Download or read book Cities and Social Movements written by Walter J. Nicholls and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-12-27 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through historical and comparative research on the immigrant rights movements of the United States, France and the Netherlands, Cities and Social Movements examines how small resistances against restrictive immigration policies do – or don’t – develop into large and sustained mobilizations. Presents a comprehensive, comparative analysis of immigrant rights politics in three countries over a period of five decades, providing vivid accounts of the processes through which immigrants activists challenged or confirmed the status quo Theorizes movements from the bottom-up, presenting an urban grassroots account in order to identify how movement networks emerge or fall apart Provides a unique contribution by examining how geography is implicated in the evolution of social movements, discovering how and why the networks constituting movements grow by tracing where they develop Demonstrates how efforts to enforce national borders trigger countless resistances and shows how some environments provide the relational opportunities to nurture these small resistances into sustained mobilizations Written to appeal to a broad audience of students, scholars, policy makers, and activists, without sacrificing theoretical rigor

Download or read book Journey to America written by Maliha Abidi and published by Becker & Mayer. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journey to America is a beautiful collection of biographies celebrating 20 of America’s most inspiring first- and second-generation immigrants.

Download or read book Rallying for Immigrant Rights written by Kim Voss and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-07-06 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Alaska to Florida, millions of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets across the United States to rally for immigrant rights in the spring of 2006. The scope and size of their protests, rallies, and boycotts made these the most significant events of political activism in the United States since the 1960s. This accessibly written volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of this historic moment. Perfect for students and general readers, its essays, written by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and grassroots organizers, trace the evolution and legacy of the 2006 protest movement in engaging, theoretically informed discussions. The contributors cover topics including unions, churches, the media, immigrant organizations, and immigrant politics. Today, one in eight U.S. residents was born outside the country, but for many, lack of citizenship makes political voice through the ballot box impossible. This book helps us better understand how immigrants are making their voices heard in other ways.

Download or read book The Making of a Dream written by Laura Wides-Muñoz and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A journalist chronicles the next chapter in civil rights—the story of a movement and a nation, witnessed through the poignant and inspiring experiences of five young undocumented activists who are transforming society’s attitudes toward one of the most contentious political matters roiling America today: immigration. They are called the DREAMers: young people who were brought, or sent, to the United States as children and who have lived for years in America without legal status. Growing up, they often worked hard in school, planned for college, only to learn they were, in the eyes of the United States government and many citizens, "illegal aliens." Determined to take fate into their own hands, a group of these young undocumented immigrants risked their safety to "come out" about their status—sparking a transformative movement, engineering a seismic shift in public opinion on immigration, and inspiring other social movements across the country. Their quest for permanent legal protection under the so-called "Dream Act," stalled. But in 2012, the Obama administration issued a landmark, new immigration policy: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which has since protected more than half a million young immigrants from deportation even as efforts to install more expansive protections remain elusive. The Making of a Dream begins at the turn of the millennium, with the first of a series of "Dream Act" proposals; follows the efforts of policy makers, activists, and undocumented immigrants themselves, and concludes with the 2016 presidential election and the first months of the Trump presidency. The immigrants’ coming of age stories intersect with the watershed political and economic events of the last two decades: 9/11, the recession, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Obama presidency, and the rebirth of the anti-immigrant right. In telling their story, Laura Wides-Muñoz forces us to rethink our definition of what it means to be American.

Download or read book Immigrants Turned Activists written by Simone Battiston and published by Troubador Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do Australian celebrity chef Stefano de Pieri, former Labor state MP Giovanni Sgro, and the late SBS Italian Radio host Umberto Martinengo have in common? They are all Italian immigrants who became political militants, along with several hundreds more, in left-wing organisations and parties before or throughout the 1970s in Melbourne, a key period of Australian political history in the post-Second World War period. This book offers a unique insight into the life trajectories of politically active Italian immigrants and their left-wing grassroots organisations. It does so in the light of fresh archival data and a string of oral accounts gathered from former and current members and collaborators of leading left-wing organisations, such as the Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and Their Families (FILEF). This study, which portrays successful pro-migrant lobbying as well as organisational failures and political sectarianism, is a telling example of the political potential and limits of immigrant activism in Australia."

