Immigrant Narratives Research Articles

From narratives to history: new perspectives on mass emigration of Jews from Islamic countries in the early 1950s

ABSTRACT Contested narratives of the mass Jewish immigration from Arab countries to the young state of Israel emphasize Israel’s central role in this episode, positively and negatively. However, new studies reveal that Israel was only one actor in the Jewish exodus, with other key roles filled by Arab states, the British Empire in the Middle East, the French Empire in North Africa, the United States, and international Jewish organizations, particularly the Jewish-American Joint Distribution Committee. This complexity is particularly evident in the case of three countries from which nearly the entire Jewish population emigrated to Israel during its early statehood: Yemen, Iraq, and Libya. This article proposes a comprehensive synthesis of research perspectives on the phenomenon of Jewish migration, with a focus on the cases of Libya, Yemen, and Iraq. I address what is common and what is unique to the migrations of these three communities, examine the entities involved in organizing their departure and those involved in their transit, and, drawing on this unique story, I propose a new historiographic interpretation of the phenomenon as a whole.

Theology of migration: From division to reconciliation

As the next US presidential election approaches, immigration once again emerges as one of the most heated issues in US political debates. While ideological differences over immigration are not new, the existence of such differing positions between and within parties highlights the deep-seated divisions within US society. Even more problematic is the current predominant narrative of immigration, which tends to foster further division while ignoring the diversity of immigration patterns and immigrants’ experiences that require holistic approaches. The dominance of a monolithic interpretation of immigration, focusing on a specific pattern and accompanied by the reproduction of provocative images and rhetoric in the media, exacerbates societal divisions and reinforces a single narrative of immigration characterized by hate and fear. In the face of societal division over immigration, this article argues that immigration can be a source of reconciliation rather than division when its inherent diversity is recognized, and its humanness is reclaimed through the concept of imago Dei, the primary definition of all human identity.

Immigration Narrative and Home Prices

This study characterizes the relationship between U.S. National Home Prices and Immigration Narrative as portrayed on TV news. Integrating Narrative Economics and Natural Language Processing (NLP) sentiment analysis, I analyze a large dataset of 1.96 million TV news transcripts spanning July 2009 to December 2023 to capture the sentiment of the Immigration Narrative. Immigration Narrative Sentiment and U.S. Home Prices are associated. One standard deviation orthogonalized shock to the sentiment Granger-causes a statistically significant and economically meaningful increase in the Case–Shiller U.S. National Home Price. The cumulative increase is equivalent to about 26 percent of the average monthly change during the sample period. Moreover, the effect of a shock to the Immigration Narrative Sentiment on Home Prices is permanent, suggesting that the Immigration Narrative contains fundamental information about Home Prices not captured by standard economic variables. Conversely, there is no evidence that Home Price variation affects Immigration Narrative.

Housing Practices of Albanian Immigrants in Athens: An “in-between” Socio-Spatial Condition

Immigrants’ access to housing is often the outcome of self-settlement practices within a context of limited social policies that often characterizes Southern European metropolises. Hence, immigrants are facing multiple constraints and remain vulnerable towards diverse socioeconomic fluctuations. This article focuses on the housing practices followed by Albanian immigrants, the largest immigrant group in Athens’s municipality, to examine how spatial inequalities are intertwined with ethnicity in the Greek capital. The objective is twofold: to discuss ethnic segregation on the micro-scale of Athenian central neighborhoods and examine how immigrants’ housing practices are being challenged within a rapidly changing socio-spatial context. The methodology follows a mixed approach, aiming at identifying differentiations and inequalities both on the macro- and micro-spatial scale. First, differentiations among Greeks, Albanians, and other third-country nationals in Athens (2011) are traced and compared, based on quantitative data. Second, for the purpose of highlighting micro-geographies in the city, this article presents an analysis of collected narratives of Albanian immigrants, through semi-structured interviews held in 2023. The main results indicate that the population under study finds itself in an “in-between” socio-spatial condition: an “in-between”, compared to the housing experiences of Greek households and other third-country nationals, that produces (and reproduces) segregation trends visible on the micro-scale. Moreover, this article attempts to highlight how the lack of housing policies put in peril the successful self-settlement practices of Albanian immigrants, in the current context of financialization of the Athenian housing market.

