scholarly journals Experiencing Anti-Immigrant Policies on Both Sides of the U.S./Mexico Borderland: A Comparative Study of Mexican and Iranian Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
Sandra L. Candel ◽  
Shahla Fayazpour
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Immigrant Families ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
Mexican Immigrant Families ◽  
Immigrant Policies ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Trump Administration

The experiences of Mexican and Iranian immigrant families are often unheard and unpacked. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how race, ethnicity, and national identity are at the core of the sociopolitical and economic issues that Latino and Iranian families undergo in the United States. Using critical race theory as a framework, this research analyzed the ways in which Mexican immigrant families who were deported, and Iranian-immigrant families living in the United States, have been differently affected by post 9/11 anti-immigrant policies and by zero tolerance policies enacted by the Trump administration. The research question guiding this study was: How do U.S. anti-immigrant policies affect Iranian and Mexican immigrant families and their children’s futures? Our findings uncovered that both groups were negatively affected, however, in different ways. Iranian immigrant parents worried about their socioeconomic status in the United States and their children’s future. They also feared that their relatives might not be able to visit them due to the U.S. Muslim Travel Ban placed on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. On the other hand, Mexican immigrants who lived in the United States undocumented were deported to Mexico. However, after deportation, and responding to the threat of the Trump administration to deport millions more, the Mexican government provided dual citizenship to U.S.-born children of Mexican returnees to facilitate their access to government services, including education. All people and place names are pseudonyms.

scholarly journals Mexican-Immigrant Students Transforming Challenges into Opportunities at a Border School in the United States

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audra Skukauskaite ◽  
Alicia Bolt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elementary School ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Immigrant Families ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Mexican Immigrant Families

<p class="Normal1">As children of Mexican immigrant families enter schools in the United States of America, they face differences between their prior schooling experiences and the expectations in the new schools. Research on immigrant children has examined language and academic adaptation variables, yet little consideration has been given to the perspectives of children and their families and teachers. Utilizing principles of interactional ethnography, we examined elementary school student and their family and teacher perspectives about the differences between the children’s prior schooling in Mexico and their current experiences in an elementary school located in Ollin, a town in Texas, near the Mexico border.</p><p class="Normal1">Over the course of one academic year, we interviewed ten children, eight parents, and six teachers, conducted observations in schools on both sides of the border, and collected relevant documents to examine the larger social and educational contexts participants referenced in the interviews. Using an ethnographic perspective, discourse and contrastive analyses, and triangulation of sources and types of data, we focused on children’s perspectives to uncover the challenges they faced and the ways they overcame the challenges in their new, post-migration, school in Texas. </p>Children foregrounded two primary challenges:  language and play time. However, we discovered that the children, their parents and teachers did not let the challenges stop their educational opportunities. Instead, despite the challenges, children, with support of peers, teachers, and parents, actively transformed the challenges and constructed new opportunities for learning and adapting to their post-immigration school. This paper demonstrates how focusing on children’s perspectives makes visible that children and immigrant families become active agents of change, transforming challenges into learning opportunities. In the ongoing deficit models of education and negative rhetoric about immigrants, the paper shows how the people themselves take ownership of their schooling and create social and educational welfare for themselves and others. Understanding immigrants’ active participation in their schooling has a potential to impact the ways other families, educators, and policy makers view and describe their own and others’ experiences of learning, schooling, and international migration.

Pathways to Legalization: Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in the US/Mexico Borderlands, 1942–1956

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Elizabeth Rosas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
Agricultural Laborers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Contract Laborers

In the 1940s, curbing undocumented Mexican immigrant entry into the United States became a US government priority because of an alleged immigration surge, which was blamed for the unemployment of an estimated 252,000 US domestic agricultural laborers. Publicly committed to asserting its control of undocumented Mexican immigrant entry, the US government used Operation Wetback, a binational INS border-enforcement operation, to strike a delicate balance between satisfying US growers’ unending demands for surplus Mexican immigrant labor and responding to the jobs lost by US domestic agricultural laborers. Yet Operation Wetback would also unintentionally and unexpectedly fuel a distinctly transnational pathway to legalization, marriage, and extended family formation for some Mexican immigrants.On July 12, 1951, US president Harry S. Truman’s signing of Public Law 78 initiated such a pathway for an estimated 125,000 undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers throughout the United States. This law was an extension the Bracero Program, a labor agreement between the Mexican and US governments that authorized the temporary contracting of braceros (male Mexican contract laborers) for labor in agricultural production and railroad maintenance. It was formative to undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers’ transnational pursuit of decisively personal goals in both Mexico and the United States.Section 501 of this law, which allowed employers to sponsor certain undocumented laborers, became a transnational pathway toward formalizing extended family relationships between braceros and Mexican American women. This article seeks to begin a discussion on how Operation Wetback unwittingly inspired a distinctly transnational approach to personal extended family relationships in Mexico and the United States among individuals of Mexican descent and varying legal statuses, a social matrix that remains relatively unexplored.

