Description
Book SynopsisRobyn Magalit Rodriguez explores the impact of anti-immigrant municipal ordinances on a range of immigrant groups living in different types of suburban communities. Although it is a case study of New Jersey, In Lady Liberty's Shadow offers crucial insights that can shed fresh light on the national immigration debate.
Trade Review"Robyn Magalit Rodriguez makes an original intellectual contribution to the study of migration control that places the politics of race, anti-blackness, and suburban governance at the center of the analysis!" -- Alfonso Gonzales * author of Reform Without Justice *
"Robyn Magalit Rodriguez has written an important book for anyone who embraces, chafes at, or aspires to being an American.
In Lady Liberty's Shadow reminds us that the specificity of the U.S. suburb reflects and fuels the generality of whiteness in which we all live and breathe. Rightly marking 9/11 as a political launchpad for the latest era of xenophobia and racism, Rodriguez vividly brings together the too-often separate narratives of race and empire, of Trayvon Martin and San Bernadino. This is a deeply personal, refreshingly vulnerable, and urgent piece of scholarship." -- Soya Jung * Senior Partner, ChangeLab *
"Rodriguez brilliantly sheds light on border enforcement in New Jersey suburbs, linking alarming local and national policies, Jim Crow segregation and 'Juan Crow' xenophobia, to expose threats to American social justice." -- Allan Punzalan Isaac * author of American Tropics: Articulating Filipino America *
"In Lady Liberty’s Shadow is a heartfelt, enjoyable, and edifying text that tries 'to make sense of anti-immigrant local ordinances in a place where they don’t make sense.'" * American Journal of Sociology *
"Implore[s] readers to recognize the hidden work immigrants have continually performed in both cities and suburbs. They also reveal the racialization that immigrants and their descendants experienced and continue to experience in these spaces. This scholarship showcases how urban spaces outside of the Northeast shape immigrant identities and racial politics." * Journal of Urban History *
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments
1 The Politics of Immigration and Race in the “Garden State”
2 My Hometown: Immigration and Suburban Imaginaries
3 The New “Main Street”?: Ethnoburbs and the Complex Politics of Race
4 Being the Problem: Perspectives from Immigrant New Jerseyans
5 Fighting on the Homefront
6 Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
