American Migrants Research Articles

Torturing environments and multiple injuries in Mexican migration detention

Mexico’s role in the US-Central American migration regime is threefold: not only is it a country of origin, and a transit country, but also increasingly becoming a receiving country for migrants who flee from violence, insecurity and poverty. The Mexican state responds with detention enforcement. Clinical research usually puts emphasise on the negative impact of detention enforcement on the detainees‘ mental health. Yet, it often disregards the spatial configurations of detention centres and their socio-political context. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing how such factors create harmful environments that affect both the detainees‘ mental health and their social life in Mexico’s migration detention centres. The study’s mixed method approach builds on semi-structured interviews with a sample of N = 56 migrants of diverse nationalities and varying socioeconomic status of whom 22 were still detained while 34 had been released. The interviews include the Torturing Environment Scale (TES), a novel instrument for the analysis of detention environments, as well as clinical psychological measures of emotional distress. Additional n = 10 in-depth interviews with human rights advocates to explore the interconnections between the detention environments, their impact on mental health, and Mexican migration politics. Facultative counter-mappings of the detention centres complement the interviews. Without exception, all interviews of detainees underline that the manipulation of detention conditions creates torturing environments that cause harm to basic physiological and psychological needs. A comparison between detained vs. released interviewees revealed lasting feelings of fear and shame. The study emphasises that immigration detention immobilises migrants in a necropolitical limbo, which destroys hope as much as human integrity. It indicates that detention is part of deterrence politics, which perpetuates harm and inequality through detention and deportation. Highlighting structural human rights violations, the findings stress the need to review current migration policies.

Banished from Johnstown: Racist Backlash in Pennsylvania

Banished from Johnstown: Racist Backlash in Pennsylvania

Spirit-Empowered Migrants in the Anthropocene: The Defining Role of the Spirit in the Entanglements of Charismatic Evangelical Churches, Latin American Migration and the Spanish Public Sphere

Since the 1990s, migration from Latin America has had a considerable impact on the Spanish religious landscape. Many charismatic evangelical churches in major cities like Madrid and Barcelona are filled to the brim with migrants who have crossed the Atlantic. These charismatic evangelical churches – with a considerable Latin American presence – are, moreover, increasingly stepping into the Spanish public sphere. In this paper, I will focus in particular on charismatic-evangelical-church-run foodbanks as an exemplification of this increasing public presence. In these foodbanks, a complex space with a multitude of complex entanglements between Latin American migration, the Spanish public sphere, and charismatic religious beliefs and practices come to light. The questions this paper strives to answer are twofold. Firstly, how might I make sense of a space with a multitude of entanglements through the concept of the Anthropocene? I will particularly focus on Latour’s understanding of the Anthropocene, as he demonstrates its relevance beyond questions relating directly to the climate crisis. Secondly, how might Tillich’s theology of the Spirit bring to light the defining role of the Spirit for migrant charismatic evangelical communities in such complex spaces? The answers to these questions will be based on ethnographic research conducted among charismatic-evangelical-church-run foodbanks, which were mainly run by Latin American migrant volunteers. This ethnographic research was conducted over the course of a year, between February 2021 and January 2022, in southern Madrid. In this paper, I will demonstrate the defining role of the Spirit for migrant charismatic evangelical communities in navigating the complex realities as understood through the concept of Anthropocene, moreover demonstrating how the Spirit enables entanglements and connections which are salutary for the life of these charismatic migrant individuals and communities. Keywords: Anthropocene, Spirit, Migration, Public Sphere, Charismatic evangelical churches

The Legacy of Anna E. Hall, African American Missionary to Liberia

This article, which tells the life story of Anna E. Hall, highlights the significant role that this African American missionary played in Liberia for the US Methodist Episcopal Church in the early twentieth century. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw increased migration of free African Americans as ministers . . . and missionaries overseas, especially to Africa. Standing as a paragon in missionary ventures, Anna E. Hall represents one of many who were responsible for the resurgence of Christianity in Africa and provides an exemplar for missionary service.

