American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins

Media type: E-Book

Title: American Dreaming : Immigrant Life on the Margins

Contains: Frontmatter
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS AND TABLES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO. LEAVING HOME
CHAPTER THREE. THE TRIP AS PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION
CHAPTER FOUR. GREAT EXPECTATIONS, EARLY DISILLUSIONMENTS
CHAPTER FIVE. THE CONSTRUCTION OF MARGINALITY
CHAPTER SIX. MAKING MONEY OFF THE MARGINS
CHAPTER SEVEN. LUCRATIVE, LIMINAL LAW
CHAPTER EIGHT. THE ENCARGADO INDUSTRY
CHAPTER NINE. IMMIGRANTS AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Contributor: Mahler, Sarah J. [VerfasserIn]

imprint: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [2021]

Extent: 1 Online-Ressource (284 p.); 9 halftones, 3 maps, 8 tables

Language: English

DOI: 10.1515/9780691225166

ISBN: 9780691225166

Identifier:

Keywords: Immigrants United States ; Marginality, Social United States ; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration ; Americas Watch ; Bahamas ; Belize ; Chileans ; Ecuadorans ; Guatemalans ; Haitians ; Jews ; Marielito Cubans ; Nicaraguans ; Odysseus ; absentee landlords ; accident-related lawsuits ; aerospace industry ; aircraft industry ; anomie among immigrants ; assimilationism ; bicycling ; bilingualism ; birth certificates ; blockbusting ; [...]

Origination:

Footnote: In English

Description: American Dreaming chronicles in rich detail the struggles of immigrants who have fled troubled homelands in search of a better life in the United States, only to be marginalized by the society that they hoped would embrace them. Sarah Mahler draws from her experiences living among undocumented Salvadoran and South American immigrants in a Long Island suburb of Manhattan. In moving interviews they describe their disillusionment with life in the United States but blame themselves individually or as a whole for their lack of economic success and not the greater society. As she explores the reasons behind this outlook, the author argues that marginalization fosters antagonism within ethnic groups while undermining the ethnic solidarity emphasized by many scholars of immigration. Mahler's investigation leads to conditions that often bar immigrants from success and that they cannot control, such as residential segregation, job exploitation, language and legal barriers, prejudice and outright hostility from their suburban neighbors. Some immigrants earn surplus income by using private cars as taxis, subletting space in apartments to lower rent burdens, and filling out legal forms and applications--in essence generating institutions largely parallel to those of the mainstream society whereby only a small group of entrepreneurs can profit. By exacting a price for what used to be acts of reciprocal good will in the homeland, these entrepreneurs leave people who had expected to be exploited by "Americans" feeling victimized by their own

Access State: Restricted Access | Information to licenced electronic resources of the SLUB

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