Crafting Colombianidad: Race, Citizenship and the Localization of Policy in Philadelphia

CRAFTING COLOMBIANIDAD: RACE, CITIZENSHIP AND THE LOCALIZATION OF POLICY IN PHILADELPHIA A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Diane R. Garbow July 2016 Examining Committee Members: Judith Goode, Advisory Chair, Department of Anthropology Naomi Schiller, Department of Anthropology Melissa Gilbert, Department of Geography and Urban Studies Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas, External Member, City University of New York © Copyright 2016 by Diane R. Garbow All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT In contrast to the municipalities across the United States that restrict migration and criminalize the presence of immigrants, Philadelphia is actively seeking to attract immigrants as a strategy to reverse the city’s limited economic and political importance caused by decades of deindustrialization and population loss. In 2010, the population of Philadelphia increased for the first time in six decades. This achievement, widely celebrated by the local government and in the press, was only made possible through increased immigration. This dissertation examines how efforts to attract migrants, through the creation of localized policy and institutions that facilitate incorporation, transform assertions of citizenship and the dynamics of race for Colombian migrants. The purpose of this research is to analyze how Colombians’ articulations of citizenship, and the ways they extend beyond juridical and legal rights, are enabled and constrained under new regimes of localized policy. In the dissertation, I examine citizenship as a set of performances and practices that occur in quotidian tasks that seek to establish a sense of belonging. Without a complex understanding of the effects of local migration policy, and how they differ from the effects of federal policy, we fail to grasp how Philadelphia’s promotion of migration has unstable and unequal effects for differentially situated actors. This becomes evermore salient as increased migration wrought through local policy efforts guarantees that Philadelphia will continue to uneasily shift away from its Black-White racial polarity. Second, I explore how the racialization of Colombians is transformed by the dynamics of localized policy in Philadelphia, where their experiences of marginalization iii as Latinos belies the construction of immigrants as a highly valued group, and shaped by the particularities of Colombian history, the imperial nature of US-Colombia relations, and shifting geopolitics among Latin American nations. The dissertation highlights how Colombians seek to meaningfully distinguish themselves from other Latinos by examining the ways changes in Latin America have shaped and continue to shape the politics of race in the US, and thus how Colombians navigate and produce the boundaries between groups. The dissertation contextualizes Colombian migration within three significant shifts in the contemporary US.: 1) the increasing attempts of states, municipalities and cities to craft their own immigration policies, specifically declining cities attempting to rebound from population loss and deindustrialization, 2) the emergence of Latinos as the largest demographic minority group and their increasing heterogeneity with respect to race, legal status, class and national origin and 3) heightened attention to citizenship as legal status and performances and practices of belonging. This research contributes to the theorization of racial formations and citizenship by providing critical information about local immigration policies as transforming intra- and inter-group relations, thus offering an analysis of Philadelphia as a new immigrant destination. iv For my mother, Gladys Siempre con amor y gratitud . v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My committee at Temple University deserves the utmost thanks, appreciation and recognition for their encouragement and feedback that allowed me to formulate and advance this project. Thank you Judy, Naomi and Melissa. I am indebted to Judy Goode for her guidance and intellectual engagement throughout the years. Naomi Schiller’s unwavering commitment to provide me feedback on these pages and other endeavors helped my intellectual development. Melissa Gilbert ensured my work and writing remain truly interdisciplinary and intelligible beyond anthropology. Ana Ramos-Zayas went above and beyond as an outside reader to fully engage with my thoughts, ideas, arguments and sentences, pushing me to think and rethink the material. Her incisive comments have re-inspired my writing. I cannot possibly lost all of the many, many folks who allowed me into their lives. Thank you to Deb Thomas, whose courses as an undergraduate at Duke ignited my passion for anthropology, and