1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819526703321

Autore

Pallares Amalia <1965->

Titolo

Family activism : immigrant struggles and the politics of noncitizenship / / Amalia Pallares

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, New Jersey : , : Rutgers University Press, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

0-8135-6458-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (200 p.)

Collana

Latinidad : Transnational Cultures in the United States

Disciplina

325.73

Soggetti

Immigrant families - United States

Families - Political aspects - United States

Immigrants - United States - Social conditions

Immigrant families - Illinois - Chicago

Immigrants - Illinois - Illinois - Chicago - Social conditions

United States Emigration and immigration

United States Emigration and immigration Government policy

Chicago (Ill.) Emigration and immigration

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: Immigrant Rights Activism and the Family Paradox -- 1. From Reunification to Separation -- 2. A Tale of Sanctuary: Agency, Representativity, and Motherhood -- 3. Regarding Family: From Local to National Activism -- 4. Our Youth, Our Families: DREAM Act Politics and Neoliberal Nationalism -- Conclusion: Moving Beyond the Boundaries -- Notes -- References -- Index -- About the author

Sommario/riassunto

During the past ten years, legal and political changes in the United States have dramatically altered the legalization process for millions of undocumented immigrants and their families. Faced with fewer legalization options, immigrants without legal status and their supporters have organized around the concept of the family as a political subject-a political subject with its rights violated by immigration laws.  Drawing upon the idea of the "impossible activism"



of undocumented immigrants, Amalia Pallares argues that those without legal status defy this "impossible" context by relying on the politicization of the family to challenge justice within contemporary immigration law. The culmination of a seven-year-long ethnography of undocumented immigrants and their families in Chicago, as well as national immigrant politics, Family Activism examines the three ways in which the family has become politically significant: as a political subject, as a frame for immigrant rights activism, and as a symbol of racial subordination and resistance.  By analyzing grassroots campaigns, churches and interfaith coalitions, immigrant rights movements, and immigration legislation, Pallares challenges the traditional familial idea, ultimately reframing the family as a site of political struggle and as a basis for mobilization in immigrant communities.