Abstract
Undocumented Fears by Jamie Longazel is a detailed analysis about Illegal Immigration Relief Act (IIRA) in author’s hometown, Hazleton, PA, in 2006. IIRA was a local ordinance that set penalties for renting to or hiring undocumented immigrants and declared English the city’s official language. The author demonstrates that politics surrounding the Hazleton case have much in common with national and international debate about immigration patterns. In fact, the so-called Latino Threat Narrative, fueled by economic and social crisis, contributes to the construction of a racialized community identity (White affirmation) that embraces exclusionary immigration policies (Latino degradation). Moreover, this narrative contributes to the perpetuation of social inequality because it enhances the exploitability of immigrants workers and it conveys working-class Whites animosity toward “illegal aliens,” stunting the formation of not-racialized, class-based coalitions that could pursue economic justice. Although immigration debate is often masked as a race-neutral defense for the rule of law, the author highlights that exclusionary rhetoric about legal status is often an entry point for a discussion about larger racialized fears.
The author blends sociological reasoning with the analysis of single stories, interviews, news reports, trial and city council transcripts; this makes the book interesting and appealing for the audience.
Structurally, the book is broken into four chapters. The first chapter purports to lay out how broader political economic forces created economic uncertainty and prompted immigration backlash. The author investigates the history of Hazleton’s primary community economic development group, CAN DO. The organization was started with a fund drive, encouraging community spirit, but it was affected by the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s. That influence prompted a more business-like approach expressed in tax incentives instead of original community-based model. The economic shift attracted temporary employment firms, whose low wages and poor working conditions ultimately became an immigrants magnet. This process was fertile ground for the Latino Threat Narrative to take root.
The second chapter focuses on a comparative analysis of the media coverage and community reaction of two homicides committed in Hazleton: the first a Latino-on-Latino murder, the latter the killing of a White resident for which two undocumented Latino immigrants were initially charged. While the first case was considered an unfortunate and rare incident, the second case embodied Latino Threat Narrative in the context of immigration debate. As a result, IIRA ordinance was introduced just 36 days after the White resident murder.
The third and fourth chapters describe majority reactions against immigrants community and their allies. Specifically, the third chapter focuses on first activists movements: their outcry of discrimination and their claims of immigrants civil rights were dismissed as separatist and excessive by officials and media.
In fact, refusal to acknowledge the real, lived experiences of Latinos reinforced Latino Threat Narrative and Hazleton’s collective identity was reaffirmed as the majority added proimmigrants activists to the list of enemies who threated Whites’ injury and loss of their way of life, according to White innocence rhetoric. Also litigations about the ordinance, alleged to violate equal protection and due process rights and to usurpate the federal power to regulate immigration, followed White innocence/Latino abstraction script, prompting a vitriolic political debate inside and outside of the courtroom.
The fourth chapter focuses on the evolution of proimmigrant efforts to build a bridge between recent immigrants and established residents and institutions. Rather than challenging racialized criminalization of immigrants steadily, a less antagonistic and less militant approach was taken, working to improve the image of immigrants community in general and to integrate them in the whole society. However, despite such postracial approach dominant ideologies posed serious challenges and limits to activists, as Latino degradation/White affirmation mechanism remained taken for granted.
In his passionate conclusion, the author argues that, as immigration law and politics localize, top-down constructions of community identity, such as divide and conquer politics, must be contrasted and replaced with historical bottom-up reengagement that authentically and democratically confronts racial and economic inequality toward collective liberation.
The book has several strengths, notably its original blend of thought and action. Moreover, Longazel’s work marks an excellent attempt to discuss Latino Threat Narrative roots and connections with national immigration patterns and neoliberal depoliticization. Also, several references and numerous appendixes demonstrate the issue is extensively researched and in-depth scrutinized.
Although complexity is one of the brightest point of the work, it also turns into its weakest point. The book is readable and accessible to a variety of audiences surely, and the unconventional balance between the text and the notes is intentionally employed by the author to maximize accessibility. However, it turns into a weak point for readers who seek deeper exploration, compelling them to repeated “stop-and-go” across chapters, notes, and appendixes. For instance, some important concepts should have been incorporated into the chapters instead of notes.
In spite of this shortcoming, the book will surely stimulate discussion between scholars and practitioners. It should be required reading for anyone interested to investigate how dominant ideologies relating to race and social class embedded in immigration politics continue to divide and conquer ordinary people today.