Beyond Deportability: Latinx Resilience and the Production of Belonging in the US

Session Submission Type: LASA Section Panel

Abstract

In the US, the Trump administration has ushered in a historically punitive immigration enforcement regime, provoking elevated fears and anxieties among immigrant groups and exerting a powerful destabilizing effect on communities of people who trace their roots to Latin America. As the largest minority group in the US, Latinx people enjoy a lengthy history in the country, pre-dating Anglos in some regions. Despite the public hostilities, criminalization and exclusion that Latinxs face, they are deeply and inextricably woven into the fabric of US culture and its economy and society. Perhaps understandably, given the current political climate, scholars have directed a great deal of attention to unauthorized Latinx immigrants’ deportability and the associated precarities, fears and insecurities that they experience. While these are important considerations, an exclusive focus on fear and vulnerability runs the risk of discounting the agency and capabilities of Latinx people. Also, attending exclusively to deportation and policing may downplay the continuing presence of those who, even in a context of fear and insecurity, go about the work of daily life that sustains families and communities. This panel is anchored in the claim that Latinxs are not defined by the marginalities that they experience, but instead should be understood as active participants in their communities and in US society.

Sub Track

• Section Sessions

Session Organizers

• Natalia Deeb-Sossa, University of California/Davis

• Jennifer Bickham Mendez, College of William and Mary

Chair

• Veronica Montes, Bryn Mawr College

Individual Presentations

• Cultivating Home: Belonging and social agency through community building practices - Veronica Montes, Bryn Mawr College

• Fear and Resilience in the “Nuevo” South: Latina Immigrant Women in Williamsburg, Virginia - Jennifer Bickham Mendez, College of William and Mary

• Objective Integration and Subjective Belonging: On Simultaneous Processes of Exclusion and Inclusion - Ernesto Castaneda-Tinoco, American University

• Las madres of Squire Town: agents and producers of belonging in a rural town of northern California - Natalia Deeb-Sossa, University of California/Davis