“We can talk to you, you’re less radical”: reflexivity and developing answerability

Abstract

This autoethnographic paper discusses the complex methodological issues of a Latina scholar activist conducting research about the undocumented in a law enforcement context in the presence of power elites. She navigates her purpose and perceived identities in withholding some identities for the purpose of accessing data. She chronicles her fieldwork, noting her cultural intuition approach, reflecting on her navigation of answerability to her immigrant community members as well as to traditional norms of academic colonizing fieldwork that serve the elite higher education institutions. She examines the possibility of maintaining integrity to her call of solidarity, advocacy, and activism en familia, to her community members and values.

Keywords:

• Reflexivity
• Latinx
• immigration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For this article, I rely heavily on cultural intuition because of the context (engaging with Latino immigrant families) Monzó (2015) uses to develop this concept and the similarities to my own work. Further in the article I cover similar concepts, including epistemological privileges of the oppressed (Lightfoot, 1994), complex personhood (Gordon, 2008; Tuck, 2009a), and concepts linking the mind with the body (Anzaldúa, 1987; Cruz, 2001).

2 The Warrant Service Officer (WSO) model was introduced in 2019 in Florida whereas the Jail Enforcement Model (JEM) is older. More information can be found directly from ICE: https://www.ice.gov/identify-and-arrest/287g and for explainers on the versions: https://www.ilrc.org/understanding-ices-warrant-service-officer-program.

3 “The New Normal” reflects a series of ICE related events and responses beginning in the early months of 2019. In early February, ICE conducted a series of targeted arrests throughout the state and then held a press conference in Charlotte, NC to defend these actions, calling them “The New Normal”. Various news outlets ran stories commenting on this and a 2020 Netflix series called Immigration Nation also spotlights these events, featuring NC community members.

4 Villenas (1996, p.719) lays this out as follows: Whose side was I on? In participating in this manner with the instructor, I was, as hooks (1989) says, “one with them in a fellowship of the chosen and superior, [it was] a gesture of inclusion in ‘whiteness’ (p.68), affirming that I had been assimilated. I felt uncomfortable, yet I participated, as in the graduate seminar, by betraying my anger and remaining silent, and by not challenging the discourse. In conversations with Hope City professionals, I had to choose my alignment in the power structure of the community—either with the leaders who were in positions to make policy, or with the disenfranchises Latinx community.

5 Versions of these fact sheets are available on my website and updated whenever community members might need them for additional context. They are mostly a compilation of publicly available data from a variety of agencies including the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, local county budgets and county commissioner administrative records, information provided by 287(g) steering committee meetings, and reimbursement information from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.

6 I still find it comical that the City of Durham Human Relations Commission continues this pattern of nominal representation, although this is characteristic of white liberal pressure to “diversify” a variety of segments of the local government that diminishes the diversity of lived experiences. According to the City of Durham Human Relations Commission website, “The recommended commission membership shall consist of six Black/African-Americans, six White/European Americans, two Hispanic/Latino Americans, and two members from a racial/ethnic group not represented by the preceding racial/ethnic categories. The mayor’s appointee shall be from any racial/ethnic category. Both genders shall be equally represented, but neither by more than 53 percent.”

7 It is challenging to find dedicated information about various criminal justice budgets and operations. Some of these included the salary of the sheriff, the budget of jail operations, the cost of spending a night in jail, etc. In addition, there is not one central place where a person can obtain this information; instead, it is compiled in a variety of ways and by different agencies.

8 As I developed my dissertation prospectus, one class discussion haunts me. I initially wanted to analyze traffic stop patterns of Latinx drivers in North Carolina, thinking that it would be a useful way to appease my quantitative heavy department. That is until my classmates spent part of our prospectus development course debating whether Latinx are just worse drivers than other racial/ethnic groups, downplaying the role that racism plays in disproportionate traffic stops.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felicia Arriaga

Felicia Arriaga is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Sociology in the criminology concentration at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. My research interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, and crimmigration (criminalization of immigration policy and procedure). She considers herself a public-sociologist and hopes that her scholarship and community work will contribute to more fruitful discussions around crimmigration policies. She's especially interested in how these policies and procedures relate to broader issues of criminal justice accountability, transparency and reform.