Abstract
Exploring the relationship between race and immigration in the US, this book argues that although the predominant language in public debates has moved away from race, the politics of immigration remains deeply imbued with racializing practices. The four substantive chapters cover the race–immigration nexus, immigration policy, occupational strategies and identities. Though it covers complex issues, the book is very readable, making it an excellent resource for both research and teaching.
While contemporary US immigration debates have been framed by the assumption of colour blindness, the authors approach the study of immigration through a ‘race optic’, underscoring the pervasiveness of social constructions of race, rooted in western colonialism and imperialism in structuring social relations and institutions. While paying close attention to the fluidity of markers of racial difference, they argue that racial formations are organized by institutional practices and cultures with racial boundaries having ‘consequences for those who are defined by them, in terms of choices, opportunities, and resources’ (p. 4).
This race optic is brought to the study of immigration in the US to explore how ‘racial divisions both shape and are shaped by immigrant arenas and experiences’ (p. 5), to analyse the ‘“race–immigration nexus” – a fluid and intertwined bundle of linkages between race and immigration, specifically among the institutions, ideologies, and practices that define these arenas’ (p. 5). The extent to which different groups have been channelled into particular gateway cities, their experience of housing segregation and labour market access and discrimination are discussed in Chapter 1.
The next chapter explores how racialization has been bound up with immigration policy from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Reviewing major policy and law changes during this period, the authors argue that immigration policy forms part of the nation-building process, negotiating and institutionalizing questions of national culture, interest and membership. They discuss how immigration debates have, sometimes in contradictory ways, intersected with the social production of racialized categories, such as the consolidation of the category of whiteness at the end of 19th century and the way in which ‘illegal immigrant’ has become a racialized category since the 1990s. However, these processes do not go unchallenged and they discuss how the mass deportations initiated in the early 21st century have in turn led to movements for comprehensive immigration reform, albeit with limited success due to differences in constituents’ political orientation from neoliberals to human rights advocates.
The following chapter explores immigrants’ occupational racialization. The authors very skilfully compare and contrast the experiences of groups who have been incorporated into contrasting segments of the labour market and how both immigration policy and immigrant networks have contributed to these processes. Analysing diverse groups, including Indian engineers, Vietnamese nail care businesses, Filipina carers and Latino/a agricultural workers, the authors convey a nuanced picture of how state sponsorship, ethnic groups’ own occupational strategies, transnational relations, dual labour markets, as well as the existing racial hierarchies in the US contribute to processes of ethnic niche building and occupational racialization. This is an original and very important contribution to the literature demonstrating the role of diverse factors in occupational racialization of immigrants and natives.
These well-chosen case studies illuminate how both migrants’ agency and the racial and economic structures of the US, contribute to their occupational incorporation. This is a contradictory process, involving economic and social mobility for some groups and individuals, but also exploitation and dead-end jobs. The authors show how racial discrimination and economic exploitation can be discerned at all levels of employment, albeit in different forms. They also address the problematic role that discourses of good immigrant workers or entrepreneurs play in racializing and/or stigmatizing native workers, in particular Black US citizens. What makes this analysis so useful is its attention to both inter- and intra-group power dynamics.
While the politics of representation contributes to immigrants’ racialized experiences of work, the next chapter looks more specifically at cultural and political representation of migrants, critically interrogating assimilation and transnational theories. Focusing on the identities of Latino/a, Asian-American, Black and Muslim immigrants, the authors explore how ethnically-based and pan-ethnic identities interrelate. While they posit that migrants strive to achieve identity positions allowing them inclusion into an American middle-class identity, they also describe complex processes of dis-identification, be it through experiences of racism and discrimination, as in the case of Latino/as constructed repeatedly as potentially illegal, or in the case of African immigrants who experience de-classing and in response strengthen their transnational ties and identifications.
The strength of this book is its combination of a macro perspective with nuanced analyses of different groups’ racialization. While rigorous in its analysis of structural factors, it is careful to include the racialized subjects as cultural and political actors in their own right, discussing both inter- and intra-group social and political differences, without either romanticizing or morally condemning. The book will be of great value to anyone interested in race and immigration, constituting an excellent example for future studies on other parts of the world.