Immigrant Or Latino? Multiethnic Mobilization and Collective Identity in the Immigrant Rights Movement
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Immigrant or Latino? Multiethnic Mobilization and Collective Identity in the Immigrant Rights Movement Trudy Sumiko Rebert Photo by Tyler Hicks, New York Times, 11 April 2006. Advisor: Professor David Blaney Political Science Macalester College April 30, 2007 For Eduardo who continues to inspire me and kept me laughing all year Abstract Immigrant rights protests drew millions of people into the streets during the spring of 2006. However, the mobilized immigrants had a very particular face in the national debate. ‘Immigrant’ came to signify Latino. This project explores collective identity formation within the immigrant rights movement through the experiences of the South Asian community. What was the extent of South Asian immigrant participation in New York and the Twin Cities mobilizations? How does issue framing affect prospects for multi-racial mobilization? I use semi-structured interviews with organizers to investigate collective identity formation and to understand how organizations frame the issues. Greater understanding of the process of identity construction and identity transformation for broader political mobilization are crucial for today’s increasingly pluralistic society. Table of Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................1 1 Introduction...........................................................................................................................5 Case Studies...........................................................................................................................11 New York.................................................................................................................14 The Twin Cities.......................................................................................................17 Methodology and Data Limitations...................................................................................21 2 Literature Review...............................................................................................................25 Social Movement Theory ....................................................................................................25 Resource Mobilization.........................................................................................................27 New Social Movements.......................................................................................................28 Framing ..................................................................................................................................29 Collective Identity.................................................................................................................32 Revising Social Movement Theory ....................................................................................34 3 From “Hindoo Invasion” to “Model Minority”: Shifting Constructions of South Asians.......................................................................37 The First Wave of South Asian Immigrants.....................................................................38 South Asian Immigration Today........................................................................................42 The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act........................................................42 The New Wave of South Asian Immigrants.......................................................44 Asian Indian Identity..............................................................................................45 The Emergence of a South Asian Pan-ethnicity..............................................................51 4 “Sí Se Puede” But “Kyaa Hum Kar Sakte Hain?”: The Immigrant Rights Movement in New York and the Twin Cities...............54 A Movement Unfolds ..........................................................................................................54 South Asian Participation....................................................................................................57 Factors Affecting Mobilization...........................................................................................60 Internal Factors.......................................................................................................60 Language.....................................................................................................60 Existing Networks.....................................................................................61 External Factors......................................................................................................62 Political Expediency..................................................................................62 Social Networks and World View...........................................................63 Class.............................................................................................................64 The Framing: Racialization ................................................................................................65 Differential Framing Power ................................................................................................71 Fighting for Different Goals.................................................................................73 5 Bridging the Gap: Mobilizing the Rainbow .............................................................84 The Panethnic Organizing Model......................................................................................86 Forging a Common Immigrant Identity............................................................................91 6 Conclusion: Are Immigrants Enough? ......................................................................96 Bibliography......................................................................................................................105 Acknowledgements This thesis owes its life to many people. For their intellectual help at some point in this process, whether talking about methods, reading the paper, offering feedback, or providing an uplifting remark when needed: Dianna Shandy, Paul Dosh, Adrienne Christensen, Paru Shah, Dan Trudeau, and the other Political Science Department faculty. David Blaney deserves a special (and gigantic) thank you. How many professors would agree to advise an honor’s thesis while on sabbatical? Over the last four years, you have challenged my understanding of development, pushed me to think about poverty from many different angles, and opened the doors to political economy. Thank you for your intellectual guidance, personal support, and high standards. You have successfully stretched my brain. Hopefully the next time we meet, we will both be wandering around India, Tanzania, or somewhere farther afield. To MIRAC, AFFIRM, and all of the organizers I spoke with in New York and Minnesota, thank you for providing inspiration and hope. I will not list your names, but you know who you are. The work you do is vitally important and you are not recognized nearly enough. Although I have never met you, Monisha Das Gupta, I had tingles when I read your book and dissertation. Your work asked me to continue questioning my own and provided a model for undertaking engaged research. Over the last year, my friends in the Political Science Colloquium kept me motivated and working. We’re done! Wow. Ihotu, thank you for your thoughtful presence. I have enjoyed our growing friendship and conversation. Thank you for distracting me when I needed it! Elianne, thanks for being on the same page and for lots of side-whispering about identity during class. Molly – library explorer – you have been a wonderful support over the last four years. I promise I will let you drag me away from the books more often next year. Jess – we’re both going to graduate this year! Thanks for calling long distance and for making me figure out how to phone over the computer. Dad, thank you for always keeping me supplied with books and for not shutting the light off on me when I should have been sleeping rather than reading (and for providing glasses when my eyes started getting bad). Mom, you are ultimately responsible for this paper. Thank you for inspiring a deep sense of questioning within Jess and I, for your unyielding support, for your sometimes embarrassing daughter-advocacy, and for your sense of adventure. Finally, Eduardo, this paper would not have had any inspiration or come to fruition without you. Thank you for cooking dinner when I hadn’t eaten properly, for talking until 3am about organizing, for making me laugh, and for more things and ways than I can ever thank you for. I am still not sure how this all started, but the last three years have been wonderful. Foreword In the spring of 2006, I sat at a computer half-way around the world in Rajasthan, India, reading an article and looking at pictures of recent immigrant rights marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. A sea of people waving Mexican and American flags filled the picture. I had never seen marches so big in the twenty-two years of my life. Forty-thousand in St. Paul, where I normally attend college, was unheard of. That number would be equivalent to every single person in my hometown area turning out for a march – and then adding another ten thousand people. I longed to be home where friends were obtaining permits, printing flyers, and working to turn people out. However, as I continued to look at the pictures from March 25th, to April 9th /10th,