ISS: Exam 2-2

PBS Frontline Documentary

1. What do we learn about the 2019 shooting in El Paso and the “manifesto” of the shooter? 

   The shooter targeted Mexicans and posted a white supremacist manifesto about a "Hispanic invasion."  

2. What did Rep. Escobar says about the type of crime, and about former President Trump? 

   She called it domestic terrorism and criticized Trump’s rhetoric for fueling hate.  

3. How did former President Trump characterize the type of Mexicans coming to the United States?  

  He described Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.  

4. What did Ken Cuccinelli say about the link between public debate and acts of violence? 

   He downplayed links between political rhetoric and violence, emphasizing border security.  

5. What did former President Trump say about El Paso in his State of the Union address? 

 He claimed the border wall made El Paso safer.  

6. What did the former Mayor of El Paso, Dee Margo, say about safety in the city?

  He stated the city was already safe before the wall.  

7. What do we find out about El Paso as a policy testing ground for harsh asylum seeker policies?

El Paso was used to test harsh asylum policies before national implementation.  

8. What do we learn about Zero Tolerance and the national policy of separating children from parents in separate detention facilities?

 "Zero Tolerance" led to family separations, which some border officials found horrifying.  

9. What do we learn about the human caravan from Central America (by Cuccinelli and in terms of how it benefits coyotes)? 

    Cuccinelli said migrant caravans benefited human smugglers (coyotes).  

10. What do we find out about the United Constitutional Patriots?

It was an armed militia patrolling the border.  

11. And about the relationship between Border Patrol units on the ground and militias?

Border Patrol agents had mixed interactions with militias, sometimes tolerating them.  

12. What was the difference in the type of migrant in 2019 (the who) from previously?

 More families and children from Central America migrated than before.  

13. What do we learn about holding migrants under a bridge and why?

 Migrants were held under a bridge due to overcrowding in detention facilities.  

14. What do we learn about the Remain in Mexico program? And about the conditions in Ciudad Juarez?

 "Remain in Mexico" forced asylum seekers to wait in unsafe conditions in Ciudad Juárez.  

15. What do we find out about Sebastian and Sayda’s background (where they are from and why they left)?

Sebastian and Sayda, fleeing gang violence in Guatemala, were sent back under "Remain in Mexico."  

16. What are the so-called hieleras?

They were cold detention cells where migrants were held.  

17.  What do we find out about the Clint holding facility for unaccompanied children from the Flores settlement monitors and testimony before the House Oversight Committee?

  The facility was overcrowded, with children lacking basic necessities.  

18. What do we find about Dariana? 

Dariana was a young migrant girl detained under harsh conditions. 

Chapter 5

1. Which immigrant group did the 1903 act target for deportation?

Radicals among European Immigrants

2. What does Portes say about ‘church finns’ vs. ‘Red finns’?

Meek finnish loggers and miners were church finns, and red finns were militant socialists. 

3. Which group formed the core of the union movement on the east coast?

Jewish Needle trade workers.

4. What does Portes say about identity and those from Sicily?

They could not tell what nationality they belonged to, they identified with their village and surrounding regions. 

5. Were they conscious of an Italian identity upon arrival in the early 20th century, for example?  As Sicilian peasants were informed in New York  of  their  being  “Italian,”  contemporary  Latin  American  immigrants are told—in no uncertain terms—that, despite their ancestral differences, they are all “Hispanic.

6. What does Portes say about immigrant groups in the Pennsylvania coal mines beginning in 1875? This  new  wave  of  immigrants  doubled  the labor supply, reinforcing competition for jobs with competition between cultures and organizational positions. The new immigrants receive lower pay, exacerbating cultural and occupational tensions, because mechanization was simultaneously depressing the value of skilled career miners.

7. Was economic class or ethnicity "to provide the fundamental matrix of American-based politics for subsequent generations”? Ethnicity

8. What do you think he means by business unionism vs. radicalism? 

Radicalism is socialist and communist ideas, unionism is the labor unions of workers. 

9. What does Portes mean by ‘stateless nations’?

Divided lands contested by warring factions  or  occupied  by  a  foreign  power

10. How was being in the American southwest, after the territory was won by the US, important to identity formation for Mexican peasants in becoming or identifying as Mexican? Mexican peasant immigrants learned to think of themselves as Mexicans by being defined and treated as such in the American Southwest.

11. Which two factors have significantly reinforced political ties to the home country in the contemporary period? Dual citizenship and voting rights. 

