Contested Americans: Mixed-Status Families in Anti-Immigrant Times (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781479800537)

2023 SSSP C. Wright Mills Award Finalist

Reveals the impossible choices and downright terror mixed-status families often face for their loved
ones

Living in a mixed-status immigrant family might mean that your grandmother could be deported at any moment, your son could be arrested at work, or your mother's deportation hearing is postponed--again. Such uncertainty and fear are the reality of life for mixed-status families--those that include both undocumented immigrants and US citizens. In Contested Americans, Cassaundra Rodriguez explores how members of mixed-status families experience and articulate belonging in the United States. The sixteen million people in the US who fall under this classification share the fear of a family member's possible deportation or the anxiety of leaving behind a child or elderly relative.

Rodriguez highlights how different members of the same mixed-status families mediate undocumented statuses while maintaining the collective whole of a family. For many young adults, this may mean negotiating the sponsorship of their immigrant parents, and for the parents, planning for the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of their children in case of deportation.

Contested Americans is a timely book, filled with vivid storytelling, that shows how immigration policies, racism, and privilege collide in the backdrop of the lives of millions of mixed-status families.

Author: Cassaundra Rodriguez
ISBN-10: 1479800538
ISBN-13: 9781479800537
Publisher: New York University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/01/2023
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.19lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2024