‘The Most Saving Slum in Glasgow, and the Most Abandoned’: Twentieth-Century Materiality and Twenty-First Century Virtuality in the Jewish Gorbals, Scotland

In 1905, Yiddish poet and Glasgow union activist Avrom Radutsky described the Jewish population of Scotland as ‘a mere drop in the ocean’. Nevertheless, by 1920 this drop had swelled to 20,000 people, centred primarily (though by no means exclusively) around the Gorbals in Glasgow. The area was characterised by vibrant community life, but also cramped low-quality housing, poor sanitation and harsh economic inequality. Many of Glasgow’s Jews began to climb a social ladder that would lead them out of the Gorbals and towards more spacious residences in the south-west of the city, but maintained regular contact with its streets, shops and places of worship. Large-scale demolition of the neighbourhood in the 1960s mean that the Gorbals looks very different today, and the Jews are gone. The Jewishness of this space, however, still remains: a remembered or imagined presence in the minds of second and third generations, celebrated through community outreach, or romantically evoked in popular narratives. Equally, an absence of Jewish life in today’s Gorbals has been paralleled by the emergence of wide-ranging and socially minded virtual networks of shared memory. Through analysis of contemporary accounts and archival sources, oral histories, fieldwork interviews, and lively online discussion groups, this article examines how this former densely populated Jewish neighbourhood now functions as an important lieu de memoire, but in a significantly different way to Eastern Europe’s pre-war Jewish spaces. At the geographical edges of more traumatic histories, the Gorbals instead provides an affective link for contemporary, assimilated Scottish Jews, while at the same time the area’s Jewish history becomes part of a wider virtual online community – signifying an emotional connection to immigrant narratives and grounding personal and social histories.

African Immigrants’ Experiences at the Ukraine Border Points During Russian Invasion: Meta-analysis of Racism during Global Crisis

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked the world order that has been socially constructed since World War II and brought racism's realities back to light in modern society. Coming right after the Covid-19 pandemic, the war has challenged western diplomacy as an avenue for resolving border disputes in the contemporary world. The sovereignty of nations has been tested by the war, with the EU security threatened. The war has led to the forced migration of Ukrainians and Ukraine residents. African immigrants who fled Ukraine at the start of the war faced inhumane challenges and violations of their human rights in their attempt to cross Ukraine's border points to safety, unlike their white counterparts. This paper analyses four Africans’ experiences in their attempt to cross the Ukraine border to safety using biographical method. Additionally, the paper reviews ten media footages of first-hand experiences by African immigrants at the Ukraine border points as people fled to safety between 24th February 2022 and 30th April 2022. The paper uses qualitative method to analyze the experiences and narratives of African immigrants from international media and deconstructs their experiences using the theory of race and ethnicity. The Africans' experiences are analyzed into typologies and deconstructed to illuminate the African immigrants’ experiences of historic, structural and systemic racism during global crisis. The objective of the interviews is to gather experiences and gather empirical evidence of racism experiences that took place at the Ukrainian border points. This paper highlights the conversation of human rights violations and social injustices against Africans in times of crisis and raises the questions of inequality and injustice treatment towards African immigrants during crisis in Europe.

N. MICHELLE MURRAY. Home Away from Home: Immigrant Narratives, Domesticity, and Coloniality in Contemporary Spanish Culture. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2018. 226 pp.

Reseña de Home Away from Home: Immigrant Narratives, Domesticity, and Coloniality in Contemporary Spanish Culture de N. Michelle Murray.

Narratives of Japanese nuclear immigrants in New Zealand: (in)(di)vesting in L2 and identity

ABSTRACT This article reports on a study that investigated the language learning and identity negotiation experiences of Japanese adults, nuclear immigrants, who left Japan and arrived in New Zealand after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Drawing on theories of investment, capital and communities of practice, the study explores how the nuclear immigrants negotiate their identities as L2 English learners and users within their New Zealand communities, both the L2 community and the L1 Japanese immigrant community infused with its own cultural and political ideologies. The study also asks why and how they invest or divest in English language learning and using practices. Data was collected via biographical narrative interviews from eight participants. Thematic narrative analysis identified themes which were interpreted in relation to dimensions of social activity represented by micro, meso, and macro levels. The findings indicate that the valuing and acceptance of the participants’ pre-existing capital serve as affordances to affirm and expand their identity, while rejection of their competence by sociocultural norms resulted in their withdrawal from the L2 communities, which eventually caused divestment in L2.

Das literarische Schaffen Manfred Winklers – Werkübersicht, Genese und Textpraktiken

Abstract Though awarded the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literature in 1999, the multifaceted Manfred Winkler (1922–2014), encompassing roles as a German and Hebrew poet, survivor-writer, translator, painter, and sculptor, has only recently garnered sustained scholarly attention. This delayed recognition can be attributed, in part, to Winkler’s lifelong commitment to traversing geographical, national, ideological, and linguistic boundaries throughout his extensive career. It is only in the wake of a burgeoning interest in the life narratives of German-language refugees and immigrants to Israel, alongside their transcultural literary contributions, that the cultural and historical significance of Winkler’s poetry has come to light. This article delves into Winkler’s literary corpus and its inception, drawing upon the latest insights and research findings obtained through the author’s archival and editorial work since 2014. It provides an overview of the predominant themes, writing practices, and tendencies within the works of this multilingual author and (self-)translator. Winkler, through his poignant portrayal of the traumas of war and the memories of the Holocaust and the Jewish-Arab conflict – with a sense of grief rather than from a position of judgment – delineates the fault lines and pivotal moments of nearly the entire 20th century.

Invigorating The Dislodged Roots in An Unwonted Land: Immigrant Narratives in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth

This study aims to explain the challenges faced by immigrants by analysing the short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The organisation of this research study is intended to enable a thorough investigation of immigrant tales in Unaccustomed Earth. Through the framework of Homi K. Bhabha's theory of hybridity, this paper conducts a literary analysis of the stories, investigating themes, characters, and stylistic elements. This study employs the notion of hybridity and its diverse manifestations to investigate how immigrants establish their roots in new territory after relocating and relinquishing their own cultural identity in order to assimilate into a foreign culture. Occasionally, individuals integrate their cultural values with the cultural norms of people from different backgrounds, while maintaining their own ethnicity and cultural identity. At times, people transition from one culture to another and mimic the colonisers or those in positions of power. Consequently, immigrants face several obstacles in their lives. An individual who refuses to adopt or accept the lifestyle, language, religious values, ethnicity, norms, and culture of the host society will have a feeling of alienation from that society. These consequences lead to an individual feeling nostalgia since they are unable to maintain their own cultural identity. The research presented here asserts that individuals must achieve a harmonic balance between their own cultural values and the foreign culture in order to alleviate concerns and challenges such as identity crises, and to flourish in a new setting.

From the Obstructive “Mountain” to the Free “Water”: Examining the Evolution of Transculturalism in Ling Zhang’s Immigrant Narratives

ABSTRACT Ling Zhang, a well-known overseas Chinese author in contemporary Sinophone literary circles, has written extensively about Chinese immigrants in Canada. However, the Anglophone versions of her remarkable novels Gold Mountain Blues (translated into English; 2011) and Where Waters Meet (composed in English; 2023) are not widely acknowledged. Gold Mountain Blues describes immigration to Canada as a mountain that obstructs the Chinese diaspora’s communication with their homeland, and Where Waters Meet describes water as a free medium that facilitates transpacific connections. This article conducts a comparative reading of the two works of fiction and argues that the titular contrast implies Zhang’s evolution in addressing ethnocentrism, deterritorializing locality, and degenderizing subjectivity through the change in her writing language. The association of Zhang’s progressive strategy with her devotion to translingual practice reflects the boundary-crossing trend in her writing career and suggests a broader space to examine the literary transformation of ethnic minority authors.

The Waltz: Theatre of The Real, Grief, and Immigrant Narrative

This reflection examines the Filipino-based play The Waltz, performed at Factory Theatre (Toronto, Ontario) in the fall season of 2022. The Waltz, like many other local plays, exemplifies the Canadian immigrant narrative, navigating between ethnic origins and newfound spaces. In this performance, Theatre of the Real, as proposed by Carol Martin, is evident when the connection with audience members and hidden grief due to immigration statuses is exemplified. Productions of ethnic local theatre shows in Canada told from an immigrant narrative perspective validate feelings of otherness in Canadian citizens, which is a component of understanding one’s own identity.