Age, period, and cohort effects contributing to the Great American Migration Slowdown

Between 1964 and 2019, the percentage of people in the United States who had moved in the previous year decreased from 20.3% to 9.8%. It is unclear whether this trend was driven by period-specific factors that gradually diminished the prospects of moving f

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press by Kim Gallon

Reviewed by: Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press by Kim Gallon Candace Cunningham (bio) Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press. By Kim Gallon. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. Pp. x, 216. $110 cloth; $26 paper; $19.95 ebook) In Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press, author Kim Gallon examines how Black newspapers [End Page 103] in the interwar period created "Black sexual public spheres" through textual and visual representations of Black sexuality in editorials, letters to the editor, newspaper articles, and fictional stories. Gallon focuses on some of the most prolific Black newspapers of the time including the Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, New York Amsterdam News, and Philadelphia Tribune. Gallon argues the Black press created multiple Black sexual public spheres that both challenged and reinforced conventional understandings of appropriate sexual behavior. These spheres redefined the definition of "race men/women" and introduced sexuality to the interwar definition of Blackness. Despite their mission to engage in racial uplift, Black newspapers regularly covered scandalous stories about African Americans. Simultaneously reporting on scandal and racial justice may have seemed like contradictory pursuits, but it reflected what reporters and editors imagined that their readership's changing demographic wanted. The Great Migration introduced these newspapers to a large working-class audience. Newspapermen believed this audience wanted to hear salacious stories about their "betters." This reporting exposed the Black middle-class' sexual exploits, therefore challenging the concept that such acts were the exclusive purview of the working-class. Gallon's research demonstrates that Black community members learned the same myths about Black women's sexuality as the white community—that respectable Black women were rare and more prone than their white counterparts to engage in sexually deviant behavior. The Black press created a Black sexual sphere that, through their coverage of Black beauty pageants and predatory lesbians, challenged and reinforced these myths. Black newspapers positioned interracial sexual relationships and marriage within the broader issue of racial segregation. They reported on these stories out of a belief that their readers wanted to know more about interracial celebrity couple's intimate lives. Yet, by [End Page 104] the dawn of World War II, Black newspapers were publishing fewer stories on the topic. Instead, they devoted more space to Black participation in the war effort. The Black press' coverage of gender-nonconforming men, gay men, and female impersonators during the 1920s and 1930s reflected an array of attitudes ranging from partial acceptance, to outright rejection. As with the other Black sexual spheres, Black newspapermen created this one because they imagined that their readers wanted visual and textual representations of queer Black men. Yet this period was short-lived. By the late 1930s the coverage was increasingly unfavorable as homosexuality became "synonymous with death of the 'race'" (p. 157). Black newspapers clearly envisioned themselves as conduits of racial progress. However, Gallon's research uncovers that in their efforts to satisfy their readers they also created a space to develop multiple sexual spheres. Pleasure in the News pushes us to reexamine what we think we know about the Black press. Many of us have spent countless hours reviewing Black media publications. They are an invaluable source about Black life, politics, and entertainment. Gallon's research is an important reminder that Black newspapers are also cultural artifacts unto themselves. Their value is not only in what they can teach us about specific people and events, but how they reflect Black American culture. This book will appeal to researchers in African American history, cultural history, gender history, journalism, and queer studies. It will be of particular interest to people who study Black sexuality, the Great Migration, the interwar period, and American migration and urbanization. [End Page 105] Candace Cunningham CANDACE CUNNINGHAM is an assistant professor of history at Florida Atlantic University. She recently published an article, "'Hell is Popping Here in South Carolina': Orangeburg County Black Teachers and Their Community in the Immediate Post-Brown Era" in The History of Education Quarterly. She is currently working on a manuscript about the role of Black teachers in the civil...

Conflicting Priorities in South American Migration Governance

Historical extra‐regional emigration patterns have shaped South America's focus on a human‐rights approach to migration. Concern for emigrants permeates debates at the annual South American Conference on Migration (SACM), yet national legislation emphasises immigration rather than emigration. Comparing national legislation to SACM documents between 2000 and 2021, we show that countries fail to reflect the same priorities as regional agreements in their laws. The interlevel discrepancies reveal that – despite prominent roles for regional cooperation, international organisations, and global migration governance – when it comes to migration legislation in South America over the last two decades, we find sovereign law‐making within national territories trumps regional agreements.

Unpacking the unintended consequences of European migration governance: the case of South American migration policy liberalisation

ABSTRACT Research on the external dimension of EU migration governance has focused on the EU’s interests, preferences, and policy efficiency and coherence. Little attention has been paid to the myriad ways both partner and third countries react to the union’s external action. We explore the European influence on immigration and refugee policy liberalisation in South America, a region not directly targeted by extra-regional migration governance. Based on the analysis of 130 original interviews with government officials and NGO and IO representatives in eight South American countries we show that - although South American policymakers generally regard the EU as a model of ‘efficiency’, in terms of the EU’s intra-regional mobility regime – the remarkable legislative liberalisation in the region took place in the context of both political and moral opposition to restrictive shifts in EU extra-regional migration governance. The paper contributes to the literature on the EU external migration governance, policy diffusion, and Latin American migration policies by uncovering some of the unintended consequences of European migration governance in South America.

