Hidden in Plain Sight: How Unauthorised Migrants Strategically Assimilate in Restrictive Localities in California

Abstract

Both classic and revised theories of immigrant assimilation suggest that, over time, immigrants exchange their ethnic and cultural behaviours for the practices and norms of the receiving society. Despite a rise in restrictive subnational policies targeting unauthorised immigrants, the immediate legal context of destinations are absent in this logic, leaving the applicability of assimilation theory for newcomers in such localities an open question. Drawing on qualitative interviews and survey evidence, I find that in hostile receiving communities unauthorised Mexican immigrants present the culture of the dominant core population through their public, outer selves as a protective strategy rather than, as assimilation theory would have it, incorporating the dominant culture into their inner selves. To avoid detection, immigrants' presentation of self is a reactive, purposive and strategic process. Yet trying to pass as a non-suspect native may nevertheless have an assimilatory effect, as the unintended consequences of this practical strategy incrementally contribute to adaptation.

Keywords:

• Unauthorised Immigrants
• Assimilation Theory
• Local Law
• Presentation of Self
• Passing

Notes

[1] Legal challenges citing violation of federal plenary power successfully blocked most of the proposition, and the state halted its appeals in 1999 (Wroe 2008, 101–104).

[2] These data were collected in collaboration with the Mexican Migration Field Research Program (MMFRP), an initiative of the Centre for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

[3] The survey refusal rate in Tlacotepec was 12%, but the snowball sampling method employed in the USA makes it impossible to give a precise refusal rate for those surveys.

[4] The category of recently returned unauthorised migrants includes voluntary returns as well as returns due to legal action, such as deportation, deportation orders or removal orders. I include only those who returned to Tlacotepec within the last 5 years in order to capture their experiences with recent restrictive measures in US destinations.

[5] See 1855 Cal. Stat. ch 165 § 1.

[6] See Propositions 187 (1994), 209 (1996) and 227 (1998).

[7] See Assembly Bills 540 (2001), 130 (2011), 976 (2007), 131 (2011) and Senate Bill 1534 (2006). E-Verify is a system run by the Department of Homeland Security that electronically compares information from employment forms with government records to determine US work eligibility.

[8] San Francisco's policy began in 1989, whereas Los Angeles's Special Order 40 dates to 1979.

[9] The initiative ultimately failed to collect enough signatures to be on the ballot.

[10] This ordinance was influenced by similar legislation in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, as noted in the minutes of the 4 October 2006 Escondido City Council meeting.

[11] The ordinance's challengers argued that it was unconstitutional due to its pre-emption of the Supremacy Clause, its violation of due process, and the property, fair housing, and contract rights of landlords and tenants. See Garrett v Escondido, available at http://www.fairhousingrights.org/Resources/Educational_Materials/FHRC/Anti-Immigrant_Ordinances/Escondido/Escondido_Lawsuit.pdf.

[12] See 8 C.F.R. § 287.1.

[13] Secure Communities is an ICE initiative that checks the fingerprints of jail detainees against immigration databases to facilitate deportation of the unauthorised. As of writing, Secure Communities is active in every jurisdiction in California and in 97% of jurisdictions nation-wide. See http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/.