Download or read book Organizing While Undocumented written by Kevin Escudero and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist, 2020 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems Honorable Mention, 2021 Asian America Section Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association An inspiring look inside immigrant youth’s political activism in perilous times Undocumented immigrants in the United States who engage in social activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. In Organizing While Undocumented, Kevin Escudero shows why and how—despite this risk—many of them bravely continue to fight on the front lines for their rights. Drawing on more than five years of research, including interviews with undocumented youth organizers, Escudero focuses on the movement’s epicenters—San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City—to explain the impressive political success of the undocumented immigrant community. He shows how their identities as undocumented immigrants, but also as queer individuals, people of color, and women, connect their efforts to broader social justice struggles today. A timely, worthwhile read, Organizing While Undocumented gives us a look at inspiring triumphs, as well as the inevitable perils, of political activism in precarious times.

Download or read book The Immigrant Rights Movement written by Walter J. Nicholls and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, liberal outcry over ethnonationalist views promoted a vision of America as a nation of immigrants. Given the pervasiveness of this rhetoric, it can be easy to overlook the fact that the immigrant rights movement began in the US relatively recently. This book tells the story of its grassroots origins, through its meteoric rise to the national stage. Starting in the 1990s, the immigrant rights movement slowly cohered over the demand for comprehensive federal reform of immigration policy. Activists called for a new framework of citizenship, arguing that immigrants deserved legal status based on their strong affiliation with American values. During the Obama administration, leaders were granted unprecedented political access and millions of dollars in support. The national spotlight, however, came with unforeseen pressures—growing inequalities between factions and restrictions on challenging mainstream views. Such tradeoffs eventually shattered the united front. The Immigrant Rights Movement tells the story of a vibrant movement to change the meaning of national citizenship, that ultimately became enmeshed in the system that it sought to transform.

Download or read book Fighting Immigration Anarchy written by Daniel Sheehy and published by Rooftop Pub. This book was released on 2006-04 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If America is to be preserved, it will be due to the brave efforts of the patriots who lead the movement to save the nation. Awakened by the revelations in the post-9/11 period on the ever-growing illegal immigration crisis, Daniel Sheehy dedicated four years to exploring America's virtual open-borders policy. The fruits of his research—Fighting Immigration Anarchy—illustrates the inspiring grassroots efforts being made by ordinary citizens taking extraordinary steps to awaken America to the multitude of problems caused by the government's reckless immigration positions. In the wake of this spreading chaos have come massive job displacements for American workers, increased crime, schools overwhelmed by non-English-speaking students, bankrupt hospitals, and other serious problems. Fighting Immigration Anarchy focuses on the struggles of dozens of citizens—including chapter-length portraits of eight major citizen activists—to wake up their fellow Americans to the encroaching danger. As with the brave public servants celebrated in Profiles in Courage, the patriots chosen for this book are as varied as America, yet all underwent personal transformations when they saw the nation's peril, putting aside all individual concerns to make saving the country their top priority. Among the patriots are: • An auto mechanic from South Central Los Angeles who remade himself into a powerful talk radio host and public speaker to tell the story of the black community as America's canary in the immigration coal mine.• A retired CPA and a former schoolteacher who co-founded the Minuteman Project and brought the illegal immigration crisis to the national stage.• A freshman congressman from Colorado who founded the Immigration Reform Caucus and became the nation's spokesman for border security after 9/11. The heroic advocates of change chronicled in Fighting Immigration Anarchy and their urgent brand of citizen activism offer the only effective model of curbing illegal immigration, fighting corporate globalism, and preserving American sovereignty.