Current Approaches to Heritage Spanish and the Identity Construction of Spanish Heritage Speakers: Lessons Learnt from Five European Countries

An individual’s social identity, often overlooked in Europe in the field of Spanish as a second or foreign language (S2L/SFL), has always been the focus of attention in the teaching of heritage Spanish in the USA, especially in programmes designed from critical pedagogy and based on a reconstructive narrative of Latino immigration. There, heritage speakers (HS) strengthen their identity as linguistic experts and contribute to positive social change that counteracts the scholastic subordination of Spanish to English in primary schools. In this research based on verified questionnaires, we investigate in the European context (Italy, Poland, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium) how primary–middle school HSs attending extracurricular S2L/SFL classes self-perceive their identity in comparison to S2L/SFL students. The results show that the incidence of the factor “country of origin” is central to identity recognition and highlight the feelings linked to different classroom conditions and dynamics for heritage and S2L/SFL students. To conclude, these results are contrasted with those obtained in the United States.

The politics of language: Exploring the DREAMers as the “alien other” in the narratives of immigration

AbstractRecently, the Biden administration banned federal agencies from using the phrase “illegal alien,” replacing it with a less dehumanizing expression (e.g., noncitizen, undocumented immigrant, etc.). This article delves into the origins of the alien reference by surveying the case of the DREAMers—a small subset of immigrants brought to the United States as children. Designated as aliens in the broader immigration context, the DREAMers epitomize a problematic narrative depicting the overall “otherness” as deep‐seated in America. I impose Agamben‘s image of the homo sacer onto the conceptualization of otherness to frame the DREAMers as alienated (exempted from the limits of the political state), waiting to enter society through formal legislation. Critically examining the narratives of policy makers in Congress, I study how political elites use language to reinforce existing power structures. In the two‐decade attempt of Congress to resolve the DREAMers‘ marginalized status, they are infantilized and, hence, stigmatized anew.Related ArticlesDuman, Yoav H. 2014. “Reducing the Fog? Immigrant Regularization and the State.” Politics & Policy 42(2): 187–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12065.Garrett, Terence M. 2020. “The Security Apparatus, Federal Magistrate Courts, and Detention Centers as Simulacra: The Effects of Trump‘s Zero Tolerance Policy on Migrants and Refugees in the Rio Grande Valley.” Politics & Policy 48(2): 372–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12348.Garrett, Terence M., and Arthur J. Sementelli. 2022. “COVID‐19, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants on the Mexico–U.S. Border: Creating States of Exception.” Politics & Policy 51(3): 872–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12484.

Theorising Lebano-Pathography: A Biographical Exploration of Medical-Cultural Pathologies

ABSTRACT To introduce the special issue on illness writing in Lebanon, I theorise Lebano-pathography as a dual, potentially adaptable and reusable, (i) narrative intervention (form/method) that does not depoliticise the traumatic subject. Simultaneously, it is (ii) a body of writing (text) that seeks to illuminate the different ways one can be ill, and try to recover, in present-day Lebanon. While somatic manifestations of illness and their concomitant patient accounts are central to previous research in narrative medicine and illness writing, Lebano-pathography underscores a more versatile interpretation of illness encompassing cultural practice and/or clinical disease, and exploring in critically informed autobiographical text the two illness categories’ causal interrelationship. In the backdrop of the cadaverous political grid and economic tensions rending the country since the national tragedy of the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port, this volume unpacks the following thematic clusters: (1) Rewriting Illness: Pathographies of Gender and Sex; (2) The Alzheimer Spectrum: Cognitive and/or Cultural Memory Failure; (3) Walking the City: Medical Malpractice, Pedestrian Injuries, and Claustophobia; (4) The Bones Within: Immigrant Narratives and Vicarious Trauma; and (5) Surviving Trauma: Coping and Mental Health.

Chronotopes of Immigration: The Configurations of Spatio-temporal Relations in Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s novella They Die Strangers

ABSTRACT ‘Space’ and ‘time’ have been frequently discussed in diaspora studies. Yet, these studies generally approach the temporal and spatial dimensions of diaspora as separate issues, filtering them through postcolonial insights. Following in the footsteps of 7Mikhail Bakhtin, who first highlighted the mutual interdependence of ‘space’ and ‘time’, calling it ‘chronotope’, this paper traces the configuration of spatio-temporal relations in Mohammad Abdul-Wali’s novella of immigration, They Die Strangers (2001[1971]). Studies of immigration narratives that have referenced Bakhtin’s theory focus mainly on one dominant or minor chronotope of immigration. Moving research forward, the present study examines the multiple chronotopes that have been devised in They Die Strangers. It shows that within this narrative of immigration, we can trace various and highly artistically expressed forms of chronotopes. We call them ‘chronotopes of immigration’, because they determine to a significant degree the generic distinction of immigration narrative. The present study reveals that the theory of ‘chronotope’ is fundamental to understanding the spatial and temporal connections in the narrative of immigration, is critical for comprehending immigration literature, and interestingly aligns with diaspora studies.