“It's Different Here”: Complicating Concepts of College Knowledge and First Generation through an Immigrant Lens

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (11) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Chrystal A. George Mwangi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
College Preparation ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Immigrant Families ◽  
The United States ◽  
College Knowledge ◽  
K 12 ◽  
First Generation To College ◽  
College Educated ◽  
The U.S

Background/Context Children of immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. child population, and these children are increasingly entering the U.S. educational pipeline and seeking access to college. Gaining access to college in the United States requires college knowledge. Yet, obtaining college knowledge can be difficult for immigrant families, who may lack familiarity with the U.S. education system. Although one third of all immigrants possess a college degree, many earned their degree abroad or in the United States as international students and/or adult learners. Therefore, the children of college-educated immigrants may be the first in their family to seek access to college via the U.S. K–12 system. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study explores how African immigrant multigenerational families engage in college preparation. All families had at least one parent who had attained a college degree. In each family, the college-educated parent(s) either received their degree abroad or received their degree in the United States as an international student or adult returning student. The research questions are: How do immigrant families explain navigating the college-going process when their children are first in the family to prepare for college via the U.S. K–12 system? How do immigrant families describe their level of comfort with college preparation when their children are first in the family to prepare for college via the U.S. K–12 system? Research Design A qualitative, multiple case design was used. Findings/Results The findings demonstrate that although the children in this study were not first generation to college in a traditional sense, they experienced many of the same challenges. For the families in this study, the parents possessed institutionalized capital but often lacked what emerged as “U.S.-based college knowledge,” which impacted their experience with the college choice process. Conclusions/Recommendations Families’ lack of familiarity with the U.S. college preparation process (college testing, academic tracking, cost of college/financial aid) leads to a call for complicating concepts of “college knowledge” and “first generation” to college in a globalized society.

Learning from Each Other: A Portrait of Family-School-Community Partnerships in the United States and Mexico

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 2156759X1001400
Author(s):  
Kylie P. Dotson-Blake
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
School Counselors ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
School Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Partnerships ◽  
Mexican Immigrant Families ◽  
School Community Partnership ◽  
And Function

Family-school-community partnerships are critically important for the academic success of all students. Unfortunately, in the face of specific barriers, Mexican immigrants struggle to engage in partnership efforts. In the hopes of promoting the engagement of Mexican immigrant families in partnerships, this article presents the findings of a transnational ethnography, exploring family-school-community partnership experiences of Mexican nationalists in Veracruz and Mexican immigrants in North Carolina. A portrait of partnerships in Mexico is contrasted with a portrait of partnerships in the United States, highlighting similarities and differences in role, structure, and function. School counselors are offered strategies for utilizing the knowledge of partnerships in Mexico to promote and support the engagement of Mexican immigrants in partnerships in the United States.

scholarly journals Atlas Shrugged: The U.S. Fatigue with Being the Market of Last Resort

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 271-274
Author(s):  
Elizbeth Baltzan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trade Expansion ◽  
Trading System ◽  
New Members ◽  
Appellate Body ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
Excess Production ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Trump Administration

The Trump administration has made no secret about its frustration with the World Trade Organization (WTO). Campaign rhetoric is being channeled into policy. The United States is single-handedly strangling the Appellate Body by blocking appointment of new members and complaining about those who are holding over past their terms. The latest WTO ministerial resulted in no deals. An administration that touts enforcement has largely eschewed filing WTO complaints. The president's imposition of duties pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232) is a manifestation of deeper concerns with the asymmetry that was built into the global trading system—asymmetry the United States encouraged at the time. That asymmetry contributed to the U.S. status as the market of last resort: the destination of choice for excess production, with adverse consequences for domestic producers of similar goods.

Amy Spellacy on Guillermo Ibarra

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Home Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspectives ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Many ◽  
The U.S

This essay is a response to Guillermo Ibarra’s contribution to this book, Global Perspectives on the United States. It argues that Ibarra’s essay can usefully remind readers of the many ways the U.S. and Latin America are connected. While Ibarra highlights the transnational nature of U.S. cities and how Mexican immigrants in the U.S. remain tied to communities in their home country while simultaneously embracing largely positive views of the U.S., Spellacy wants to situate Ibarra’s project in relation to scholarly and artistic works that conceive of the Americas as a space joined by historical ties and the continued traffic of people, ideas, commodities, and culture across national borders. Spellacy asks how a hemispheric understanding of the Americas could help us comprehend the new form of citizenship embraced by Mexican immigrants considered in Ibarra’s essay, and she suggests that it might be fruitful to think across disciplinary divides and consider these questions in relation to scholars working on hemispheric cultural studies. For example, she asks, if citizenship is performed rather than taken for granted, is it not important to consider the role culture plays in this process?

