Those Damned Immigrants : : America’s Hysteria over Undocumented Immigration / / Ediberto Román, Michael A. Olivas.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Román, Ediberto,; Olivas, Michael A.,
• Place / Publishing House: New York, NY : : New York University Press, , [2013]; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: Citizenship and Migration in the Americas ; 1
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Exposes the false narratives at the heart of Americans' fear of Latino/a immigrationThe election of Barack Obama prompted people around the world to herald the dawning of a new, postracial era in America. Yet a scant one month after Obama’s election, Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhanay, a 31-year old Ecuadorian immigrant,was ambushed by a group of white men as he walked arm and arm with his brother. Yelling anti-Latino slurs, the men beat Sucuzhanay into a coma. He died 5 days later. The incident is one of countless attacks—ranging from physical violence to raids on homes and workplaces to verbal abuse—that Latino/a immigrants have confronted for generations in America. And these attacks—physical and otherwise—are accepted by a substantial number of American citizens and elected officials, who are virulently opposed to immigrant groups crossing the Mexican border. Quick to cast all Latino/a immigrants as illegal, opponents have placed undocumented workers at the center of their anti-immigrant movement, and as such, many different types of native Spanish-speakers in this country (legal, illegal, citizen, guest), have been targeted as being responsible for increasing crime rates, a plummeting economy, and an erosion of traditional American values and culture.In Those Damned Immigrants, Ediberto Román takes on critics of Latina/o immigration, drawing on empirical evidence to refute charges of links between immigration and crime, economic downfall, and a weakening of Anglo culture. Román utilizes government statistics, economic data, historical records, and social science research to provide a counter-narrative to what he argues is a largely one-sided public discourse on Latino/a immigration.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric -- 3. Empirical Data on Immigration -- 4. Immigration’s Effects on State and Local Economies -- 5. The Conflicted United States–Mexico Relationship Invitation and Exclusion -- 6. Sociological and Psychological Insights on Anti-Immigrant Bias -- 7. A Pragmatic Proposal for Immigration Reform -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author