Once a refugee, always a refugee? The social construction of refugee status after resettlement

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines the indelibility of refugee status through perceptions of and experiences with the refugee label. Considering how immigration status can transform from a legal classification into a social category based on racialized assumptions about immigrants, to what extent does the refugee label become a meaningful social category following resettlement? Based on 60 interviews with people resettled in the two contrasting destinations of San Diego, California and Boise, Idaho, this paper interrogates the intransience of the refugee label, which can slip from a legal status to a social category. Findings reveal dual layers to the refugee label: one of self-identification and another of external perception. In Boise, where the majority of the foreign-born came through resettlement, those resettled experience a visibility that makes shedding this label challenging and not within their control. They are forever seen as refugees in the eyes of their new community in the US.