Reflections of disability in Israeli school readers, 1953-67

ABSTRACT Disabilities were hardly and indirectly represented in Israeli school readers in 1953–67. This article proposes an integrative reconsideration of this attitude. Indeed, while disabled persons are represented as sensitive, their encounters remain sterile with no mention of either physical or emotional contact, without crossborders discussions. Normative persons address their disabled counterparts as seemingly helpless, neither willing nor able to help themselves. School readers offer a compassionate but a cold and distant glance. The whole period lacks empathy, and the disabled represent a specific aspect of that attitude. Israeli normative society emerges from school readers as elitist, ready to accept only those who conform to its high standards. For that reason, the readers abound with immigrant narratives, potentially able to integrate, but not with the disabled, of which readers seemingly despair. Even those who became disabled during military service are absent from the readers, for which they are of no educational use.

El Amigo y El Esé: Stereotyping of the “Criminal Immigrant”

The criminal immigrant narrative (CIN) is the embodiment of stereotypes suggesting that foreign nationals are engaged in crime. Research has documented how this narrative has influenced discourse, policies, and enforcement, but none to date has addressed how the CIN affects the stereotyping and interactions of crime-involved individuals with those deemed “immigrants.” This study draws from in-depth, semi-structured interviews of 25 individuals actively engaged in street crime from Atlanta, Georgia, to understand their beliefs regarding immigration, stereotyping of “immigrants,” and their interactions with perceived immigrants, including targeting. Our findings suggest that interviewees’ stereotypes of immigrants and their ascribed attributes are based on perceived nationality, nativity, documentation status, work ethic, criminality, and prior interactions with foreign nationals. Participants demonstrated an understanding of immigration policies from media and political rhetoric. This understanding influenced the stereotyping of immigrants as “illegal” or “doing illegal things,” shaping participants’ views of foreign nationals as vulnerable or dangerous.

“This is a Very Sensitive Point”: Bilingual Teachers' Interactions with Neo‐Nationalism in a Two‐Way Immersion Program in the United States

AbstractConcurrent with the rise in U.S. neo‐nationalism is the growing influx of im/migrant children in the nation's schools. This article explores how a group of eight K‐3 Brazilian bilingual teachers in a Portuguese‐English Two‐Way Immersion (TWI) program in the United States interact with neo‐nationalist discourses pertaining to the theme of immigration. Drawing on recent theorizing about the intersections of neo‐nationalism, language, and bilingual education, this multi‐year ethnographic study leverages multiple formal interviews and informal conversations with TWI educators to understand their perspectives and classroom practices. We found that most of the interviewed teachers were keenly aware that their im/migrant students regularly shared complex narratives of immigration in their classrooms, at times during whole‐group instruction. However, these educators consistently evaded opportunities to engage in conversations about immigration with their students due to a range of perceived obstacles. The teachers also expressed willingness to eventually include a narrow range of “positive” or “neutral” images of immigration in their curriculum and instruction, which further decoupled issues of immigration from U.S. neo‐nationalism. Findings bear implications for language education researchers and practitioners since they indicate how neo‐nationalist discourses may shape elementary‐school educators' orientations and daily moves within bilingual classrooms designed to better serve racialized bilingual students.

Gender-inequitable discrimination? A survey experiment on the gendered implications of unauthorized immigrant narratives

ABSTRACT The existing framing and narrative studies focus on the influence of framing and narratives targeting one population as a whole but neglect how these can affect the subgroups of the target population differently. Using a survey experiment, this research investigates whether and how implicitly gendered narrative cues affect public acceptance of male or female unauthorized immigrants from Mexico and the Northern Triangle. Based on the experimental results, younger male unauthorized immigrants were less likely to be accepted by participants when public safety cues were presented and more likely to be accepted when economic contribution cues were presented. Conversely, female unauthorized immigrants were less favored by participants when economic contribution cues were presented and more favored when public safety cues were presented. These findings show how the dominant narratives contribute to the publics’ gender biases against unauthorized immigrants and reveal future direction for developing narratives and framing studies.