Marrying for Papers? From Economically Strategic to Normative and Relational Dimensions of the Transition to Adulthood for Unauthorized 1.5-generation Brazilians
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online December, 2016
Marrying for Papers? From Economically Strategic to Normative and Relational Dimensions of the Transition to Adulthood for Unauthorized 1.5-generation Brazilians
Public rhetoric suggests that unauthorized immigrants may engage in marriage fraud for legal security and economic gain. Academic scholarship that emphasizes economically strategic actors corroborates this claim. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 1.5-generation unauthorized Brazilian young adults, I find that most of my respondents are opposed to marrying strictly for papers, even though becoming “legally American” could bring opportunities for socioeconomic mobility. Like their American peers in young adulthood, many 1.5-generation Brazilians emphasized that they are not interested in marrying in their 20s. Women, in particular, articulated their internalization of lifecourse norms as a function of their socialization in the United States. Yet, 1.5-generation Brazilians also disclosed that they did not want to establish new relationships or transform old relationships for instrumental reasons. Ultimately, strategic-economic approaches provide less insight into why my respondents do not marry for papers than the normative and relational dynamics of their transitions to adulthood.
AbregoLeisy J.2006. “‘I Can’t Go to College because I Don’t Have Papers’: Incorporation Patterns of Latino Undocumented Youth.” Latino Studies4:212–31.
2.
AbregoLeisy. 2008. “Legitimacy, Social Identity, and Mobilization of the Law.” Law & Social Inquiry33(3): 709-734.
3.
AbregoLeisy J.2011. “Legal Consciousness of Undocumented Latinos: Fear and Stigma As Barriers to Claims Making for First and 1.5 Generation Immigrants.” Law & Society Review45(2):337–69.
4.
AbregoLeisy J.2014. Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor and Love across Borders. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
5.
AbregoLeisy J.GonzalesRoberto G.2010. “Blocked Paths, Uncertain Futures: The Postsecondary Education and Labor Market Prospects of Undocumented Latino Youth.” The Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk15(1):144–57.
6.
AlksnisChristineDesmaraisSergeWoodEileen. 1996. “Gender Differences in Scripts for Different Types of Dates.” Sex Roles34:321–36.
7.
ArnettJeffrey J.2000. “Emerging Adulthood: A Theory of Development from the Late Teens through the Twenties.” American Psychologist55(5):469–80.
8.
ArnettJeffrey J.2004. Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
9.
BeckerGary S.1981. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
10.
BeckerGary S.LandesElisabeth M.MichaelRobert T.1977. “An Economic Analysis of Marital Instability.” The Journal of Political Economy85(6):1141–87.
11.
BeserraBernadette. 2005. “From Brazilians to Latinos? Racialization and Latinidad in the Making of Brazilian Carnival in Los Angeles.” Latino Studies3(1):53–75.
12.
BosickStacey J.2015. “‘Pushed Out on My Own.’ The Impact of Hurricane Katrina in the Lives of Low-income Emerging Adults.” Sociological Perspectives.58(2): 243-63.
13.
CebulkoKara. 2013. Documented, Undocumented and Something Else: The Incorporation of Children of Brazilian Immigrants. El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly.
14.
CebulkoKara. 2014. “Documented, Undocumented, and Liminally Legal: Legal Status during the Transition to Adulthood for 1.5-generation Brazilian Immigrants.” The Sociological Quarterly55(1):143–67.
15.
ChavezLeo. 2013. The Latino Threat Narrative: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
16.
CherlinAndrew. 2004. “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage.” Journal of Marriage and Family66(4):848–61.
17.
DeBiaggiSylvia D. D.2002. Changing Gender Roles: Brazilian Immigrant Families in the United States. New York: LFB Scholarly.
18.
EdinKathrynKefalasMaria J.2011. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
19.
GerstelNaomiSarkisianNatalia. 2006. “Marriage: The Good, the Bad, and the Greedy.” Contexts5(4):16–21.
20.
GlennNorvalMarquardtElizabeth. 2001. “Hooking Up, Hanging Out and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Dating and Mating Today.” New York: Institute for American Values.