Inner Contradiction to Immigration Quagmire: A Response to Rogers Smith

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 559-562
Author(s):  
Edwina Barvosa
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unresolved Conflict ◽  
The U.S

The question of how to understand and address longstanding—and at times violent—hostility toward Mexican immigrants in the United States remains pressing. In his essay, Rogers Smith attempts to describe a just immigration policy, one that could ease anti-immigrant conflict, based on obligations upon the U.S. government that arise from its coercive shaping of the social identities and aspirations of Mexican immigrants. Smith is correct to focus on the conflicts between intersecting and contradictory factors that affect identity formation among immigrants, but I argue that a focus on similar conflicts among those who hold strong anti-immigrant views suggests that such contradictions may also be animating anti-Mexican immigrant hostility. Among the most important of these may be those arising from the American dream—a formative narrative that encourages euphoria about socioeconomic possibilities but that cloaks underlying economic instabilities, exploitation, and widespread vulnerabilities. The pain of these contradictions, typically unacknowledged by those whom they affect, can spike in times of economic downturn, exciting anti-Mexican immigrant sentiments that provide an outlet for the rage and agony of unresolved conflict.

Beyond Black and White

2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-726
Author(s):  
Silvia Pedraza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
American Sociology ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Immigrant Experience ◽  
Paul Taylor

Research on immigrants and the eventual outcomes of immigration processes was at the very foundation of American sociology. But with the exception of a couple of studies on the Mexicans in the United States, such as Paul Taylor' (1932, 1934) monumental work on the life story of Mexican immigrant laborers in the Chicago and Calumet region during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Manuel Gamio' (1971 [1930], 1971 [1931]) anthropological studies of Mexican immigrants in the United States, and Edith Abbott'The Tenements of Chicago, 1908–1935(1936), Latinos were remarkably absent from such studies. Instead, these studies focused on the European immigrant experience and the experience of black Americans as newcomers to America' cities. Scholarship on Latinos (much lessbyLatinos) simply did not put down roots as early as scholarship on Afro-Americans. Perhaps this was partly due to the smaller size of the population back then, coupled with its being largely immigrant—composed of people who thought they would one day return to where they came from.

scholarly journals Barricading the Border: COVID-19 and the Exclusion of Asylum Seekers at the U.S. Southern Border

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Gilman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Refugee Protection ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Health Guidance ◽  
Trump Administration

What years of deterrence efforts and restrictions on asylum did not achieve to block the U.S. southern border to asylum seekers, the Trump Administration has now accomplished using the COVID-19 pandemic as justification. New measures exclude asylum seekers from U.S. territory, thereby effectively obliterating the U.S. asylum program, which had promised refugee protection in the form of asylum to eligible migrants who reach the United States. In some cases, the policies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic harden impediments to asylum already in place or implement restrictions that had been proposed but could only now be adopted. In others, the policies could never have been imagined before the pandemic. Overall, the force of these measures in dismantling the asylum system cannot be overemphasized. Once adopted, using an emergency rationale based on the pandemic, these policies are likely to become extremely difficult to reverse. This is particularly true where the restrictions exclude asylum seekers from the physical space of the United States. This article will thus explore two modes of physical exclusion taking place at the U.S. southern border during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) indefinitely trapping in Mexico those asylum seekers who are subject to the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols; and (2) immediate expulsions of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border pursuant to purported public health guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Remarks by Carl Bruch

2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 278-284
Author(s):  
Carl Bruch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
Level Playing Field ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Companies ◽  
Business Cases ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Trump Administration

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. I'd like to start with a few general observations. First, it appears that the Trump administration might be responsive to some of the business cases for staying engaged on international environmental issues. The administration includes many leaders from industry. This is the culture that they come from, including the new Secretary of State. Many of the global companies that are based in the United States, or have substantial actions in the United States, don't want to lose U.S. leadership or engagement, and even institutions that are not known as environmental champions have talked about keeping a seat at the table, to make sure that their interests are represented. Part of this is a desire for a level playing field. Part of it is just business opportunities. We've seen, in the past that when the U.S. government has been particularly unpopular, businesses can have trouble competing in procurement overseas.

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