In Lady Liberty's Shadow

The Politics of Race and Immigration in New Jersey

By Robyn Magalit Rodriguez

Rutgers University Press

Home to Ellis Island, New Jersey has been the first stop for many immigrant groups for well over a century. Yet in this highly diverse state, some of the most anti-immigrant policies in the nation are being tested. American suburbs are home to increasing numbers of first and second-generation immigrants who may actually be bypassing the city to settle directly into the neighborhoods that their predecessors have already begun to plant roots in—a trajectory that leads to nativist ordinances and other forms of xenophobia.

In Lady Liberty’s Shadow examines popular white perceptions of danger represented by immigrants and their children, as well the specter that lurks at the edges of suburbs in the shape of black and Latino urban underclasses and the ever more nebulous hazard of (presumed-Islamic) terrorism that threatening to undermine “life as we know it.” Robyn Magalit Rodriguez explores the impact of anti-immigrant municipal ordinances on a range of immigrant groups living in varied suburban communities, from undocumented Latinos in predominantly white suburbs to long-established Asian immigrants in “majority-minority” suburbs. The “American Dream” that suburban life is supposed to represent is shown to rest on a racialized, segregated social order meant to be enjoyed only by whites. 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.

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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

ROBYN MAGALIT RODRIGUEZ is an associate professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Workers to the World and the coauthor of Asian-America: Sociological and Interdisciplinary Perspectives.

Preface 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

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