Download or read book Against the Wall written by Jenn Budd and published by Heliotrope Books LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jenn Budd, the only former U.S. Border Patrol agent to continually blow the whistle on this federal agency's rampant corruption, challenges us-as individuals and as a nation-to face the consequences of our actions. Her journey offers a vital perspective on the unfolding moral crisis of our time. She also gives harrowing testimony about rape culture, white privilege, women in law enforcement, LGBTQ issues, mental illness, survival and forgiveness. "An unflinching look at a Border Patrol riddled with corruption, racism, and misogyny. Raw and truthful, no one escapes judgement, not even Budd, who searches deep within herself to examine her own prejudices as a white southerner, and the role she played as a Border Patrol agent." -Melissa del Bosque, author of Blood Lines, Lannan Reporting Fellow at Type Investigations "With painstaking honesty and the sharp eye of a natural storyteller, Jenn Budd chronicles her journey from oppressor to activist. She investigates and condemns the agency she once was proud to be a part of while simultaneously exploring her own complicity. As a woman in a heavily male-dominated law enforcement agency, a daughter of an alcoholic, a gay woman in a misogynistic, racist, and homophobic environment, she was determined to fit in, even at the expense of her own moral compass and mental health.... Jenn's story, so deftly told, is a powerful testament to the importance of confronting both our own personal demons and our country's corrupt systems of power. This beautifully written book at its heart is about atonement and the unwavering advocacy that can grow from self-forgiveness." -Barbara Feinman Todd, author of Pretend I ́m Not Here and founding journalism director at Georgetown University "This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in a first-hand account of how immigration enforcement plays out at the U.S.-Mexico border. Through this poignantly written book, Jenn succeeds in not only sharing and humanizing the face of childhood and adult trauma, but deftly connects these tragic incidents to the societal harms and trauma imposed on border and immigrant communities as the result of problematic national policies and politics." -Vicki B. Gaubeca, human rights advocate and current director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition "A shocking look at the ugly underbelly of the U.S. Border Patrol. Brave and unflinching, Jenn Budd is one of the most important voices about immigration enforcement in the United States." -Reece Jones, 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall "This courageous and compelling book by a Border Patrol agent-turned immigration-activist is essential reading to understand how today's heartless and abusive Border Patrol culture came into being and what needs to be done to transform immigration policy in America." - Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present "As Americans, we invest so much power and responsibility in our law enforcement officers. When that power is abused, it's our responsibility to stand up and speak out about it-and Jenn Budd does that so courageously in this compelling book. Please read it. Please internalize it. And please join Jenn in her incredible activism to make sure the abuses of power stop now and never happen again." -Alyssa Milano, activist-actress-author of Sorry Not Sorry

Download or read book Undocumented Storytellers written by Sarah C. Bishop and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undocumented Storytellers offers a critical exploration of the ways undocumented immigrant activists harness the power of storytelling to mitigate the fear and uncertainty of life without legal status and to advocate for immigration reform. Sarah C. Bishop chronicles the ways young people uncover their lack of legal status experientially -- through interactions with parents, in attempts to pursue rites of passage reserved for citizens, and as audiences of political and popular media. She provides both theoretical and pragmatic contextualization as activist narrators recount the experiences that influenced their decisions to cultivate public voices. Bishop draws from a mixed methodology of in-depth interviews with undocumented immigrants from eighteen unique nations of origin, critical-rhetorical ethnographies of immigrant rights events and protests, and narrative analysis of immigrant-produced digital media to interrogate the power and limitations of narrative activism. Autobiographical immigrant storytelling refutes mainstream discourse on immigration and reveals the determination of individuals who elsewhere have been vilified by stereotype and presupposition. Offering an unparalleled view into the ways immigrants' stories appear online, Bishop illuminates digital narrative strategies by detailing how undocumented storytellers reframe their messages when stories have unintended consequences. The resulting work provides broad insights into the role of strategic framing and autobiographical story-sharing in advocacy and social movements.

