. Bringing together the results of several research projects with fieldwork in Belgium, the UK, France, Morocco and Malta, the book covers the different stages of the migratory career. It follows the potential trajectory of a migrant from visa obtention (both in general and for students specifically) to border controls, asylum (including resettlement and gender and sexuality-based asylum), access to residence (with a specific focus on marriage-based residence), healthcare and nationality, or to detention and managed return migration. Through its chapters it shows the day-to-day logics, routines and tactics that bureaucrats and other actors adopt, within the constrains of laws, social interactions, and ideas about policies. À PROPOS DES AUTEURS Djordje Sredanovic est chargé de recherche F.R.S.-FNRS au laboratoire GERME de l'Université Libre de Bruxelles. Sociologue spécialisé dans les études de la nationalité, citoyenneté et migrations, il a conduit recherches sur les expériences et l'implémentation des politiques migratoires. Federica Infantino est Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow au Migration Policy Centre à l'Institut Universitaire Européen à Florence est Maitre de Conférence à l'Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond
Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond

Author: Hsin-I Cheng

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 149858151X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Citizenship is traditionally viewed as a legal status to be possessed. Cultivating Membership in Taiwan and Beyond: Relational Citizenship proposes the concept of relational citizenship to articulate the value-laden, interactive nature of belongingness. Hsin-I Cheng examines the role of relationality which produces and is a product of localized emotions. Cheng attends to particular histories and global trajectories embedded within uneven power relations. By focusing on Taiwan, a non-Western society with a tradition to adeptly attune to local experiences and those from various global influences, relational citizenship highlights the measures used to define and encourage interactions with newcomers. This book shows the multilayered communicative processes in which relations are gradually created, challenged, merged, disrupted, repaired, and solidified. Cheng further argues that this concept is not bound to nation-state geographic boundaries as relationality bleeds through national borders. Relational citizenship has the potential to move beyond the East vs. West epistemology to examine peoples’ lived realities wherein the sense of belonging is discursively accomplished, viscerally experienced, and publicly performed.

Mobilizing Opportunities
Mobilizing Opportunities

Author: Ricardo Ramírez

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2013-11-04

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 0813935113

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The growth of the Latino population is the most significant demographic shift in the United States today. Yet growth alone cannot explain this population’s increasing impact on the electorate; nor can a parsing of its subethnicities. In the most significant analysis to date on the growing political activation of Latinos, Ricardo Ramírez identifies when and where Latino participation in the political process has come about as well as its many motivations. Using a state-centered approach, the author focuses on the interaction between demographic factors and political contexts, from long-term trends in party competition, to the resources and mobilization efforts of ethnic organizations and the Spanish-language media, to the perception of political threat as a basis for mobilization. The picture that emerges is one of great temporal and geographic variation. In it, Ramírez captures the transformation of Latinos’ civic and political reality and the engines behind the evolution of this crucial electorate. Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

Knowing Silence
Knowing Silence

Author: Ariana Mangual Figueroa

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2024-04-02

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1452964955

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Learning from children about citizenship status and how it shapes their schooling There is a persistent assumption in the field of education that children are largely unaware of their immigration status and its implications. In Knowing Silence, Ariana Mangual Figueroa challenges this “myth of ignorance.” By listening carefully to both the speech and significant silences of six Latina students from mixed-immigration-status families, from elementary school into middle school and beyond, she reveals the complex ways young people understand and negotiate immigration status and its impact on their lives. Providing these children with iPod Touches to record their own conversations, Mangual Figueroa observes when and how they choose to talk about citizenship at home, at school, and in public spaces. Analyzing family conversations about school forms, in-class writing assignments, encounters with the police, and applications for college, she demonstrates that children grapple with the realities of citizenship from an early age. Educators who underestimate children’s knowledge, Mangual Figueroa shows, can marginalize or misunderstand these students and their families. Combining significant empirical findings with reflections on the ethical questions surrounding research and responsibility, Mangual Figueroa models new ways scholars might collaborate with educators, children, and families. With rigorous and innovative ethnographic methodologies, Knowing Silence makes audible the experiences of immigrant-origin students in their own terms, ultimately offering teachers and researchers a crucial framework for understanding citizenship in the contemporary classroom.