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American Dreaming Sarah J. Mahler

American Dreaming By Sarah J. Mahler

American Dreaming by Sarah J. Mahler


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Summary

Chronicles the struggles of immigrants who have fled their homelands in search of a better life in the United States, only to be marginalized by the society that they hoped would embrace them. This book argues that marginalization fosters antagonism within ethnic groups while undermining the ethnic solidarity emphasized by scholars of immigration.

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American Dreaming Summary

American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins by Sarah J. Mahler

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.

American Dreaming Reviews

Essential reading for anyone concerned with the real life of the nation's new immigrants, racial stratification in suburbia, and the contradictory consequences of U.S. immigration policy.-Katherine S. Newman, Columbia University

About Sarah J. Mahler

Sarah J. Mahler is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont.

Table of Contents

List of IllustrationsList of Maps and TablesAcknowledgmentsCh. 1Introduction3Ch. 2Leaving Home31Ch. 3The Trip as Personal Transformation58Ch. 4Great Expectations, Early Disillusionments83Ch. 5The Construction of Marginality105Ch. 6Making Money off the Margins138Ch. 7Lucrative, Liminal Law159Ch. 8The Encargado Industry188Ch. 9Immigrants and the American Dream214Notes235Bibliography243Index255

Additional information

CIN0691037825A
9780691037820
0691037825
American Dreaming: Immigrant Life on the Margins by Sarah J. Mahler
Used - Well Read
Paperback
Princeton University Press
19951105
256
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book. We do our best to provide good quality books for you to read, but there is no escaping the fact that it has been owned and read by someone else previously. Therefore it will show signs of wear and may be an ex library book

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