Performances of Suffering in Latin American Migration: Heroes, Martyrs and Saints

Performances of Suffering in Latin American Migration: Heroes, Martyrs and Saints

Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur (review)

Reviewed by: Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825 by Aviva Ben-Ur Stanley Mirvis Aviva Ben-Ur. Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society: Suriname in the Atlantic World, 1651–1825. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020. 392 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000258 Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society heralds the emancipation of the Caribbean experience from the margins of early American Jewish history. Aviva Ben-Ur is the leading voice in a chorus of scholars dedicated to contextualizing Jewish history within the methodological framework of Atlantic studies and "creating a paradigm for Jewish Atlantic history that combines comparison, connection, and localism" (255). She has more than succeeded in achieving this goal. Through a comprehensive investigation of archival sources, particularly the extensive Surinamese Jewish communal records at the National Archives of the Netherlands, Ben-Ur challenges some of the most canonical assumptions of Jewish history. These include religious tolerance as the primary motivation for early American migration, the Jewish desire for emancipation, and the Jewish trend to acculturate "upward." She demonstrates that these historiographic dogmas don't apply to Suriname. As much as it was entangled in the web of [End Page 461] the Atlantic world, Jewish life in Suriname was a singularity that defies categorization using traditional models. Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society powerfully contributes to the legacy of Salo W. Baron's antilachrymose model of Jewish history. Ben-Ur reconsiders the ubiquity of premodern Jewish subalterity. In Suriname, Jews held an unparalleled degree of corporate autonomy and were empowered through their mastery over an enslaved majority. She further reminds us that by the end of the eighteenth century, Jews made up two-thirds of the non-African descendent population of Suriname. Among Ben-Ur's boldest antilachrymose rebukes is her challenge to the narrative of religious tolerance as the primary motivation behind Jewish migration. She attributes this persistent view to the skewed self-presentation of Suriname's Portuguese elites, like David Nassy, who portrayed themselves as belonging to a community of refugees empowered by the liberties of their colonial haven. They also sought to propagate an illusion of wealth (47). Ben-Ur demonstrates that Jews in Suriname were overwhelmingly poor, and it was poverty that brought them to the colony. Jewish Autonomy in a Slave Society is informed by a trend in early modern Portuguese diaspora studies to deemphasize a traditional bom Judesmo approach—highlighting nobility, wealth, and restraint—and instead focusing on indigent and itinerate social welfare recipients. Ben-Ur characterizes Jodensavanne as a paupers' town (54) in defiance of the more standard depiction of the town's wealth and privilege—which might have been the case for only a few Sabbath vacationers from surrounding plantations (61). Instead, she recalibrates the discussion to focus on the mechanics of the despachado system bringing poor Jews to the colony (116–17). Rather than a proto-Zionist promised land, Ben-Ur's Jodensavanne is a nonheroic site of violence, dislocation, and poverty (74). The book's title alludes to the elusive concept of Jewish self-rule, one of the colony's most conspicuous singularities. Ben-Ur finds the closest Jewish parallel in early modern Livorno as well as makes local comparisons to Suriname's Maroon and Indian populations. Autonomy, however, was not synonymous with liberty. Ben-Ur argues that autonomy cast a shadow of tyranny in the way it mandated Jewishness (93) and empowered elite Portuguese over the poor, Ashkenazim, and Jews of color (110). Autonomy was not what all of the Jews of the colony wanted. Jewish autonomy in Suriname translated into a codification of Portuguese ethnic supremacy (62–63). Ben-Ur reexamines some of Jewish history's most sacred ideals about emancipation, the process of acquiring legal parity with white Christians, which occurred in Suriname in 1825. Whereas emancipation is typically portrayed as a Jewish aspiration, in Suriname Jewish leaders swam against the tides of change by clinging to their corporate autonomy (227). Furthermore, Ben-Ur argues that Surinamese emancipation was only a "legal fiction" (254). Emancipation simply transformed the legal definitions of Surinamese Jews from an incorporated ethnic group to a religious community. Analyses of acculturation and emancipation go hand...

