I M M I G RAT I O N , C I T I Z E N S H I P , RAC E & C U LT U R E

IMMIGRANT ACTS

WHAT IS CULTURE?

• culture (n) – the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize an institution, organization or group• How are those shared attitudes, values,

goals and practices created? How do people come to identify as belonging to a common culture?• Primarily through symbolism, narrative,

ritual and creative productions you come to imagine yourself in community with others that all share the same culture

UCSD CULTURE?

“The Smart Ones”

Symbol NarrativeRitual

CreativeProduction

THE NATION & CULTURE

• What is a nation? (Lowe 2)• “juridically legislated” – determined by laws• “territorially situated” – shaped by borders• “culturally embodied”

• U.S. national culture = “the collectively forged images, histories, and narratives that place, displace, and replace individuals in relation to the nation”

• Think about the UCSD example on a larger scale there are certain symbols, rituals, narratives and creative productions that inspire citizens to identify themselves with shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that mark them as being part of the nation

US NATIONAL CULTURE

NATIONAL CULTURE & ABSTRACT CITIZENSHIP

• It is through national culture that the idea of the abstract citizen is established• abstract citizenship – the idea

that all citizens are all equal and the same before the law despite the fact that there are undeniable differences between us

• It is through culture that we can all imagine ourselves as equally part of the abstract national community despite differences of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, religion, ability

CITIZEN VS IMMIGRANT

• For the state to define who is a citizen it also must necessarily define who is not a citizen.• If who gets to be a citizen is decided by whether or not an

individual has specific and seemingly arbitrary characteristics then only certain categories of people are even allowed to be equal before the law.

• “In the last century and a half, the American citizen has been defined over and against the Asian immigrant, legally, economically, and culturally” (Lowe 4) • 1882 – Chinese Exclusion Act • Immigration Act of 1917 – the Asiatic Barred Zone• Immigration Act of 1924 – total exclusion of Asian immigration

based on Naturalization Act of 1790

• Economic and political contradictions! defining national citizen versus need for immigrant labor

RACIALIZATION

• Racialization or racial formation – the process in which historical, political, economic and cultural forces determine what it means to be labeled a certain race; in turn, the idea of what it means to be a certain race can strengthen and/or challenge certain historical, political, economic and cultural forces

• What it means to be of the Asian race in America is determined by the legal/political status of the Asian immigrant, a status that is in turn shaped by the workings of capitalism and imperialism

• race versus ethnicity• Race – connotation of biological and essential difference• Ethnicity – recognition that we are all the same human race but

grouped according to physical difference that does not reflect essential, inherent difference

MODEL MINORITY VS YELLOW PERIL

Because the US citizen is defined over and against the Asian immigrant, “[t]hese

defintions have cast Asian immigrants both as persons and populations to be integrated into the national political sphere and as the

contradictory, confusing, unintelligible elements to be marginalized and returned to

their alien origins” (Lowe 4)

IMMIGRANT ACTS 2

Meaning 1:• National culture and its promise of abstract

citizenship is contradicted by historical and legal acts regulating immigration and the denial of citizenship because of race

Meaning 2:• Immigrants and their communities act to assert

their lives, their stories and their views of history; they take action to intervene politically and culturally and to imagine alternatives to the current system.