Excerpt from The New Immigrant Whiteness: Race, Neoliberalism, and Post-Soviet Migration to the United States

Journal of Transnational American Studies

卷:9

Claudia Sadowski-Smith¹ 

[1] Arizona State University;

关键词: race and immigration;    former soviet union diaspora;    white racial identity;    upward mobility;    transnational american studies;   

DOI  :  10.5070/T891042083

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Mapping representations of post-1980s immigration from the former SovietUnion to the United States in interviews, reality TV shows, fiction,and memoirs, Claudia Sadowski-Smith shows how this nationally andethnically diverse group is associated with idealized accounts of theassimilation and upward mobility of early twentieth-century arrivalsfrom Europe. As it traces the contributions of historical EasternEuropean migration to the emergence of a white racial identity thatcontinues to provide privileges to many post-Soviet migrants, the bookplaces the post-USSR diaspora into larger discussions about theracialization of contemporary US immigrants under neoliberalconditions. 

"The New Immigrant Whiteness" argues that legalstatus on arrival — as participants in refugee, marriage, labor, andadoptive migration — impacts post-Soviet immigrants’ encounters withgrowing socioeconomic inequalities and tightened immigrationrestrictions, as well as their attempts to construct transnationalidentities. The book examines how their perceived whiteness exposespost-Soviet family migrants to heightened expectations of assimilation,explores undocumented migration from the former Soviet Union, analyzespost-USSR immigrants’ attitudes toward anti-immigration laws that targetLatina/os, and considers similarities between post-Soviet and Asianimmigrants in their association with notions of upward immigrantmobility. A compelling and timely volume, "The New ImmigrantWhiteness" offers a fresh perspective on race and immigration in theUnited States today.

【 授权许可】

Unknown