Abstract
Zepeda-Millán examines why and how immigrant rights activists across the United States mobilized against an anti-immigrant bill, H.R. 4437, in 2006 and what factors led to the protest wave’s decline. The Sensenbrenner bill (H.R. 4437) aimed to change the penalty for being undocumented from a civil violation to a federal felony and punish any individuals who assisted undocumented persons with monetary fines and incarceration, criminalizing almost everyone (e.g., teachers, employers, and social service providers). Prior anti-immigrant bills were proposed and enacted without any public uproar, which made the 2006 immigrant protest wave all the more unique. To examine the “motivations, [resources], experiences, tactics and strategies that activists used to coordinate and organize the demonstrations” (p. 20), Zepeda-Millán interviewed 131 protest organizers and participants between 2006 and 2009. He also used “survey and census data and statistics from the Department of Homeland Security and in-depth interviews with D.C. based immigrant reform lobbyists and organization leaders” to examine what, if any, consequences the marches had on policymaking and national electoral politics (p. 20). Zepeda-Millán uses three cases, Los Angeles, New York City, and Fort Myers to study how threats shape mass mobilization; examining, “why do threats lead to large-scale collective action in some instances, yet in other instances contribute to the decline or suppression of that action?” (p. 136).
Zepeda-Millán argues that activists are more effective when they have a clear target (single source), in this case U.S. Congress, and ample time to organize; legislative threats are slow to materialize, allowing coalitions to form. Furthermore, the broader the scope, in terms of severity and number of individuals impacted, of a threat, the more likely it is to gain media coverage (visibility). H.R. 4437 was a single-source threat that was broad in scope, highly visible, and offered ample time to organize against. H.R. 4437 triggered feelings of linked fate and racial group consciousness among Latinos and, to a lesser extent, members of other marginalized groups with a large immigrant population, making them receptive to large-scale collective action. While there is nothing inherently racial about one’s citizenship status, Latinos have become synonymous with being undocumented and vice versa. Consequently, the racialization, the process through which racial meaning is ascribed to social groups, practices, or policies, of illegality, the socially produced condition of immigrants’ legal status and deportability, is a central concept in Zepeda-Millán’s analysis.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the origins and evolution of the U.S. immigrant rights movement. Zepeda-Millán discusses how the confluence of neoliberal economic reforms, specific immigration policies, prior social movement activism, state and societal nativism, and changes in Latino migration patterns laid the groundwork for a national immigrant rights movement, setting the stage for the marches in 2006 (p. 22).
Social movement theorists contend that a supportive electoral base, influential elite allies, and established social movement organizations are essential to movement building and mobilization processes; yet, these factors were absent in Fort Myers, FL. Chapter 2 describes how unconventional political actors (e.g., nannies, agricultural workers, ethnic small business owners) utilized preexisting community resources to mass mobilize in Fort Myers. The emergence of a racial group consciousness coupled with nativist legislation that threatens the collective identities and personal interests/identities of immigrant community members can lead to mass mobilization.
Social movement scholars examining the relationship between social movements and the media focus predominantly on English-language news outlets; research, however, on the relationship between ethnic media and ethnic groups is limited. Chapter 3 focuses on the role of ethnic media outlets in mass mobilization efforts in Los Angeles. Zepeda-Millán found that Spanish-language news outlets served as sources of information and as agents of immigrant incorporation, whereas English-language news outlets are expected to only do the former (p. 99). Immigrant rights activists use the ethnic media to make visible their pro-immigrant frames and calls to action to the Spanish speaking Latino community, complicating the customary finding that activists stage large demonstrations in order to draw media attention and subsequent sympathy.
All movements negotiate which groups to recruit and how to best recruit them. Chapter 4 reveals the challenges of mobilizing a heterogeneous immigrant population in NYC. Mexicans and Dominicans were highly involved in protest and organizing efforts because of a relatively high foreign-born population rate and lack of U.S. citizenship. Since Mexicans have been racialized as the “quintessential ‘illegals,’” Zepeda-Millán’s case studies with a large Mexican descent population, like L.A., or homogenous Mexican immigrant population, like Fort Myers, produced relatively larger protests because Mexicans had “more to gain and lose from both the legislative threat of H.R. 4437 and the policy alternatives called for by activists” (p. 201). Zepeda-Millán demonstrates how calls to mobilize over nativist threats resonate differently among foreign-born groups and are impacted over how immigrant policies and immigrants are racialized.
Deportations, anti-immigrant ordinances, and hate crimes increased during and after the demonstrations; undocumented immigrants were more threatened than ever, but mass mobilization declined. Chapter 5 discusses the decline of the demonstrations and organizers’ inability to continue to mobilize participants. Zepeda-Millán argues that multiple-source threats can lead to the suppression of mass mobilization; for example, fighting numerous workplace raids and anti-immigrant ordinances was difficult for activists. When threats materialize on a mass scale (become broad in scope), media coverage can unintentionally foster a sense of fear.
Due to the defeat of the Sensenbrenner bill, strategic alliances crumbled and prior ideological differences resurfaced. Chapter 6 discusses the national consequences of the demonstrations. In addition to impacting the federal immigration policymaking process, the 2006 protest wave enabled the immigrant rights movement to institutionalize their efforts. In response, activists redeployed their energies toward the 2008 presidential race.
Social movement scholars have undertheorized how different dimensions of threat can impact collective action. Latino Mass Mobilization (LMM) addresses this theoretical gap. LMM will be particularly useful for those who teach social movements and Latina/o studies. Zepeda-Millán’s work helps scholars and activists to better understand both how multiracial mobilizations and alliances work and do not work, their possibilities as well as their limits and the implications diversity has when “developing future organizing strategies” (p. 201). Undergraduate upperclassmen and graduate students in Sociology, Latina/o Studies, and Political Science may enhance their understanding of what influences mass mobilization, the complexities between Latino racial group consciousness, and how racialization shapes how immigrant communities mobilize against nativist laws. While LMM deals with how political institutions and officials criminalize undocumented people, the central contributions are to social movements theory.
