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Overview
Illegal immigration continues to roil American politics. The right-wing media stir up panic over “anchor babies,” job stealing, welfare dependence, bilingualism, al-Qaeda terrorists disguised as Latinos, even a conspiracy by Latinos to “retake” the Southwest. State and local governments have passed more than 300 laws that attempt to restrict undocumented immigrants' access to hospitals, schools, food stamps, and driver's licenses. Federal immigration authorities stage factory raids that result in arrests, deportations, and broken families—and leave owners scrambling to fill suddenly open jobs. The DREAM Act, which would grant permanent residency to high school graduates brought here as minors, is described as “amnesty.” And yet polls show that a majority of Americans support some kind of path to citizenship for those here illegally. What is going on? In this book, John Tirman shows how the resistance to immigration in America is more cultural than political. Although cloaked in language about jobs and secure borders, the cultural resistance to immigration expresses a fear that immigrants are changing the dominant white, Protestant, “real American” culture.
Tirman describes the “raid mentality” of our response to immigration, which seeks violent solutions for a social phenomenon. He considers the culture clash over Chicano ethnic studies in Tucson, examines the consequences of an immigration raid in New Bedford, and explores the civil rights activism of young “Dreamers.” The current “round them up, deport them, militarize the border” approach, Tirman shows, solves nothing.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262328524 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 03/27/2015 |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 216 |
| File size: | 786 KB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
1 Raid: The Second Great Migration and the Culture of Resistance 1
2 Raiding the Schools: The Riven Soul of Arizona 25
3 The Usual Suspects: The Raid in New Bedford 61
4 Dreaming the Dream: The Next Generation 91
5 Raids Gone Global: Genocide in Guatemala and Wars in Mexico 111
6 The Rocky Road of Reform 133
7 Legality And Language as Cultural Weapons 147
8 Hope for the Dream Chasers 171
Notes 179
Index 197
What People are Saying About This
In John Tirman's lively and fresh scorecard of the eternal immigration game in the United States, it's the 'Dreamers'—brought faultless as babies two or more decades ago, typically from Mexico and Central America—who catch the spirit of theory and practice evolving. 'We've paid our way into your schools and workplaces' is their effective line. 'We're harder workers and more zealous communitarians than most of the natives. We're as American as you are, and by now you know it!'
No book could be more timely. Combining first-hand reporting and nuanced analysis, John Tirman has produced an essential primer that explains immigration in the context of American politics and the global economy. If you read only one book to understand the current immigration debate, Dream Chasers is the one.
Tirman argues that both sides in the immigration debate are 'dream chasers,' driven by contrasting premises of what is just, fair, and legitimate. This original cultural analysis allows him to explain why the debate is so intractable, and why reform opponents are often so mean-spirited, contradicting even their own economic interests. Most crucially, he foretells the calamity to come—presaged in the fall of 2014 by the second-longest run of civil rights protests in US history—if we dither much longer in response to the (pro-reform) dreamers' call to action.
In John Tirman's lively and fresh scorecard of the eternal immigration game in the United States, it's the 'Dreamers'—brought faultless as babies two or more decades ago, typically from Mexico and Central America—who catch the spirit of theory and practice evolving. 'We've paid our way into your schools and workplaces' is their effective line. 'We're harder workers and more zealous communitarians than most of the natives. We're as American as you are, and by now you know it!'
—Christopher Lydon, host of Open Source, a broadcast and podcast from WBUR, Boston
No book could be more timely. Combining first-hand reporting and nuanced analysis, John Tirman has produced an essential primer that explains immigration in the context of American politics and the global economy. If you read only one book to understand the current immigration debate, Dream Chasers is the one.
—Derek Shearer, ormer United States Ambassador to Finland; Chevalier Professor of Diplomacy, Director, McKinnon Center for Global Affairs, Occidental CollegeTirman argues that both sides in the immigration debate are 'dream chasers,' driven by contrasting premises of what is just, fair, and legitimate. This original cultural analysis allows him to explain why the debate is so intractable, and why reform opponents are often so mean-spirited, contradicting even their own economic interests. Most crucially, he foretells the calamity to come—presaged in the fall of 2014 by the second-longest run of civil rights protests in US history—if we dither much longer in response to the (pro-reform) dreamers' call to action.
—Charles R. Hale, Director, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, University of Texas at AustinIn John Tirman's lively and fresh scorecard of the eternal immigration game in the United States, it's the 'Dreamers'—brought faultless as babies two or more decades ago, typically from Mexico and Central America—who catch the spirit of theory and practice evolving. 'We've paid our way into your schools and workplaces' is their effective line. 'We're harder workers and more zealous communitarians than most of the natives. We're as American as you are, and by now you know it!'
—Christopher Lydon, host of Open Source, a broadcast and podcast from WBUR, Boston