12. What does Portes mean by ‘transnational communities’?

Politically,  this  translates  into  a  far  greater presence and influence of immigrant communities in the affairs of their home  nations.

13. What are remittances and ‘social remittances’?

For many countries of emigration, remittances have become  one  of  the  most  sizable  and  predictable  sources  of  foreign exchange; to these must be added the investments made by expatriates in  land,  equipment,  and  enterprises  and  the  impact  of  the  skills  and values  learned  abroad  on  their  home  communities,  what  Levitt  has called “social remittances”.

14. What have some governments done to reach out to their diasporas?

Dual citizenship, voting rights in national elections, tax exemptions, and other privileges have stemmed from the increasingly proactive stance of sending states toward their nationals abroad.

15. Which is the largest immigrant group in the US today?

Mexicans

16. What characterized this labor flow?

This labor flow was mostly cyclical, involving young men coming to work in harvests and other agricultural tasks for part of the  year  and  then  returning  home.

17. What are 2-3 characteristics of Mexican transnationalism?

IRCA (legal residence to unauthorized migrants), heightened border enforcement, passage of duality legislation. 

18. What are 2-3 characteristics of Chinese transnationalism?

Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, WEA.

19. What are four reasons Portes gives for his position that the rise in transnational activism has not undermined the process of assimilation and integration into the American body politic? Political activism, dual nationality and dual citizenship laws, assimilation and transnationalism are not at odds,  transnationalism is a first-generation phenomenon. 

20. What are the four countries that were the largest source of new US citizens between 2002-2011? Africa, Europe, India, Mexico

21. What does Portes describe as ‘defensive nationalism’ and which groups does he give examples of relating to this concept? Mexican and hispanic immigrants, stipulations to get citizenship.

22. How does Portes say the US and Canada differ in terms of views toward citizenship acquisition for immigrants? Laissez-faire policy for US,and Canada policy of multiculturalism. 

23. Which group is the largest immigrant group in the US in terms of absolute numbers but has the lowest naturalization rate? Mexico

24. What two factors do Portes write weaken a commitment to permanent settlement? Geographic  proximity  and  reversibility  of  migration  weaken  the commitment to permanent settlement and, hence, the incentive to naturalize.

25. In what context did the ethnic reaffirmation term of self-identification ‘Chicano’ emerge?

Like  Germans  during  World  War  I, Mexican Americans in the 1960s also “swatted the hyphen,” but they did so in the direction of ethnic reaffirmation: “Chicano,” rather than Mexican American, became the preferred self-designation for many.

26. What does Portes write about the way in which former President Barack OBama both acknowledged the importance of the Mexican and Hispanic electorate but also seriously alienated this population while in office? President  Obama  pursued  a  similar  policy,  appointing  several  Hispanics  to  top-level  posts  and  nominating  another  Hispanic  of  Puerto Rican origin, Sonia Sotomayor, to the Supreme Court. However, he seriously  alienated  the  Mexican  and  Hispanic  electorate  by  allowing  the deportation campaign against unauthorized immigrants, started by his predecessor,  to continue and  even  expand.

27. What did Cuban American politics focus on until 1980? Which two episodes in 1980 changed this? What was the key difference in the reactive formation process among Cuban exiles after 1980? Which political party do the Cuban exile vote for and their descendants support? in both cases the origins of contemporary mobilizations date to key episodes of reactive formation: for Mexicans, in response to Proposition 187 and the more recent deportation campaign, following a long history of discrimination; for Cubans, in response to the Mariel exodus  and  the  1980  anti bilingual  referendum  and,  more  recently, Obama’s re establishment of diplomatic relations with the Cuban gov-ernment. Second, for both groups, consequences of these mobilizations have been long-lasting, with ethnicity easily trumping class as the fun-damental level of political action.

28. Which is the only foreign group automatically granted asylum upon setting foot on US soil? Cubans 

29. What does Portes argue about the social construction of the term ‘Hispanic’ and how it is problematic as a category? Latin  American  immigrants are told—in no uncertain terms—that, despite their ancestral differences, they are all “Hispanic”.

30. And similarly about the term Asian American? In  this instance, the distance between ethnic labeling and actual reality is even more egregious because groups so designated do not even share a common language.

31. What does Portes write about ‘blocked transnationalism’? 

As the experiences of Cubans and Vietnamese in the past and of  Iranians  and  Venezuelans  today  illustrate,  the  situation  of  political refugees can be referred to as “blocked transnationalism” because real-ties on the ground prevent interests and concerns with the home country  from  being  translated  into  an  effective  presence  there.