Immigration Practices Research Articles

Grassroots Responsiveness to Human Rights Abuse: History of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights

The purpose of this article is to discuss how a community agency based in Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigration Rights (WICIR), emerged in response to increasing punitive immigration practices and human rights abuses toward the Latino community. The article discusses how WICIR is engaged in advocacy, community education on immigration issues, and political action toward a more humane immigration reform. Detailed examples of human rights abuses and the WICIR activities described in response to the abuses serve as illustrations of social work advocacy, education, and policy formulation that affect the general public, policymakers, and law enforcement officials.

The Homeland Is the Arena: Religion, transnationalism, and the integration of Senegalese immigrants in America

The book draws on Kane's research on Senegalese immigrants in New York conducted over the past decade. The claim that ‘the homeland is the arena’ is the translation of a Wolof saying used by these immigrants to emphasize that, despite their difficult circumstances, what matters most is perception of their social status in Senegal itself. Kane implicitly problematizes this claim by taking ‘a broad approach to transnationalism to describe the practices of Senegalese immigrants who are simultaneously seeking to integrate American society and making a major socioeconomic and political impact on their homeland’ (p. 8). Kane focuses on the role of religion as this is a ‘neglected aspect’ (p. 8) in research on such processes in the US although, surprisingly, nowhere does he cite JoAnn D'Alisera's (2004) book An Imagined Geography, a study of Sierra Leonean Muslims in Washington, DC that clearly resonates with his work. Still, the book starts promisingly in its ‘Prologue’, really an introductory chapter that sets the theoretical and geographical scene: ‘transnationalism’ is presented as a complex and contested concept, and the contours of Islam in the US are discussed well. Kane is also honest about his methods and their limitations, not least the bias that comes from working on immigrants who involve themselves in associational and community life, rather than those who choose not to do so. From there on, however, he gets bogged down at times. Chapter 1, on Sufism in Senegal, is dense with detail familiar to scholars of the country but some of it unnecessary here. The next three chapters form a section on ‘Integrating American Society’. Chapter 2 gives an engaging account of the changing geographies of settlement, economic activity, and worship among the Senegalese community in New York, considering how social structures and behaviours from the homeland are or are not reproduced – although this is again quite descriptive and opportunities to analyse ‘transnationalism’ in this context are missed. Similarly, chapters 3 and 4 contain much description of associations in which Senegalese immigrants are involved but, by taking these associations as the locus of study rather than immigrants themselves, Kane does not bring out the messiness of associational life (which he acknowledges) as strongly as he might. Also unhelpful, arguably, is too much categorization: types of association (Sufi, secular, national, hometown); types of migrant and marabout; and whether the immigrants live in ‘enclaves’ or not. While recognizing to some extent the problems these categories have in capturing more dynamic and overlapping realities, Kane does not fully address this fluidity, partly because at this stage in the book the reader has yet to see the situation from the ground. There is little sense of how the immigrants themselves, as real people rather than as associational actors, experience their own situations, with few direct quotes or life histories appearing until later.

Book Review: Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian and Vietnamese Immigrants

A review of the book Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian and Vietnamese Immigrants by Caroline B. Brettell and Deborah Reed-Danahay is presented.

Children's First Names, Religiosity and Immigration Background in France

AbstractUsing an index measuring the relative probability of names in different populations, our results indicate that immigrants and especially those from the Maghreb/Middle‐East give first names to their children that are different from those given by the French majority population. Though we find a correlation between religiosity and our name index for European immigrants, the differences in naming practices cannot generally be attributed to religiosity as we find no correlation between our name index and the religious practices of immigrants from the Maghreb/Middle‐East. These differences in the naming patterns are, as one would expect, related to general cultural references, language, citizenship and educational attainment.

Civic engagements: the citizenship practices of Indian and Vietnamese immigrants

For refugees and immigrants in the United States, expressions of citizenship and belonging emerge not only during the naturalization process but also during more informal, everyday activities in the community. Based on research in the Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth area of Texas, this book examines the sociocultural spaces in which Vietnamese and Indian immigrants are engaging with the wider civic sphere. As Civic Engagements reveals, religious and ethnic organizations provide arenas in which immigrants develop their own ways of being and becoming American. Skills honed at a meeting, festival, or banquet have resounding implications for the future political potential of these immigrant populations, both locally and nationally. Employing Lave and Wenger's concept of communities of practice as a framework, this book emphasizes the variety of processes by which new citizens acquire the civic and leadership skills that help them to move from peripheral positions to more central roles in American society.

Family Migration: Fulfilling the Gap between Law and Social Processes

In the last twenty-five years, the family entity has been imposed as a crucial actor in understanding migratory strategies and behaviors, the study of the integration into the host society, the analysis of the impact of migrations for the sending and receiving countries and, last but not least, the evaluation of migratory policies and practices. This article recalls the main theoretical prospects that put specific emphasis on family; identifies some “ideological traps” that frequently influence family immigration policies and practices; then develops some considerations about the advantages and disadvantages of family migration for both the sending and the receiving countries; finally, it devotes a specific analysis to the family reunification issue, describing how this right is ruled by the EU legislation. In the conclusion, the Author observes that, notwithstanding the fact that family constitutes a crucial actor in the process of human mobility, both the legislation and the receiving societies’ expectations concerning migration continues to be founded on an individualistic conception. Among other consequences of this asymmetry, there is the fact that family reunion is not always the best solution if the well-being of all family members and the life chances of migrants’ offspring are taken into account.

Children and young people in immigration detention

This article reviews evidence about the impact of immigration detention and other restrictive immigration policies on the mental health of children, young people and the adults who care for them. We review the implications of this for clinicians attempting to assess or work with incarcerated child and adult refugees and asylum seekers. There are increasing numbers of adults and children seeking asylum across the globe and many nations use incarceration and other harsh and interceptive immigration practices. There is mounting evidence of the psychological harm associated with detention of already vulnerable adults and children. Australia is used as a case study. Clinicians are required to consider the intersection of mental health assessment and treatment with human rights violations, and the impact of restrictive immigration policies, not only on asylum seekers and refugees but also on clinicians, clinical practice and professional ethics.

At the Border between Public and Private: U.S. Immigration Policy for Victims of Domestic Violence

This paper is an examination of the treatment of women in flight from domestic violence at the U.S. Mexico border. It compares the robust state protections and institutional framework for women victims of domestic violence in the interior of the country with the hostile landscape women encounter at the border. The paper draws on three sources for information about the treatment at the border of domestic violence victims: an in-depth case study of one woman’s experience of domestic violence and flight, a small data set of women who fled domestic violence and were detained in Eloy Detention Center in Arizona during 2010 and 2011, and a detailed analysis of the policies and practices at play when a woman in flight from domestic violence comes to the U.S. border. The case study, data sample, and policy analysis paint a grim picture that may surprise many. Women fleeing violence whose lives entangle with the border confront a bureaucracy and a justice system that harkens back to the time, fifty years ago, when domestic violence was seen as a private matter about which there was little the government could or should do to respond. Most often, women are immediately turned around and sent back to the abuse without any opportunity to explain their terror. If they do voice their fear, they are often locked up in detention centers for months and sometimes years at a time. In the majority of cases, after this prolonged incarceration, they are deported back to the abuse from which they fled. The U.S. immigration policies and practices that lead to these results are not only failing to respond to these victims’ harms; they are actually exacerbating their trauma and isolation, often sending them back to a more dangerous situation than the one they originally fled. Building on this descriptive account, the paper analyzes whether there is sound justification for the differential treatment immigrant women victims of domestic violence receive at the border as compared to in the interior of the country. A closer look at the treatment of immigrant victims of domestic violence in the interior reveals that they receive state protection and assistance so long as they are conceived of solely in terms of their victimization. Inevitably, when their status as victims becomes intertwined with their status as undocumented immigrants, the state’s commitment to robust protection and assistance weakens. What is unique at the geographic border, however, is the ways in which these anxieties about admissions are cloaked in language about the “private” nature of the violence at issue for women in flight from domestic violence. This use of the public/private distinction to express underlying concerns about immigration admissions policies is disturbing on two counts: it fails to discuss transparently the considerations at issue and it minimizes the deep structural roots of domestic violence no matter where it occurs.

Mobility, embodiment, and scales: Filipino immigrant perspectives on local food

Local foodshed proponents in the United States seek to change the food system through campaigns to “buy local” and to rediscover “good food” in the local foodshed. Presumably, common sense dictates that the word “local” signifies spatial proximity to the consumer. For some populations, however, both the terms “local” and “local food” signify various different meanings. The local food definition generally used by scholars and activists alike as “geographically proximate food” is unhelpfully narrow. Localist rhetoric often does not incorporate the food choices and practices of immigrants, migrants, and refugees. In this paper, I report the various characterizations of local food among Filipino immigrants in San Diego, California: (1) geography-based local food; (2) (US) America-based local food; (3) community-based local food; and (4) immigrant identity-based local food. Local foodshed proponents should acknowledge those who have a starkly different definition of “local”—those who possess translocal subjectivities, for whom “local-ness” is both mobile and embodied. My study underscores how the movement of food—or its containment within a geographic space—cannot be viewed in isolation from the movement of people.

Reading their way through immigration: The leisure reading practices of Russian-speaking immigrants in Canada

In the vastly diverse academic literature on reading, ethnic readerships and immigrant reader stories are notably under-researched. To fill this gap, empirical data from a sample of Russian-speaking immigrant readers residing in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada, were collected and analyzed using an innovative combination of two previously disparate scholarships—immigration research and reading research. Reading is a contextually dependent experience, and these findings are situated in the context of acculturation attitudes of the ethnic readership in question. Immigration causes acculturation stress in the sphere of leisure reading and affects immigrant reading practices in numerous ways, including the types of chosen books, book selection criteria, and the methods of finding out about new titles and accessing items of interest. An in-depth and thorough understanding of leisure reading practices can improve insight into immigrant acculturation. Therefore, these findings and discussion will be valuable for librarians, LIS scholars, and reading researchers who interact with immigrant readers.

Geopolitical Reverberations of US Migrant Detention and Deportation: The View from Ecuador

While recent scholarship has paid critical attention to the changing relationship between territory and borders, there remains much to be said about the ways in which borders are being pushed outwards via immigration enforcement. In this paper, I argue that one must look outside the borders of the policymaking state to understand the geopolitical depth and breadth of immigration enforcement policies and practices. I examine ways in which US migrant detention and deportation reverberate in Ecuador. Research in Ecuador with detained migrants' family members and deported migrants shows that the impacts of these policies are far from contained along with the migrant's incarcerated and “removed” body; instead, they extend spatially and temporally beyond US borders, and into local, personal spaces and places in Ecuador. I demonstrate that scrutiny of the extra-border geographies of immigration enforcement policies allows us to identify the uneven, unpredictable, and sometimes violent ways in which these policies expand in practice. This research also suggests that detention and deportation do not meet US policymakers' stated objective of deterring future migration.

Resisting immigrant myths: everyday consumer practices of Asian immigrants in America

Projective, depth interviews with U.S. Asian immigrants revealed their ambivalence toward the U.S. commercial sector's colonial-era representations of Asian people. These commercial representations provide polarized depictions of Asian immigrants as either threatening aliens or as model citizens. These portrayals reflect “racialized otherness,” or racial stereotyping that represent Asian immigrants as inferior. Our findings indicate that Chinese immigrants strategically use everyday consumption related to foodways to resist the reverberation of American immigrant myths. In some instances, immigrants’ consumption practices instantiate a regional Asian identity. In other instances, however, immigrants’ consumption practices reflect a separation from the past and an acceptance of a new although not exclusively American way of life. Notwithstanding immigrant consumers' resistance practices, the findings call for future research into immigrant consumers' reactions to visual representations of race, ethnicity, and gender.

Circulating Food and Relationships: the Movement of Food (and Other Things) Between Brazilians in Boston and Brazil

Abstract: In 2009, I conducted fieldwork about the culinary practices of Brazilian immigrants in Greater Boston, USA. I assume that food is a good way to understand the migration process, because it is related to the construction of ethnic and national identity, as well as gender, power and class relations. In this article, I emphasize that food is used by Brazilian immigrants in Greater Boston to strengthen social relations with family members and relatives who stayed in Brazil. There is a circulation of many types of goods, such as laptops, computers and cosmetics, between the participants of social networks in the USA and Brazil. In this flow, I highlight the role of food, that maintains through its sensuality (specially smell and taste) the connection of the immigrants with their place of origin.

‘Entangled in Tokyo’: Exploring Diverse Pathways of Labor Market Incorporation of African Immigrants in Japan

AbstractIn this article I explore employment practices and pathways of labor market incorporation of sub-Saharan African immigrants in Japan. Based on secondary information as well as 5 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Tokyo and its suburbs, I will first describe the history of migration from Africa to Japan and the current demographic characteristics of African immigrants in Japan. I will then continue to describe the employment practices of African immigrants to explore questions surrounding integration, incorporation, and the use of human and social capital in the Japanese context. My findings give a first indication of the mechanisms behind the diverse trajectories, especially highlighting the importance of entrepreneurship, transnational ties with the country of origin, and ties with Japanese nationals in facilitating labor market incorporation. Finally, attention is also given to the role of the Japanese state in facilitating or hindering opportunities for employment.

