Reference Articles :

Martha May. "Mexican American and Access to Equal Education Opportunities." Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. 2008. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011

Gelatt, Julia. "Immigration, U.S."  Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. 2008. SAGE Publications. 16 Aug. 2011.

Lammers, Matt. "Farm Worker Movement." Encyclopedia of Leadership. 2004. SAGE Publications. 17 Aug. 2011.

 

CQ Researcher:

Racial Diversity in Public Schools: Has the Supreme Court dealt a blow to immigration?

Journal Articles:

Lohmeier, C. & Pentzold, C. (2014). Making Mediated Memory Work: Cuban-Americans, Miami Media and the Doings of Diaspora Memories.  Media Culture Society, 36(6), 776-789.

This article explores the memories of Cubans in Miami. This work examines the role of media in maintaining diasporic memories for the Cuban community.

Questions to Consider:

1. What population is presented in this article? Consider if this population is native or foreign-born. How is this group understood in American mainstream media versus what the research suggests?
2. How does this article explain diaspora for the Cuban population? Discuss examples.

Dorsey, M. & Díaz-Barriga, M. (2007). Senator Barack Obama and Immigration Reform. Journal of Black Studies, 38(1), 90-102.

This article explores Senator Barack Obama's views on immigration reform, and details his history of support for bipartisan legislation to overhaul current laws and restrictions.

Questions to Consider:

1. What does the proposed legislation of "comprehensive immigration reform" suggest changing about the U.S.'s immigration laws, and why?
2. What is the opinion of Senator Obama and others on these proposals?
3. What are some of the benefits and drawbacks cited by the authors of this new legislation?

Alcoff, L.M. (2005). Latino vs. Hispanic: The Politics of Ethnic Names. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 31(4), 395-402.

In this article, the author contemplates the question of ethnic names.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are the power issues and meanings associated with the name a group is called?
2. Does Alcoff's article agree or disagree with the textbook on ethnic terminology?
3. What evidence does she cite to support her argument?
4. Also, what does she say about the "colonial relations" still present in the Americas today?

Romo, R. (2011). Between Black and Brown: Blaxican (Black-Mexican) Multiracial Identity in California. Journal of Black Studies, 42(3), 402-27.

This article examines racial/ethnic formation, challenging the Black/White color line that grounds much racial discourse in the United States.  Multi-racial identities are becoming significantly more common, however the ways that multi-racial people are categorized remains limited by older sociocultural formations.  The process whereby Blaxicans move between these monoracial spaces to create multiracial identities illustrates crucial aspects of the social construction of race/ethnicity in the United States and the influence of social interactions in shaping how Blaxicans develop their multiracial identities” (402).

Questions to Consider:

1. What are the key questions of the author’s research?  From where did the author’s interest in this issue arise?
2. How does the author define the term Blaxican as a self-designation?  What other terms did the respondents use to describe their multi-racial identity?  Why are such racial/ethnic self-identifiers important to the sociological study of race and ethnicity?
3. The author states: “Interviews illustrate that Blaxican respondents are held accountable to the socially constructed meanings attached to Black and Mexican identities by their respective Black and Mexican peer groups even as they “do” a Blaxican identity” (42).  What does she mean by “doing” Blaxican identity? 
4. What are the “social constructs around race to which Blaxicans are held accountable” (42)?

Garcia, M. & Patricia, O. (2011). Gender Digital Divide: The Role of Mobile Phones among Latina Farm Workers in Southeast Ohio. Gender Technology and Development, 15(1), 53-73.

The author uses a feminist perspective to examine whether mobile phone technology is empowering for immigrant women, to discover whether Latina farm workers enjoy the same kinds of empowerments that communications technology has afforded other poor communities.  Her findings show that “gender structures in the immigrant farm worker community have been reinforced by masculinity and femininity discourses.  Mobile phones reinforce gender structures and patriarchal hierarchies by adapting them to women’s roles in the household and community” (72). 

Questions to Consider:

1. How do most immigrant women perceive migration?  Do they experience social problems to a greater or lesser degree than immigrant men?  How are the problems they encounter complicated by gender structures in the immigrant community?
2. This study used six women as informants.  While the intimacy of the group probably gave greater depth to the data, can you think of any downside to using such a small sample?  How do the authors explain the small sample size?

Irlbeck, D. (2008). Latino Police Officers: Patterns of Ethnic Self-Identity and Latino Community Attachment Police Quarterly, 11(4), 468-96.

This article tests the efficacy of the national-wide policy of employing ethnic police officers to police ethnic communities.  Underlying this policy choice is the idea that such employment will enhance policing in ethnic communities due to a shared common ethnic identity and positive attitude towards the community.  However, the findings of this study “document the varied and complex ways in which Latino police officers negotiate ethnic categorization, revealing three generalized identity patterns” (489), and ultimately refute the perspective that like will police like in a more positive fashion.

Questions to Consider:

1. The authors found 3 generalized identity patterns.  Name and describe each.  What are the significant differences among them?
2. The authors used 4 socio-demographic variables associated with the formation and negotiation of ethnic identities.  Name and discuss each.  Why were these factors particularly salient when working with Latino police officers?
3. How are the participants in ‘new’ immigration (after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965) different? 
4. What is ‘straight-line assimilation’?  What is ‘segmented assimilation’?  What are the key differences between them?

Agius Vallejo, J. & Lee, J. (2009). Brown picket fences:  The immigrant narrative and ‘giving back’ among the Mexican-origin middle class. Ethnicities, 9(1), 5-34.

This article looks at an important sociological concern: the extent to which the adult children of Latino immigrants – they specifically focus on middle-class Mexican immigrants-incorporate into the social structure of the US.  Using a single aspect of incorporation – the extent to which they ‘give back’ to co-ethnics – the authors find a significant pattern of individuation among Mexican Americans who grew up in the middle class, detailing who they have moved away from the practices of giving that characterized their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.  However, their respondents who grew up poor and achieved middle-class status in one generation continued to exhibit a collectivist orientation, and continued to ‘give back’ to poorer kin, co-ethnics, and the larger ethnic community.

Questions to Consider:

1. What do the authors mean by ‘giving back’?  What are the “three hypotheses to explain the patterns of giving back among middle-class Mexicans” (7)?  What are the four research questions they pose?
2. Define individualism and collectivism.  How are these 2 very different orientations manifested in your own community?  Which orientation better demonstrates American core values?
3. What are the 4 paths to assimilation cited by the authors?  Which is most common for middle-class immigrants?  Why this difference?
4. Summarize the study’s findings.

Sandoval Jr., T.F.S. (2008). Disobedient Bodies: Racialization, Resistance, and the Mass (Re)Articulation of the Mexican Immigrant Body. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(4), 580-598.

This article discusses immigrant activism intended to resist and derail Congressional policy-making in 2006.  The author particularly focuses on the politics of speech, “contend[ing] their mass participation provided a symbolic interjection of humanity, actively voicing disobedience to the current and proposed laws as well as the civic and social expectations informing immigrants’ public interactions within the larger society” (580). 

Questions to Consider:

1. What events prompted the waves of protest in 2006?  What sorts of people and organizations participated?  What was specifically challenged by these mobilizations?
2. What does the author mean by his description of immigrants as “disobedient bodies”?  How specifically is immigration “disobedient”?  How does the discourse of disobedience “undergird the rationale of the U.S. system of immigration regulation” (583)?
3. The author argues that “[t]his law-and-order feature of the national culture is problematic in multiple ways” (589).  How?
4. What is the “space” within which the Mexican illegal immigrant body is constructed?  What does the author argue is centrally significant about the protests of 2006?

Bacon, D. (2008). Living Under the Trees. Contexts, 7(4), 50-58.

This photo essay discusses the extreme poverty that many Mexicans are burdened with, particularly focusing on people intending to or already having accomplished migration from the state of Oaxaca.  In particular, the author discusses the Living Under the Trees project, which “documents the experiences and conditions of indigenous farm worker communities. It focuses on social movements in indigenous communities and how indigenous culture helps communities survive and enjoy life. The project’s purpose is to win public support for policies to help those communities by putting a human face on conditions and providing a forum in which people speak for themselves” (50).

Questions to Consider:

1. What do Mexicans say about migration to the fields of the United States?  What are the prices they pay, particularly in terms of class status?
2. Do you find a photographic essay an easy way to visualize sociological concepts?  Why or why not?  If yes, provide some examples of concepts you can see operating in the photographs in this essay.

Brown, H.E. (2013). Race, Legality, and the Social Policy Consequences of Anti-Immigration Mobilization. American Sociological Review, 78(2), 2-26.

This article examines the how the dramatic rise in the U.S. Hispanic population, affects the development of American racial lines beyond the Black-White divide. This study uses a comparative analysis of welfare reforms in California and Arizona to examine how anti-Hispanic stereotypes affect social policy formation. Drawing on interviews, archival materials, and newspaper content analysis, findings include that animus toward Hispanics is mobilized through two collective action frames: a legality frame and a racial frame. The legality frame contributes to the discourse of demonizing illegal immigrants. Racial framing by White citizens uses explicit racial language labelling Hispanics as undeserving.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the arguments employed by White Americans about why Hispanics are unwanted as American immigrants?
2. Apply race theory to the racialization of immigrants, in states like Arizona? Do some research to find if there are other states in the U.S. that have similar rules of law, as Arizona has implemented in the last few years that carry anti-immigrant sentiment.

Bean, F.D. (2010). Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times. [Review by Massey, Douglas S., and Sánchez R. Magaly].Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 40(4), 467-469.

The negotiation of identity for immigrants who are experiencing anti-immigrant sentiments is explored. This review outlines theoretical support for arguments presented that offers insight into nativist sentiments.

Questions to Consider:

1. What are some of the arguments the review focuses on? Consider what was discussed in the original article and what was chosen by these authors to review.
2. How does the review explain Anti-Immigrant times? What are some of the arguments used to explain these brokered boundaries. Consider symbolic ethnicity.