Migration Studies Commons^™

Making Sense Of Naturalization: What Citizenship Means To Naturalizing Immigrants In Canada And The Usa, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Immigrant naturalization is both a barometer of inclusiveness and immigrant incorporation and a mechanism of social reproduction of the nation. This article reports on an interview-based study in suburban Toronto and New Jersey that investigated how immigrants explain their decisions to acquire citizenship. It analyzes respondents’ under- standings of naturalization in light of different theories of citizenship and different dimensions of the concept. The study contributes to the literature by showing how many American immigrants interviewed while going through the naturalization process resisted framing naturalization as identity-changing, situating it instead as a common-sense move following permanent settlement and belonging. In …

The Era Of Open-Ended Dual Life, Hirosuke Hyodo

Publications and Research

Although missing in mainstream studies of American immigration in the post-1965 Act era, the volume of native Japanese living in the U.S. today (called the shin-issei) is three times that of the prewar Japanese-American community on the U.S. mainland. Their curious absence from the mainstream studies results from the traditionally entrenched frame, ‘immigrants’, that does not unfit their migrant patterns. This paper explores the shin-issei, portraying their characters in three parts: (1) akogare (‘longing or desire’) for the West grown in Japan in the late nineteenth century, (2) a statistical sketch of the shin-issei over the last several decades, and …

Citizenship Status And Patterns Of Inequality In The United States And Canada, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Objective: This study investigates inequalities in the distribution of citizenship status among immigrants in Canada and the US between 1970 and 2001. It is motivated by a desire to probe deeper into the gap in citizenship rates between the two countries.

Methods: Logistic regression analysis of Census data is used to predict the odds of citizenship among the foreign-born, controlling for a range of factors.

Results: There has been a growing inequality in the distribution of citizenship in the US, but not in Canada. Low rates of citizenship hide the appearance of a large disparity in citizenship …

Naturalization Ceremonies And The Role Of Immigrants In The American Nation, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Although immigration is an essential element in the American national story, it presents difficulties for constructing national membership and national identity in terms of shared intrinsic values. In this article, I analyze speeches made at naturalization ceremonies during two time periods (1950 – 1970 and 2003 – present) to examine the evolving roles of immigrants, as articulated to immigrants themselves. Naturalization ceremonies are a unique research site because the usually implied nationalist content is made explicit to brand new members of the nation. I find a shift in the framing from immigrants as potential liabilities and weak links in the …

Opportunity/Threat Spirals In The U.S. Women's Suffrage And German Anti-Immigration Movements, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Many have noted that protesters sometimes expand political opportunities for later protests, but there has been little analysis of how this occurs. The problem can be addressed by analyzing opportunity/threat spirals, which involve positive feedback among: actions by challengers (bold protests and the formation of alliances between challenger groups); opportunity-increasing actions by authorities and elites (elite divisions and support, procedural reforms, substantive concessions, and police inaction); and threat-increasing actions by authorities and elites (new grievance production and excessive repression). Interactions among these eight mechanisms are demonstrated in two cases of social movement growth, the U.S. women's suffrage movement of the …

Contexts Of Exit In The Migration Of Russian Speakers From The Baltic Countries To Ireland, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Recently, Ireland has become a major destination for migrants from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Many of these migrants are members of Russian-speaking minorities leaving a context of restrictive citizenship and language laws and varying degrees of ethnic tension. This paper draws on interviews collected in Ireland to examine the role played by the contexts of exit in decisions to migrate among Russian-speaking minorities from the Baltics. The results suggest that Russian speakers from Estonia migrate because of their experiences as minorities, while those from Latvia and Lithuania migrate to escape low wages and irregular employment. This is so despite equally …

Organizational Life And Political Incorporation Of Two Asian Immigrant Groups: A Case Study, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Civil society is the foundation of a healthy democracy but its immigrant element has received little attention. This paper is a case study of immigrant organizations of highly skilled Asian Indians and Chinese immigrants in a suburban town of Edison, New Jersey. I find that civic participation of Asian Indian immigrants spills over into political incorporation while Chinese immigrant organizations remain margin- alized. I argue that local processes of racialization are central in explaining differences in political incorporation of immigrants. In the local context, the Chinese are seen as successful but conformist model minorities and Asian Indians as invaders and …

Am I An Albanian American, Katherine Gregory

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Protest And Reform In Asylum Policy: Citizen Initiatives Versus Asylum Seekers In German Municipalities, 1989-1994, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Anti-Minority Riots In Unified Germany: Cultural Conflicts And Mischanneled Political Participation, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Anti-foreigner riots in eastern Germany in the early 1990s have usually been explained by ethnonationalism or racism, ethnic competition for scarce resources, and opportunistic political elites. If anti-minority riots are analyzed as a distinct phenomenon with a cross-sectional approach, local political processes emerge as more important causes. Cultural conflicts, the channeling of mobilization from nonviolent into violent forms, local political opportunities for success, and mobilization by social movement organizations convert ethnic conflict and violence into riots. A comparison of riot and non-riot localities in eastern Germany supports this argument.

The Politics Of Immigration Control In Britain And Germany: Subnational Politicians And Social Movements, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Political backlash against immigrant minorities and restrictive immigration policies have increased in western Europe. Most explanations of the adoption of restrictions on immigration have focused on ethnic competition for material resources and on national political factors. An alternative theory of political mobilization and restrictive policy changes argues that pressure from subnational politicians and social movement organizations and signals from dramatic anti-immigrant events such as riots lead national elites to infer that public interest in anti-immigration policies is intense enough to justify a break with liberal policies. This theory is tested against four cases in Britain and Germany, where the hypothesized …

Implementation Of Congressional Intent: A Study Of Amnesty Policy And The Immigration And Naturalization Service, Sherrie Baver, William Arp Iii

Publications and Research

In 1990, the United States Border Patrol arrested approximately one million illegals (Dillin, 1990). Significant as this number may seem, it parallels the rate of arrest that existed prior to the passage of the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). This phenomenon suggests that the Act has failed to accomplish one of its primary objectives: to control illegal immigration to the United States.

The IRCA represented the first major change in US immigration policy in twenty-two years. In seeking to prevent illegal entry and to gain control over the undocumented population already in the country, it contained two key …