Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Family Matters

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Boundaries of Belonging

Part of the book series: Cultural Sociology ((CULTSOC))

  • 261 Accesses

Abstract

Children are the central focus of the symbolic boundary work concerning families. They act as representatives of the immigrant rights movement and symbolize the fate of separated families that have been “torn” or “ripped apart” by detention and deportation. Moral considerations blur the legal boundary, and individuals cross it, through prevention of their deportation. For the immigration control groups, US-born “anchor babies” are the dangerous pawns of their parents, qualifying them for welfare and growing up to be political actors. Their boundary work seeks not only to maintain a legal boundary, through enforcement and border security, but also to solidify it, through elimination of birthright citizenship. The social movement organizations of both movements indict politicians for their lack of action when it comes to protecting families.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Anguiano, Claudia A. 2011. Undocumented, Unapologetic, and Unafraid: Discursive Strategies of the Immigrant Youth Dream Social Movement. PhD Thesis, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

    Google Scholar 

  • Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chávez, Karma R. 2010. Border (In)Securities: Normative and Differential Belonging in LGBTQ and Immigrant Rights Discourse. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 7(2): 136–155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chavez, Leo R. 2013. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, 2nd ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Costanza-Chock, Sasha. 2014. Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets! Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Costley, William. 2014. The Anti-Immigrant ‘New Mediascape’: Analyzing Nativist Discourse on the Web. PhD Thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dechaine, D. Robert. 2009. Bordering the Civic Imaginary: Alienization, Fence Logic and the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. Quarterly Journal of Speech 95(1): 43–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Oliver, Miguel. 2011. Nativism and the Obsolescence of Grand Narrative: Comprehending the Quandary of Anti-Immigration Groups in the Neoliberal Era. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37(7): 977–997.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diaz-Edelman, Mia Desiree. 2014. Working Together: Multicultural Collaboration in the Interfaith Immigrant Rights Movement. PhD Thesis, Boston University, Boston.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doty, Roxanne Lynn. 2009. The Law I nto Their Own Hands: Immigration and the Politics of Exceptionalism. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enriquez, Laura E., and Abigail C. Saguy. 2015. Coming Out of the Shadows: Harnessing a Cultural Schema to Advance the Undocumented Immigrant Youth Movement. American Journal of Cultural Sociology 4: 107–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flores-Yeffal, Nadia Yamel, Guadalupe Vidales, and April Plemons. 2011. The Latino Cyber-Moral Panic Process in the United States. Information, Communication & Society 14(4): 568–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Franz, Margaret. 2015. Will to Love, Will to Fear: The Emotional Politics of Illegality and Citizenship in the Campaign Against Birthright Citizenship in the US. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation, and Culture 21(2): 184–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gálvez, Alyshia. 2014. Vital Topics Form: Latin@s and the Immigration Debate. American Anthropologist 116(1): 146–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gastelum, Juan E. 2011. How Immigration Activists Are Fighting Deportation Policy With Social Media. Mashable website, April 19. http://mashable.com/2011/04/19/immigration-activism-social-media/#8HwZXQMnsZqF. Accessed 16 Oct 2015.

  • Gemignani, Marco, and Yolanda Hernandez-Albujar. 2015. Hate Groups Targeting Unauthorized Immigrants: Discourses, Narratives and Subjectivation Practices on Their Websites. Ethnic and Racial Studies 38(15): 2754–2770.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Griffith, Candace. 2013. Our Side of the Fence: Investigating the New Nativism in the United States. PhD Thesis, Univeristy of Nevada, Reno.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayden, Bridget. 2010. Impeach the Traitors: Citizenship, Sovereignty and Nation in Immigration Control Activism in the United States. Social Semiotics 20(2): 155–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, Robin. 2006. Characterizing Consent: Race, Citizenship, and the New Restrictionists. Political Research Quarterly 59(4): 645–654.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, Robin Dale. 2008. The New Nativism: Proposition 187 and the Debate Over Immigration. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meckler, Laura. 2014a. Americans Now Favor GOP on Immigration—WSJ/NBC Poll. The Wall Street Journal Washington Wire website, September 9. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/09/09/americans-now-favor-gop-on-immigration-wsjnbc-poll/. Accessed 9 Oct 2015.

