Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: assimilation
- All Subjects: South Sudanese--Cultural assimilation--United States.
- Creators: Menjivar, Cecilia
Description
Ascribed elements of one's self-identity such as sex, race, and the place of birth are deeply related to one's national identity among Japanese immigrant women. Spouses, offspring, friends, networks in the U.S., or even information about their local area also represent the nation they feel they belong to. The feelings of belonging and comfort are the basis for their achieved sphere of identification with the U.S. This study found that few elderly immigrants would identify only with the host county. Likewise, very few elderly immigrants would identify only with the homeland. Therefore, most of them identify with both countries (transnational), or they identify with neither country (liminal) to an extent. Developing transnational or liminal identity is a result of how Japanese elderly immigrant women have been experiencing mundane events in the host country and how they think the power relations of the sending and receiving countries have changed over the years. Japanese elderly immigrant women with transnational identity expressed their confidence and little anxiety for their aging. Their confidence comes from strong connection with the local community in the host country or/and homeland. Contrarily, those with liminal identity indicated stronger anxiety toward their aging. Their anxiety comes from disassociation from the local community in the U.S. and Japan. With regard to the decisiveness of future plan such as where to live and how to cope with aging, indecisiveness seems to create more options for elderly Japanese immigrant women with the transnational identity, while it exacerbates the anxiety among those who have liminal identity.
ContributorsKawakami, Atsuko (Author) / Tsuda, Takeyuki (Thesis advisor) / John, Johnson (Committee member) / Menjivar, Cecilia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
United States and Mexico population statistics show clear evidence of return migration. This study uses qualitative data collected in a municipality in the State of Mexico during the summer of 2010 from families comprised of Mexican nationals and United States-born children post-relocation to Mexico. Using Portes and Zhou's theoretical framework on modes of incorporation, this study illustrates the government policy, societal reception and coethnic community challenges the first and second generation face in their cases of family return migration. This study finds that the municipal government is indifferent to foreign children and their incorporation in Mexico schools. Furthermore, extended family and community, may not always aid the household's adaptation to Mexico. Despite the lack of a coethnic community, parents eventually acclimate into manual and entrepreneurial positions in society and the children contend to find a place called home.
ContributorsMedina, Dulce (Author) / Menjivar, Cecilia (Thesis advisor) / Seline Szkupinski-Quiroga, Seline (Committee member) / Glick, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In 2001, a refugee group of unaccompanied minors known as the Lost Boys of Sudan began arriving in the United States. Their early years were met with extensive media coverage and scores of well-meaning volunteers in scattered resettlement locations across the country. Their story was told in television news reports, documentary films, and published memoirs. Updates regularly appeared in newsprint media. Scholars have criticized public depictions of refugees as frequently de-politicized, devoid of historical context, and often depicting voiceless masses of humanity rather than individuals with skills and histories (Malkki 1996, Harrell-Bond and Voutira 2007). These representations matter because they are both shaped by and shape what is possible in public discourse and everyday relations. This dissertation research creates an intersection where public representation and everyday practices meet. Through participant observation as a volunteer at a refugee community center in Phoenix, Arizona, this research explores the emotions, social roles and relations that underpin community formation, and investigates the narratives, representations, and performances that local Lost Boys and their publics engage in. I take the assertion that "refugee issues are one privileged site for the study of humanitarian interventions through which 'the international community' constitutes itself " (Malkki 1996: 378) and consider formation of local 'communities of feeling' (Riches and Dawson 1996) in order to offer a critique of humanitarianism as mobilized and enacted around the Lost Boys.
ContributorsAlexander, Melinda (Author) / McHugh, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Catlaw, Thomas (Committee member) / Lukinbeal, Christopher (Committee member) / Menjivar, Cecilia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014