Download or read book Open Hand Closed Fist written by Kathryn Abrams and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-08-09 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does a group that lacks legal status organize its members to become effective political activists? In the early 2000s, Arizona's campaign of "attrition through enforcement" aimed to make life so miserable for undocumented immigrants that they would "self-deport." Undocumented activists resisted hostile legislation, registered thousands of new Latino voters, and joined a national movement to advance justice for immigrants. Drawing on five years of observation and interviews with activists in Phoenix, Arizona, Kathryn Abrams explains how the practices of storytelling, emotion cultures, and performative citizenship fueled this grassroots movement. Together these practices produced both the "open hand" (the affective bonds among participants) and the "closed fist" (the pragmatic strategies of resistance) that have allowed the movement to mobilize and sustain itself over time.

Download or read book Fighting Immigration Anarchy written by Daniel Sheehy and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundswell has been steadily building in America among citizens who are fed up with seeing our country overrun by millions of illegal aliens - foreign invaders who defy our laws, disrespect our culture, and refuse to learn our language. These citizens became activists when they saw that, if America is to survive as a nation and culture, her people will have to save her, because an out-of-touch Washington establishment has grown too corrupt to defend the land and Constitution that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died to preserve. This book tells the stories of some of those patriots. Fighting Immigration Anarchy focuses on the struggles of six citizen activists to wake up their fellow Americans to the encroaching danger. And through the individual stories, readers learn about the recent history of illegal immigration in America - the political victories and defeats as citizens awoke and fought back against the open-borders juggernaut. Like the patriots of the American Revolution, today''s citizen activists refuse to cower before powerful foreign tyrants like those in Mexico City demanding America accept their surplus people. Modern patriots also confront domestic business interests grown addicted to exploitable foreigners now doing formerly American jobs at near-slave wages. The patriots chosen for this book are as varied as America, yet all underwent personal transformations when they saw the nation's peril. All put individual concerns aside to make saving the country their top priority. Among the patriots are: An auto mechanic from South Central Los Angeles who remade himself into a powerful talk radio host and public speaker to tell the story of the black community asAmerica''s canary in the immigration coal mine. A pioneer environmental reporter who concluded that true conservation required that the immigration-fueled population explosion be controlled - and built a Washington organization to harness grassroots activism. A freshman Congressman from Colorado who founded the Immigration Reform Caucus and became the nation''s spokesman for border security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This book is a warning for all Americans of the chaos spreading rapidly from the southwestern border zone to every corner of the nation. In its wake have come massive job displacement for American workers, increased crime, schools overwhelmed by non-English-speaking students, and bankrupt hospitals. And these newcomers have not come to join the American community through assimilation, as did legal immigrants in the past, demanding instead that we change our culture to fit them. But the heroic citizen activists chronicled in Fighting Immigration Anarchy show that, although the hour is late, there will be no surrender to the forces of corporate globalism, utopian multiculturalism, or Mexico City. Not only is the book a modern Profiles in Courage, it also shows grassroots Americans successfully making a critical difference.

Download or read book Divided by the Wall written by Emine Fidan Elcioglu and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border—whether to build it or not—has become a hot-button issue in contemporary America. A recent impasse over funding a wall caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, sharpening partisan divisions across the nation. In the Arizona borderlands, groups of predominantly white American citizens have been mobilizing for decades—some help undocumented immigrants bypass governmental detection, while others help law enforcement agents to apprehend immigrants. Activists on both the left and the right mobilize without an immediate personal connection to the issue at hand, many doubting that their actions can bring about the long-term change they desire. Why, then, do they engage in immigration and border politics so passionately? Divided by the Wall offers a one-of-a-kind comparative study of progressive pro-immigrant activists and their conservative immigration-restrictionist opponents. Using twenty months of ethnographic research with five grassroots organizations, Emine Fidan Elcioglu shows how immigration politics has become a substitute for struggles around class inequality among white Americans. She demonstrates how activists mobilized not only to change the rules of immigration but also to experience a change in themselves. Elcioglu finds that the variation in social class and intersectional identity across the two sides mapped onto disparate concerns about state power. As activists strategized ways to transform the scope of the state’s power, they also tried to carve out self-transformative roles for themselves. Provocative and even-handed, Divided by the Wall challenges our understanding of immigration politics in times of growing inequality and insecurity.