  • Nevins, Joseph. 2002. Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, Walter J. 2013. The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigrant Rights Debate. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, Walter J., Justus Uitermark, and Sander van Haperen. 2016. The Networked Grassroots: How Radicals Outflanked Reformists in the United States’ Immigrant Rights Movement. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42(6): 1036–1054.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oliviero, Kate E. 2011. Sensational Nation and the Minutemen: Gendered Citizenship and Moral Vulnerabilities. Signs 36(3): 679–706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ono, Kent A., and John M. Sloop. 2002. Shifting Borders: Rhetoric, Immigration, and California’s Proposition 187. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pallares, Amalia. 2010. Representing “La Familia”: Family Separation and Immigrant Activism. In ¡Marcha!: Latino Chicago and the Immigrant Rights Movement, ed. Amalia Pallares and Nilda Flores-González, 215–236. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pallares, Amalia, and Nilda Flores-González. 2011. Regarding Family: New Actors in the Chicago Protests. In Rallying for Immigrant Rights: The Fight for Inclusion in 21st Century America, ed. Kim Voss and Irene Bloemraad, 161–179. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Passel, Jeffrey S., and D’Vera Cohn. 2015. Number of Babies Born in U.S. to Unauthorized Immigrants Declines. Pew Research Center website, September 11. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/11/number-of-babies-born-in-u-s-to-unauthorized-immigrants-declines/. Accessed 9 Oct 2015.

  • Reimers, David M. 1998. Unwelcome Strangers: American Identity and the Turn Against Immigration. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rivera-Silber, Natasha. 2013. ‘Coming Out Undocumented’ in the Age of Perry. N.Y.U. Review of Law and Change 37(1): 72–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rodríguez, Nestor P. 1997. The Social Construction of the U.S.-Mexico Border. In Immigrants Out! The New Nativism and the Anti-Immigrant Impulse in the United States, ed. Juan F. Perea, 223–243. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Romero, Mary. 2008. ‘Go After the Women’: Mothers Against Illegal Aliens’ Campaign Against Mexican Immigrant Women and Their Children. Indiana Law Journal 83(4): 1355–1389.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowe, Aimee Carrillo. 2005. Be Longing: Toward a Feminist Politics of Relation. NWSA Journal 17(2): 15–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. Power Lines: On the Subject of Feminist Alliances. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Santa Ana, Otto. 1999. Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse. Austin: University of Texas Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simanski, John F., and Leslie M. Sapp. 2013. Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2012. Department of Homeland Security website. http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ois_enforcement_ar_2012_1.pdf. Accessed 20 Oct 2015.

  • Smith, Philip. 2005. Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stranahan, Lee. 2015. Children Used by Leftist Group to Attack Scott Walker on Immigration. Breitbart website, July 21. http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/07/21/children-used-by-leftist-group-to-attack-scott-walker-on-immigration/. Accessed 9 Oct 2015.

  • Sziarto, Kristin M., and Helga Leitner. 2010. Immigrants Riding for Justice: Space-Time and Emotions in the Construction of a Counterpublic. Political Geography 29: 381–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Terriquez, Veronica. 2015. Intersectional Mobilization, Social Movement Spillover, and Queer Youth Leadership in the Immigrant Rights Movement. Social Problems 62(3): 343–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yukich, Grace. 2013a. Constructing the Model Immigrant: Movement Strategy and Immigrant Deservingness in the New Sanctuary Movement. Social Problems 60(3): 302–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky

Authors
  1. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Jaworsky, B.N. (2016). Family Matters. In: The Boundaries of Belonging. Cultural Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43747-7_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43747-7_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-43746-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-43747-7

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation