immigration terms and analysis of interview

An understandably contentious issue, immigration cuts to the core of what it means to be American. Recent immigrants find themselves especially vulnerable to being caught in the crossfire of heated debates over American immigration policy. The migration of Mexican nationals to the United States is hardly a new phenomenon; in fact, the tide of immigration flow from Mexico ebbed in the 1970s. As Massey 1986) points out, it is a gross generalization to assume that economic factors alone drive immigration. Certainly there are a large number of immigrants from Mexico to the United States who are both pushed and pulled by financial need. Yet firmly established structures and institutions support new immigrants, and immigration is frequently a family phenomenon—particularly evident in the Mexican immigrant experience (Massey, 1986). Prevailing anti-immigration discourse in the United States obfuscates the tremendous amount of diversity within the American immigrant experience, and even among specific immigrant groups like those who hail from Mexico.
Furthermore, anti-immigrant discourse also echoes the nativist sentiments that have steeped their way through some segments of American society since the 19th century. The most extreme form of nativism is of course intransigent nativism, the extreme belief in stopping all new forms of immigration. The irony inherent in any form of nativist ethos highlights the inconsistencies in nativist arguments characterized by reactive ethnicity, a prime example of which is the “Hispanic threat” or “Hispanic challenge,” as Huntington (2009) calls it. Such arguments carefully skirt around apparent truths about American history, including the fact that the American-Mexican border was at one time a lot more fluid and permeable than it is today, and that much of the American Southwest had been under Mexican auspices until the Mexican-American war. Todos somos Americanos.
To elucidate the core principles, theories, and concepts addressed in the sociology of immigration in America, an interview was conducted with a first-generation immigrant from Mexico. The interview subject will be referred to as Juan for anonymity. Juan was born in Guadalajara and later moved to Mexico City with his family. Unlike many of the Mexican immigrants discussed in the sociological literature, Juan and his family were from a wealthy background and they retain strong business and social ties to Mexico City. The experiences of Juan and his family members nevertheless does parallel those of his compatriots, particularly in that Juan has encountered both subtle and overt forms of discrimination. Juan and several of his relatives of the same generations could easily be referred to as immigrant entrepreneurs or professional immigrants, as opposed to those with refugee status or who are labor immigrants.
Juan’s story reflects the salience of social organization as a key factor in immigration experiences. As Massey (1986) points out, kinship and community bonds can be either formal or informal but always have a strong bearing on the individual and collective immigrant experience. However, he has heard about landmark policies and programs like the Bracero Program of the early 20th century, which “came to be seen as a discriminatory and exploitive labor system, on a par with black sharecropping in the Jim Crow south,” (Massey, 1986, p. 2). Another major piece of legislation that impacted immigration policies in the United States was the Hart-Cellar Act/Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965—“a new system that allocated residence visas uniformly on the basis of labor market needs and family reunification criteria,” (p. 2). The Hart-Cellar/immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 took into account the fact that social organization and kinship ties are a major and often deciding factor for many immigrants. Moreover, emphasizing labor market needs creates pathways. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act also came out of the civil rights era reform, making it so that ethnicity or nationality were less important criteria for immigration quotas than humanitarian or economic forces. Then in 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act created new opportunities for establishing legal status in the United States. At this point in immigration policy history, the term “illegal alien” came into common use, transforming public perceptions and attitudes towards newcomers.
Juan is too young to remember how past immigration policies and laws in the United States might have impacted his community. Yet he completely understands that the label of illegality is in many ways an arbitrary one; illegality is socially constructed. Being undocumented is a serious issue, Juan points out. No one really wants to be “illegal” or “undocumented,” but oftentimes circumstances necessitate the skirting around formal processes due to the tenor of public discourse and the lack of appropriate programs and opportunities for keeping families and communities together. The DACA/”Dreamer” program aimed to help young undocumented immigrants transition from an illegal towards a legal status, with net benefits to all stakeholders. As Gonzales (2011) points out, first and 1.5-generation undocumented immigrants are protected tacitly by the public school system, but after graduation from high school their role and status changes. They are now labeled as “illegal,” unable to take part in the labor market. They “move from protected to unprotected, from inclusion to exclusion, from de facto legal to illegal,” (Gonzales, 2011, p. 602). In many cases, these children lack support from their teachers or school administrators, who cannot or will not advocate on their behalf due to ignorance of the laws and the rights afforded to the students. Bereft of opportunities to receive financial aid for college, or even to attend a college as a domestic applicant, many children graduate high school with no prospects and end up in low-wage dead-end jobs.
While Juan was fortunate enough to have family money to sustain his work in the United States, he knows many people who fell through the cracks. Some realize that the freedoms they took for granted in grade school will no longer protect them. They start to see their “illegal” and liminal status as being a permanent condition from which escape is not possible. Many turn to black or grey market economies to supplement their meager incomes. They start to develop a “tacit acceptance of their circumstances” and have “low expectations for the future,” (Gonzales, 2011, p. 614). Because so many were in the dark about their legal status and the problems it might create for them, the young people are caught between worlds. They have the necessary social capital they need to succeed, such as education and English language skills. Yet they lack human capital such as mentors, guides, access to credible information, or financial support. Too many young people also find themselves in the precarious position of having to support their family members, especially elders who lack English language skills or the ability to succeed on their own. Essentially, they become trapped. The anti-immigrant discourse clouds the genuine humanitarian issues that could be so easily resolved via simple and cost-effective policies and programs.
Juan and many others may understand they come from a position of relative privilege versus those immigrants whose low socioeconomic status prevents them from thriving. The difference between the poor versus wealthy immigrant experiences can be framed in terms of the hourglass socioeconomic phenomenon that had taken place also during the Industrial Revolution. Just as industrial restructuring led to major changes in immigration patterns, patterns of migration and urbanization, and wealth disparity, the same is taking place now with the information-based economy. Juan suggests that the information-based economy provides opportunities that could uplift the disenfranchised via opportunities for freelancing online or geographically independent work. The creation of information corridors that link Canada, the United States, and Mexico could provide solutions to some of the current problems with the flow of people across international borders. As Massey (n.d.) points out, many Mexican immigrants—and immigrants from other countries, no doubt—do what is known as “circular migration” anyway: going back and forth instead of leaving their home country for good (p. 2). The new economy and new labor market allows for circular migration among people of all socioeconomic classes, and in many ways even demands such flexible patterns. Instead of viewing immigration through the outdated lenses of the twentieth century, it would be more fruitful to rewrite immigration laws and policies for the new global market economy.
One cannot broach the subject of immigration without discussing race and ethnicity. Nativism and the “Hispanic challenge” approach espoused by Huntington (2009) and others have crept towards the forefront of popular discourse on immigration. The racialization of immigration is a serious issue, with adverse impacts on all Americans. During the major waves of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, racist discourse did unfortunately dominate public policy and created a vast underclass of disenfranchised Americans labeled as being outsiders, accused of failing to assimilate. Favoring some immigrant groups over others because of race or ethnicity has also been happening now, with the militarization of the border with Mexico. Gonzales’s (2009) accusation that Latin(x) immigrants fail to assimilate is largely unfounded, even though there is a perception that enclaves equal antagonistic relationships with Anglo norms, language, and culture. As Jones-Correa (2012) points out, a quarter of all Americans are immigrants or have at least one immigrant parent (p. 1). Immigrants need their communities in order to assimilate and acculturate—an irony lost on those who fear that American society loses something when it becomes more multicultural or multilingual. The opposite is true: diversity creates opportunities for economic growth and for the expansion of social justice throughout all strata of society.
The concepts of segmented assimilation, selective acculturation, and dissonant acculturation are also cornerstones of any analysis of an immigrant’s experience. Immigrants sometimes retain their language, culture, and traditions but do so to different degrees. Individual differences and situational variables will impact what model of assimilation a person or family may take. Dissonant acculturation refers to a disconnection between the parents and a first generation immigrant, such as the child of immigrant parents. When segmented assimilation takes place, there may be conflicts within the family or between the individual and other members of his or her community. When Gonzales (2009) calls upon immigrants to recognize the superiority of the Anglo culture and abandon all ties with the Latin past, he fails to see the repercussions for psychological and social health. Selective assimilation refers to a coordinated or convergent means of retaining some elements of the new culture while also remaining proud of and connected with the traditions of their heritage. Bilingualism throughout the family is a prime example of selective assimilation, and Juan admits that this pattern best characterizes his and his family’s experience. Finally, segmented assimilation takes socioeconomic class into account. Yet even the social network or social organization framework Massey (1986) puts forth could qualify as a form of segmented assimilation because of paisanaje (Massey, n.d., p. 105).
Finally, Juan talks about being “brown,” which is the new colloquialism for a blurred ethnic boundary. Demographic changes to the United States population throughout history resulted in the continual re-classification of different immigrant groups according to their re-negotiated status. Fox & Guglielmo (2012) call the re-negotiation of whiteness as blurring of the boundaries. Groups that were previously discriminated against for being “non-white,” meaning not from Western or Northern Europe, became “white” as their social status elevated. Even though a considerable number of “brown” Americans enjoy high socioeconomic status and seats in positions of power in all dimensions of life, there is still lingering racism impeding fruitful discussions of immigration. The Mexican and Mexican-American experience remains one of “internal colonization,” (Fox & Guglielmo, 2012, p. 330). Internal colonization is perhaps evident most in the Huntington (2009) and similar views on the Hispanic “threat.” Even in a post-colonial world, the belief in white/Western European superiority persists.
Juan remains optimistic. Racist views on immigration and attitudes towards Mexicans and other Latin(x) people are not majority opinions, he points out. Those who espouse such beliefs tend to be loud, and the media does give them more of a megaphone than is necessary. Americans need to focus on the positive changes taking place throughout the society as diversity and multiculturalism become the normative ethical ideal. Americans should take pride in the fact that theirs is a culture of immigrants, and a society that welcomes change. Many of the problems related to undocumented immigrants can be traced even less to race or ethnicity and more to socioeconomic class status. The poor and disenfranchised are the ones without access to the means by which to achieve upward social mobility, and attention should be paid towards reaching some kind of solution that recognizes the value of an actively integrated global market system—even if it means a radical solution like open borders in a model akin to the European Union.
References
Fox, C. & Guglielmo, T.A. (2012). Defining America’s racial boundaries: Blacks, Mexicans, and European Immigrants, 1890–1945. American Journal of Sociology 118(2) (September 2012): 327-379.
Gonzales, R. G. (2011). Learning to be illegal: Undocumented youth and shifting legal contexts in the transition to adulthood. American Sociological Review 76(4) (AUGUST 2011): 602-619
Huntington, S.P. (2009). The Hispanic challenge. Foreign Policy, 28 Oct, 2009.
Jones-Correa, M. (2012). Contested ground. Transatlantic Council on Migration. July 2012.
Massey, D. S. (1986). The social organization of Mexican Migration to the United States.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 48(7):, Vol. 487, Immigration and American Public Policy (Sep., 1986): 102-113?
Massey, D. S. (n.d.). What were the paradoxical consequences of militarizing the border with Mexico?