Straddling Insider/Outsider Statuses: Puerto Ricans’ Attitudes Toward Undocumented Immigration

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Anti-Immigrant Discourses

Abstract

This paper examines the contemporary intersection of immigration, citizenship, and race by studying the immigration attitudes of Puerto Ricans in Florida. I draw on 98 in-depth interviews conducted in the Orlando metropolitan area during the 2016 presidential election to better understand how Puerto Ricans make sense of the immigration debate, how they formulate their position on the debate, and how their attitudes toward immigration impact their political behavior in the largest swing state of the nation. I find Puerto Ricans’ attitudes toward undocumented immigration convey a sense of linked fate with Latin American immigrants, which stems from a shared migrant narrative and a racialized illegality that also subsumes Puerto Ricans. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans adopt and deploy mainstream views of migrant deservingness and undeservingness. Respondents articulate migrant deservingness by emphasizing undocumented immigrants’ important role in the U.S. labor-market, immigrants’ good moral character, family values, and children’s academic orientations. Immigrant exclusion emphasizes migrant criminality and the burdening of society through a lack of material contributions. I also find immigration is a critical election issue for respondents, such that, a candidate’s stance on immigration would determine their vote for president in 2016. I argue Puerto Ricans’ immigration attitudes are shaped by their position as colonial citizens. On one hand, this status makes Puerto Ricans outsiders and subject to nativism and xenophobia in Central Florida due to a colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S. On the other hand, Puerto Ricans’ U.S. citizenship grants them an insider status and authority to enforce the political boundaries of the nation.

Author

• Ariana Jeanette Valle, University of California Los Angeles