Download or read book This Is an Uprising written by Mark Engler and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a craft to uprising -- and this craft can change the world From protests around climate change and immigrant rights, to Occupy, the Arab Spring, and #BlackLivesMatter, a new generation is unleashing strategic nonviolent action to shape public debate and force political change. When mass movements erupt onto our television screens, the media consistently portrays them as being spontaneous and unpredictable. Yet, in this book, Mark and Paul Engler look at the hidden art behind such outbursts of protest, examining core principles that have been used to spark and guide moments of transformative unrest. With incisive insights from contemporary activists, as well as fresh revelations about the work of groundbreaking figures such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gene Sharp, and Frances Fox Piven, the Englers show how people with few resources and little conventional influence are engineering the upheavals that are reshaping contemporary politics. Nonviolence is usually seen simply as a philosophy or moral code. This Is an Uprising shows how it can instead be deployed as a method of political conflict, disruption, and escalation. It argues that if we are always taken by surprise by dramatic outbreaks of revolt, we pass up the chance to truly understand how social transformation happens.

Download or read book Decolonizing Ethnography written by Carolina Alonso Bejarano and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 2011, ethnographers Carolina Alonso Bejarano and Daniel M. Goldstein began a research project on undocumented immigration in the United States by volunteering at a center for migrant workers in New Jersey. Two years later, Lucia López Juárez and Mirian A. Mijangos García—two local immigrant workers from Latin America—joined Alonso Bejarano and Goldstein as research assistants and quickly became equal partners for whom ethnographic practice was inseparable from activism. In Decolonizing Ethnography the four coauthors offer a methodological and theoretical reassessment of social science research, showing how it can function as a vehicle for activism and as a tool for marginalized people to theorize their lives. Tacking between personal narratives, ethnographic field notes, an original bilingual play about workers' rights, and examinations of anthropology as a discipline, the coauthors show how the participation of Mijangos García and López Juárez transformed the project's activist and academic dimensions. In so doing, they offer a guide for those wishing to expand the potential of ethnography to serve as a means for social transformation and decolonization.

Download or read book The DREAMers written by Walter Nicholls and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On May 17, 2010, four undocumented students occupied the Arizona office of Senator John McCain. Across the country a flurry of occupations, hunger strikes, demonstrations, and marches followed, calling for support of the DREAM Act that would allow these young people the legal right to stay in the United States. The highly public, confrontational nature of these actions marked a sharp departure from more subdued, anonymous forms of activism of years past. The DREAMers provides the first investigation of the youth movement that has transformed the national immigration debate, from its start in the early 2000s through the present day. Walter Nicholls draws on interviews, news stories, and firsthand encounters with activists to highlight the strategies and claims that have created this now-powerful voice in American politics. Facing high levels of anti-immigrant sentiment across the country, undocumented youths sought to increase support for their cause and change the terms of debate by arguing for their unique position—as culturally integrated, long term residents and most importantly as "American" youth sharing in core American values. Since 2010 undocumented activists have increasingly claimed their own space in the public sphere, asserting a right to recognition—a right to have rights. Ultimately, through the story of the undocumented youth movement, The DREAMers shows how a stigmatized group—whether immigrants or others—can gain a powerful voice in American political debate.

Download or read book Undocumented written by Aviva Chomsky and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A longtime immigration activist explores what it means to be an undocumented American—revealing the ever-shifting nature of status in the U.S.—in this “impassioned and well-reported case for change (New York Times) In this illuminating work, immigrant rights activist Aviva Chomsky shows how “illegality” and “undocumentedness” are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. With a focus on US policy, she probes how people, especially Mexican and Central Americans, have been assigned this status—and to what ends. Blending history with human drama, Chomsky explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic, and historical context. The result is a powerful testament of the complex, contradictory, and ever-shifting nature of status in America.