Local, Global and Ethnic Orientation in the Communicative Practices of Albanian Speaking Adolescents in Bolzano, Italy

The paper is focussed on the role of migrant languages as a new source of innovation in youth communicative practices and analyses the communicative practices of young Albanian Immigrants in Italy. The theoretical framework of style, advanced by Irvine (2001) and, in particular of social communicative style, as it was applied by Keim (2007) in her ethnographic study on Turkische powergirls, provides a valuable model for integrating semiotic and linguistic data gathered during fieldwork reserach–video recordings of spontaneous interactions at a youth centre–and for considering how ethnicity, age and gender come into play and acquire meaning in discourse.

Politiques linguistiques canadiennes et littératie en langues seconds des immigrants adultes : état des lieux

Cet article a pour objectif de présenter l’état des lieux de deux discours sur la littératie en L2 des immigrants adultes qui co-existent actuellement au Canada : 1) le discours autour des habiletés et des pratiques (réelles et/ou déclarées) de littératie et 2) le discours et les actions politiques qui visent l’acquisition du bi- ou du multilinguisme par cette population. Cet examen fait ressortir un certain manque de congruence entre, d’une part, les visées politiques et d’autre part, les besoins des immigrants en matière de littératie en langues secondes ; ce qui est susceptible de causer, pour certains groupes d’immigrants, une participation limitée à la société canadienne.

The Impact of Immigration Policies on Transnational Filipino Immigrant Women

This article examines how different immigration policies and practices have influenced transnational Filipino immigrant women who chose Italy and Canada as their country of destination. The article focuses specifically on how the different immigration policies and practices have influenced the degree of incorporation of Filipino immigrant women into the social and spatial structure of the two metropolitan areas of Rome and Toronto. Data to assess the extent of incorporation were obtained from government policies and census reports. The spatial structure was analyzed by determining the level of residential segregation of the Filipino population from the majority population. The results show that one country (Canada) provides a greater avenue for social mobility, permanent residence, and citizenship than the other (Italy). Immigration policy remains one of the most important factors in understanding transnational migration.

Performativity of Difference: Mapping Public Soundscapes and Performing Nostalgia among Burmese Chinese in Central Rangoon

This article examines the festive musical practices of Chinese immigrants from 1949 to 1988 in central Rangoon. Eschewing conventional interpretations of diasporic music that view a diasporic community as a fixed unit, the author adopts the mode of ethnographic historiography and focuses on multiple micromusics that emerged in the Burmese Chinese community. This speaks to the music’s performativity of difference whereby music is used as a strategic resource to help articulate differences and lay claim to subjectivity.

Las familias inmigrantes en España

The dramatic growth of international immigration in Spain in recent years has inspired a large literature concerning the major family practices of immigrants settled in Spain. However, little is known about the familial forms of coexistence of immigrants or the process of family reunification. This article intends to address these shortcomings with data from the National Survey of Immigrants 2007. We propose three main research objectives. First, the forms of co-residence of immigrants from the standpoint of size and structure of their homes. Second, the composition of households in terms of nuclear family members absent and present. Finally, the family reunification processes that led to the configuration of these domestic structures. In particular, we analyze the factors that promote or hinder reunification of immigrants with their spouse and children in Spain.

Characterizing fragmentation of the collective forests in southern China from multitemporal Landsat imagery: A case study from Kecheng district of Zhejiang province

Tropical and subtropical forests provide important ecosystem goods and services including carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. These forests are facing increasing socioeconomic pressures and are rapidly being degraded and fragmented. This analysis focuses on the rate of change and patterns of fragmentation in a collective forest area in Zhejiang province, China, during the time period 1988–2005. The research consisted of two parts. The first was the development of general land cover maps and the identification of land cover changes by interpreting Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) time series imagery. The second part involved the computation and analysis of forest fragmentation metrics. For this portion of the study, fragmentation statistics were analyzed, and images were developed to depict forest fragmentation patterns and trends. Results revealed that there was a net loss of 7.8% in forest coverage, dropping from 66.8% in 1988 to 59.0% in 2005, primarily caused by agricultural expansion and poor forest management practices. An acceleration of forest fragmentation was also witnessed during the time intervals, which was evidenced by a decreasing trend in interior forest (57.2% in 1988, 55.0% in 1996 and 54.8% in 2005 respectively) coupled with the scales of the selected geospatial metrics. Continued forest loss and fragmentation are closely correlated with the existing political, educational, institutional and economic processes of contemporary China. To unlock the developmental potentials of the collective forests and to effectively mitigate the rate of forest loss and fragmentation, reforms of forest tenure and ecological immigration practices are recognized as a prospective alternative. The produced fragmentation maps further illustrates the importance of assessing landscape change history, especially the spatiotemporal patterns of forest fragments, when developing landscape level plans for biodiversity conservation, land use management and ecologically sustainable forestry.