Sujey Vega
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479864539
- eISBN:
- 9781479875337
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479864539.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
National immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily ...
More
National immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily life like for Latinos who have been presented nationally as “terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals”? This book offers an ethnography of the Latino and non-Latino residents of a small Indiana town, showing how national debate pitted neighbor against neighbor—and the strategies some used to combat such animosity. It conveys the lived impact of divisive political rhetoric on immigration and how race, gender, class, and ethnicity inform community belonging in the twenty-first century. The book illuminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously remade by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern space. It draws on interviews with Latinos—both new immigrants and long-standing U.S. citizens—and whites, as well as African Americans, to provide a sense of the racial dynamics in play as immigrants asserted their right to belong to the community. Latino Hoosiers asserted a right to redefine what belonging meant within their homes, at their spaces of worship, and in the public eye. Through daily acts of ethnic belonging, Spanish-speaking residents navigated their own sense of community that did not require them to abandon their difference just to be accepted. The book addresses the politics of immigration, showing us how increasingly diverse towns can work toward embracing their complexity.Less
National immigration debates have thrust both opponents of immigration and immigrant rights supporters into the news. But what happens once the rallies end and the banners come down? What is daily life like for Latinos who have been presented nationally as “terrorists, drug smugglers, alien gangs, and violent criminals”? This book offers an ethnography of the Latino and non-Latino residents of a small Indiana town, showing how national debate pitted neighbor against neighbor—and the strategies some used to combat such animosity. It conveys the lived impact of divisive political rhetoric on immigration and how race, gender, class, and ethnicity inform community belonging in the twenty-first century. The book illuminates how community membership was determined yet simultaneously remade by those struggling to widen the scope of who was imagined as a legitimate resident citizen of this Midwestern space. It draws on interviews with Latinos—both new immigrants and long-standing U.S. citizens—and whites, as well as African Americans, to provide a sense of the racial dynamics in play as immigrants asserted their right to belong to the community. Latino Hoosiers asserted a right to redefine what belonging meant within their homes, at their spaces of worship, and in the public eye. Through daily acts of ethnic belonging, Spanish-speaking residents navigated their own sense of community that did not require them to abandon their difference just to be accepted. The book addresses the politics of immigration, showing us how increasingly diverse towns can work toward embracing their complexity.
Sujey Vega
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479864539
- eISBN:
- 9781479875337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479864539.003.0002
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Latin American Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines the critical connections between past and present battles of community belonging, with particular emphasis on how the Latinos of Lafayette historically positioned themselves in ...
More
This chapter examines the critical connections between past and present battles of community belonging, with particular emphasis on how the Latinos of Lafayette historically positioned themselves in relation to Native Americans, Black freedmen, European immigrants, and even the Ku Kux Klan. It first considers how and why Mexican residents began settling in Lafayette, and what life was like for the city's Mexican “pioneers” during those earlier settlement stages in the 1960s. It then analyzes Indiana's role in slavery, abolitionism, and the construction of White benevolence in its historical record and concludes with a discussion of the parallels between the narratives of Lafayette's earlier immigrants and the immigration debate of 2006.Less
This chapter examines the critical connections between past and present battles of community belonging, with particular emphasis on how the Latinos of Lafayette historically positioned themselves in relation to Native Americans, Black freedmen, European immigrants, and even the Ku Kux Klan. It first considers how and why Mexican residents began settling in Lafayette, and what life was like for the city's Mexican “pioneers” during those earlier settlement stages in the 1960s. It then analyzes Indiana's role in slavery, abolitionism, and the construction of White benevolence in its historical record and concludes with a discussion of the parallels between the narratives of Lafayette's earlier immigrants and the immigration debate of 2006.
Mariane C. Ferme
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520294370
- eISBN:
- 9780520967526
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520294370.003.0008
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
The civil war saw a dramatic increase in emigration from Sierra Leone, and the country’s diasporic population has increasingly contributed to the ways in which Sierra Leone reterritorializes itself ...
More
The civil war saw a dramatic increase in emigration from Sierra Leone, and the country’s diasporic population has increasingly contributed to the ways in which Sierra Leone reterritorializes itself beyond its boundaries through the practices of this population. The chapter also examines the emergence of transnational public spheres through cyber-publics and other revolutions in the means and media of communication in the formation of national and subnational communities of belonging beyond Sierra Leone.Less
The civil war saw a dramatic increase in emigration from Sierra Leone, and the country’s diasporic population has increasingly contributed to the ways in which Sierra Leone reterritorializes itself beyond its boundaries through the practices of this population. The chapter also examines the emergence of transnational public spheres through cyber-publics and other revolutions in the means and media of communication in the formation of national and subnational communities of belonging beyond Sierra Leone.