whose journey also lead to Philadelphia where I was welcomed once again into the classroom. Her encouragement for sharp critical thinking and rethinking are woven in these pages. Ron Webb offered me an intellectual home in Latin American Studies at Temple, which provide the opportunity to think through my ideas as I taught. His kindness and mentorship extended far beyond. The Graduate School provided the essential support at the beginning and end of my doctoral career in the form of a Future Faculty Fellowship and a Dissertation Completion Grant. Research during the summers was made possible by SROP-AGEP and FSRI fellowships through the Graduate School. The Center for the Humanities at Temple provided financial and emotional support to present my work. The feedback on an earlier vi version of Chapter 8 allowed me to incorporate the thoughtful comments and provocative questions from my interlocutors at our bimonthly seminars. Thank you to Lorraine Savage and the Writing Center. Working there offered me the opportunity to reframe my philosophies and approaches to teaching, writing and editing. Writing retreats offered the much needed physical and mental space to tackle these chapters. My writing group, whose thoughtful and detailed feedback, spirited discussions and wonderful friendship, supported me throughout this experience. Many thanks to Jade Kim, Danielle Scherer, Taylor Benjamin-Britton, Felicidad Garcia and Sendy Guerrier Alcidonis. My colleagues and cohort members in anthropology Qingyan Ma, Brooke Bocast and Brendan Tuttle contributed to this project in remarkable and occasionally subtle ways for which they may not even be aware. Nydia, mil gracias for always helping me keep thing in perspective along the way. Thanks to Eva, Jesse and Autumn for being the consummate colleagues. To mis colegas de lejos, mil gracias. Our overlapping but distinct interests helped me to think about my work in new ways. Pilar Hernandez Escontrias thank you for your unwaivering sense of justice in scholarship. Sharing with you has been so intellectually and emotionally generative! Almita Miranda and Estefania Ponti, our check-ins provided such a wonderful space to vent, be accountable and support one another. I am luck to get through this together with you both. Melissa Abad, sharing time and research renewed so many resolves about the strange and fascination place Philadelphia is and how crucial it is to study immigration in “new” destinations. Our too infrequent phone calls always reenergized me when I needed it most. vii Love and thanks knows no bounds for the friends I have made during this process. Sharing strength, resilience, perseverance, and joy with my Sister Circle gave me life. Gracias to Shari, Lacinda and Jeana, along with my Fab Five members of Corinne, Laura, Biany and Brittany. To my Doctoras Castro and Porterfield, your success has kept me inspired long after you left Philadelphia and every time I get to see you in person I am so thankful for our friendship. Sahar Sadeghi, your vibrancy and commitment to critical scholarship and conversation are priceless. Karissa Patberg so much appreciation for being my partner in doing what seemed impossible: completing a triathalon. Your patience and faith helped me realize that I could do small things and big things. In training I learned that the biggest hurdle was my own emotions and that has become my go to metaphor for completing the dissertation. Sally Gould Taylor, I have learned perhaps the most from you about never eschewing nonacademic interests and being the consummate anthropologist at every moment and in every space. Your unflappability and perseverance is always astounding. To my anthrowife and frictive kin, Brittany, this journey is and has always been ours. Countless days and nights were spent discussing and debating everything from anthropology (the good the bad and the spectacular) to the profundities of pop culture for which we share an unabashed love. You deserve multiple mentions! Thursday afternoons, after we ended classes for the week, provided the perfect occasion for Sally, Brittany and I to solidify our lifelong friendships beyond Gladfelter/Ritter Hall. Emily Bauman, Lena Katsnelson and Irina Kobylevsky you enduring friendship means the world to me as our time spent together on my visits to back home to New York viii were always the best and brightest. I am lucky to have been able to grow up and to continue to keep growing with such fierce and successful friends. The unwavering support and encouragement of my family throughout my education compelled me to seek out my doctorate and succeed. Thanks to my father Bruce, for instilling in me hard work and sacrifice and for never being satisfied with simple answers. From my mom, Gladys, I learned most of all about human

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