The Fragility of the Labour Corridors to Costa Rica and the United States: Precarious Migrant Workers in Central America

Central American migration flows take place mostly through two main corridors: the northern corridor to the United States, and the southern corridor to Costa Rica. Using the concept of fragility, in this article I analyse how migration combines the precarity and vulnerability that Central American workers face, both in their home country and in the corridors toward the destination labour markets. Their movements and the conditions they encounter reflect a new scale of local and transnational labour relationships. Migrant workers constitute a segment of the workforce in transnational corridors, which circulates between several informal activities but also among key sectors of the formal economy; the latter often takes advantage of their social, occupational and even legal difficulties. Keywords: Central America; migrant workers; labour markets; informal economy; labour corridors

Comparative Nicaraguan Migrant and Non-Migrant Experiences in the Early Twenty-First Century

This paper examines the circumstances in which Nicaraguan migrants to Costa Rica found themselves and the situations of families in Nicaragua who had household members who had moved to Costa Rica from the late 1990s to 2012. Through surveys and interviews conducted in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica, this paper peers into the immigrant experience of Nicaraguans in Costa Rica and explores such issues as does time in Costa Rica improve the immigrant situation, how competitive were immigrants’ wages compared to those of their home country of Nicaragua, and what percentage of immigrants would send remittances home. The background literature written on the topics of central American migration, chain migration, push and pull factors, and remittances help contextualize the findings of this study. This paper also includes a consideration of how social or trust networks may relate to migrants’ tendency to send remittances. The analysis of the data collected yielded findings such as a small correlation between an immigrant’s salary and the amount of time the immigrant stayed at his or her job, a six times greater wage earned by Nicaraguan immigrants in Costa Rica than the average Nicaraguan wage, and a lower percentage of immigrants sending remittances back to Nicaragua than one might expect, from responses of both Nicaraguan migrants and non-migrants.

The Ordeal of the Jungle: Race and the Chicago Federation of Labor, 1903–1922

The Ordeal of the Jungle: Race and the Chicago Federation of Labor, 1903–1922

Life in the Time of COVID-19: a Case Study of Community Health

IntroductionThis report uses a present day global pandemic as a case study of health inequities that are best understood by considering the role of time and place.MethodI provide a historical overview of Milwaukee, Wisconsin—one of the most segregated cities in the U.S.—to consider prior health disparities and social conditions. I then focus on COVID-19, tracking the monthly census tract distribution of cases for 6 months, including case and mortality data by race and class.ResultsAs expected, Black and Hispanic majority census tracts are the most affected by COVID-19, with some communities experiencing nearly 1 positive case per 10 residents. In previous years, Blacks and Hispanics provided approximately 27% and 3% of the shares of “natural” deaths, respectively; their shares of COVID-19 deaths in the first 6 months of the pandemic were approximately 35% and 13%. On the contrary, the share of natural deaths for whites was approximately 65% in previous years and dropped to 47% for COVID-19 deaths. The average ages of COVID-19 deaths were 72.5 for Blacks, 61.3 for Hispanics, and 79.9 for whites.ConclusionThe disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in Milwaukee cannot be separated from historical forces, including race-based politics that intensified during the Great Migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow South. The paper concludes by returning to the turn of the 19th century with a historical snapshot of Jane Addams, who lived a short distance south, in a time with conspicuous parallels to the COVID-19 crisis.

Foreign policy of A.M. López Obrador: Declarations and reality

The paper examines the foreign policy of Mexico during the first years of President A. M. López Obrador (AMLO) administration (2018‒2020). The research aims to both identify the key priorities of the country’s foreign policy (i.e., relations with the United States and Latin American countries, particularly in the context of the Venezuelan and Bolivian crises, as well as the Central American migration crisis) and to weigh it up against traditional patterns of Mexico’s foreign policy behavior, as well as to assess its overall feasibility. The latter issue is all the more relevant since the center-left administration of AMLO is constantly criticized for its ‘populism’. The paper shows that Mexico continues to prioritize relations with the United States not only in terms of economic cooperation (within the USMCA framework) and in addressing the migration crisis but also in terms of the overall foreign policy agenda setting as well. However, the author emphasizes that although the pressure from the United States is significant and can take various forms, Mexico manages to pursue an independent and multifaceted policy, as the Venezuelan and Bolivian crises have shown. Such a policy is based on the traditional principles that have crystallized during the years of maneuvering between the interests of the great powers and which, according to AMLO and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should not be subject to any revision. These principles include non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and respect for their sovereignty, as well as respect for the right to political asylum. It is these principles that may contribute to reinforcing the international role of Mexico both regionally and globally despite a rather limited involvement of the current administration in foreign policy matters and its focus on domestic issues. Thus, the author concludes that beneath the populist rhetoric of A. M. López Obrador lies a fairly traditional foreign policy, warranted by the domestic situation and international environment.

