Latino Mass Mobilization
Immigration, Racialization, and Activism

The first full-length study of the historic 2006 immigrant rights protests in the US, in which millions of Latinos participated.

Chris Zepeda-Millán (Author)

9781107434127, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 September 2017

308 pages, 8 b/w illus. 3 tables
23.2 x 16.7 x 1.5 cm, 0.43 kg

'This exceptional book should be close at hand for anyone who seeks to understand contemporary American immigration politics. The many contributions of this work - theoretical, substantive, and methodological - together generate a powerful analysis of the protest wave of 2006 and will help to inform whatever happens next in the ongoing and unfolding drama of American immigration politics and policy.' Kim M. Williams, Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics

In the spring of 2006, millions of Latinos across the country participated in the largest civil rights demonstrations in American history. In this timely and highly anticipated book, Chris Zepeda-Millán analyzes the background, course, and impacts of this unprecedented wave of protests, highlighting their unique local, national, and demographic dynamics. He finds that because of the particular ways the issue of immigrant illegality was racialized, federally proposed anti-immigrant legislation (H.R. 4437) helped transform Latinos' sense of latent group membership into the racial group consciousness that incited their engagement in large-scale collective action. Zepeda-Millán shows how nativist policy threats against disenfranchised undocumented immigrants can provoke a political backlash - on the streets and at the ballot box - from not only 'people without papers', but also naturalized and US-born citizens. Latino Mass Mobilization is an important intervention into contemporary debates regarding immigration policy, social movements, and racial politics in the United States.

1. Forging an immigrant rights movement, 1965–2005
2. Weapons of the not so weak
3. Promoting protest through ethnic media
4. Coalitions and the racialization of illegality
5. The suppression of immigrant contention. 6. Today we march, tomorrow we vote.

Subject Areas: Demonstrations & protest movements [JPWF], Political activism [JPW], Politics & government [JP], Population & demography [JHBD], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Society & social sciences [J]