21.
Golash-BozaTanya. 2014. “Forced Transnationalism: Transnational Coping Strategies and Gendered Stigma among Jamaican Deportees.” Global Networks14:63–79.
22.
Golash-BozaTanyaHondagneu-SoteloPierrette. 2013. “Latino Immigrant Men and the Deportation Crisis: A Gendered Racial Removal Program.” Latino Studies11:271–92.
23.
GonzalesRoberto G.2008. “Left Out but Not Shut Down: Political Activism and the Undocumented Student Movement.” Northwestern University School of Law3:219–39.
24.
GonzalesRoberto G.2010. “On the Wrong Side of the Tracks: Understanding the Effects of School Structure and Social Capital in the Educational Pursuits of Undocumented Immigrant Students.” Peabody Journal of Education88:469–85.
25.
GonzalesRoberto G.2011. “Learning to be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood.” American Sociological Review76(4):602–19.
26.
GozaFranklin. 1994. “Brazilian Immigration to North America.” International Migration Review28:136–52.
27.
GrasmuckSherriPessarPatricia R.1991. Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
28.
Hondagneu-SoteloPierrette. 1994. Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
29.
HuangPenelope M.SmockPamela J.ManningWendy D.Bergstrom-LynchCara A.2011. “‘He Says, She Says: Gender and Cohabitation.” Journal of Family Issues32(7):876–905.
30.
JacksonPamela B.2011. “Conventions of Courtship: Gender and Race Differences in the Significance of Dating Rituals.” Journal of Family Issues32(5):629–52.
31.
KefalasMaria J.FurstenbergFrank F.CarrPatrick J.NapolitanoLaura. 2011. “Marriage Is More than Being Together: The Meaning of Marriage for Young Adults.” Journal of Family Issues32(7):845–75.
32.
MarcelliEnricaHolmesLouisaEstellaDavidDa RochaFaustoGranberryPhillipBuxtonOrfeu. 2009. (In)Visible (Im)Migrants: The Health and Socioeconomic Integration of Brazilians in Metropolitan Boston. San Diego, CA: Center for Behavioral and Community Health Studies, San Diego State University.
33.
MargolisMaxine. 1994. Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian immigrants in New York City. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
34.
MargolisMaxine. 1998. An Invisible Minority: Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
35.
MenjívarCecilia. 2006. “Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology111:999–1037.
36.
MurrayCharles A.1993. “Welfare and the Family: The U.S. Experience.” Journal of Labor Economics11(2):S224–62.
37.
NichollsWalter J.2013. The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigrant Rights Debate. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
OppenheimerValerie K.1988. “A Theory of Marriage Timing: Assortative Mating under Varying Degrees of Uncertainty.” American Journal of Sociology94(3):563–91.
40.
PerezWilliam. 2009. We are Americans: Undocumented Students Pursuing the American Dream. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
41.
PerezWilliamEspinozaRobertaRamosKarinaCoronadoHeidiCortesRichard. 2009. “Academic Resilience among Undocumented Latino Students.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences31(2):149–81.
42.
RajAnitaSilvermanJay. 2002. “Violence Against Immigrant Women The Roles of Culture, Context, and Legal Immigrant Status on Intimate Partner Violence.” Violence Against Women8(3):367–98.
43.
SacchettiMaria. 2010. “Brazilians Showcase Their Rise in Boston.” Boston, MA: The Boston Globe.
44.
SchmalzbauerLeah. 2014. The Last Best Place: Gender, Family, and Migration in the New West. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
45.
SchneiderDaniel. 2011. “Wealth and the Marital Divide.” American Journal of Sociology117(2):627–67.
46.
SilverAlexis. 2012 “Aging into Exclusion and Social Transparency: Undocumented Immigrant Youth and the Transition to Adulthood.” Latino Studies10(4):499–522.
47.
SmithRobert. 2006. Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
48.
Suárez-OrozcoCarolaSuárez-OrozcoMarcelo M.TodarovaIrina. 2008. Learning in a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