How Do Anti-discrimination Laws Affect Firm Performance and Financial Policies? Evidence from the Post-World War II Period

We exploit the staggered passage of state-level fair-employment laws in the post-World War II period to examine how stronger worker protection against racial discrimination affects firm profitability and financing decisions. We find that firms experience a decline in operating profitability after the passage of anti-discrimination laws. We also document that the adoption of these laws leads to a reduction in debt ratios, which suggests that firms are able to partially offset the negative effects on operating profitability by adjusting their capital structure. Consistent with theoretical predictions, these effects of anti-discrimination laws are more pronounced for firms in states and cities with a greater proportion of African Americans, firms with high labor intensity, firms in states experiencing high African American migration, and firms in concentrated industries. Some of our evidence suggests that anti-discrimination laws lead to a reduction in statistical discrimination or monopsony power rather than taste-based discrimination. Taken together, our results are supportive of theoretical models of discrimination and show that racial discrimination laws significantly affect firm operating performance and financial policies. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, finance.

Metaphorical Representation of the Migration Crisis as a Natural Phenomenon of the Water Element (Based on American Media Texts)

Introduction. This article is devoted to the consideration of American media-political discourse in the context of the migration crisis and is a fragment of a large-scale study of migration, racist, media-political and crisis discourse, as well as the discourse of enmity. The relevance of the study of migration discourse is evident, as migration processes and, in particular, the migration crisis have a significant impact on modern society and raise a number of serious, sometimes unmanageable issues for politicians. The article provides an analysis of discursive strategies typical of migration discourse, including an evaluation information strategy and discrediting tactics, as well as the role of cognitive metaphor in their implementation. Consideration of the actualization of migration discourse strategies at the linguistic-cognitive level, in the context of the theory of conceptual integration, allows us to distinguish various ways of metaphorical understanding of migration and the migration crisis, which constitutes the novelty of this study. Methodology and data sources. The study was conducted using the American periodicals. Texts were selected by a continuous sampling method. The study was conducted in the context of a critical approach to the analysis of discourse at the linguistic and linguistic-cognitive levels. The linguistic plan of the discourse was considered through the study of communicative strategies and tactics involved in media texts, using methods of discursive analysis, and semantic-stylistic/lexico-semantic analysis at certain stages. The main method of studying the linguistic-cognitive plan of discourse was cognitive-discursive analysis of the conceptual metaphor within the framework of the blending theory. Results and discussion. In the American migration discourse, a persuasive strategy has become widespread, which is often implemented through the evaluation information strategy. One of the main means of implementing the evaluation information strategy is the mechanism of cognitive metaphor. The conceptual signs identified during the analysis of the metaphor as a natural phenomenon of the water element can be explained by the natural characteristics of water as liquid and correlate with the number of migrants: the heating of water to the boiling point correlates with the critical mass of the number of migrants, the sharp breakthrough of water through the dam is compared to an excessive increase in the number of migrants. Also, the identified conceptual signs are associated with the effect of the surprise of what is happening (an unexpected influx of migrants as a bursting of the dam), a gradual and inconspicuous development of events (undermining the foundations of society and oppressing migrants as a slow destruction of soil by groundwater). Conclusion. The migration crisis is one of the key social problems of modern American society. The research conducted within the framework of blending theory provides an opportunity to identify specific ways of metaphorizing the migration crisis and to analyze various implications and background knowledge that are actualized as two scenarios of the same metaphor are implemented and displayed in the emergent structure of the blend.

Global Protestant Missions: Politics, Reform, and Communication, 1730s-1930s

Global Protestant Missions: Politics, Reform, and Communication, 1730s-1930s

Global Protestant Missions: Politics, Reform, and Communication, 1730s-1930s

Global Protestant Missions: Politics, Reform, and Communication, 1730s-1930s

Monarch Butterfly Migration as an Integrative Model of Complex Trait Evolution.

AbstractUnderstanding the genetic architecture of complex trait adaptation in natural populations requires the continued development of tractable models that explicitly confront organismal and environmental complexity. A decade of high-throughput sequencing-based investigations into the genomic basis of migration points to an integrative framework that incorporates quantitative genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, phenotypic plasticity, and epigenetics to explain migration evolution. In this perspective, I argue that the transcontinental migration of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) can serve as a compelling system to study the mechanism of evolutionary lability of a complex trait. Monarchs show significant phenotypic and genotypic diversity across their global range, with phenotypic switching that allows for explicit study of evolutionary lability. A developmental approach for elucidating how migratory traits are generated and functionally integrated will be important for understanding the evolution of monarch migration traits. I propose a plasticity threshold model to describe migration lability, and I describe novel functional techniques that will help resolve open questions and model assumptions. I conclude by considering the relationships between adaptive genetic architecture, anthropogenic climate change, and conservation management practice and the timeliness of the monarch migration model to illuminate these connections given the rapid decline of the North American migration.