Engage and evade : how Latino immigrant families manage surveillance in everyday life / Asad L. Asad.

Engage and evade : how Latino immigrant families manage surveillance in everyday life / Asad L. Asad.

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2023]

1 online resource (xvi, 322 pages) : illustrations

"Because immigration is such a recurring-and divisive-topic in the United States, it is easy to assume that we understand what it means for an immigrant to live under the specter of surveillance and punishment. It is easy to assume, as many scholars and journalists do, that undocumented immigrants live on the run from the authorities, constantly fleeing to the margins of daily life, staying in the shadows beneath the eyes of the law. And yet, while it is certainly true that immigrants are constantly faced with mechanisms of surveillance that function as tools of societal exclusion, this only tells part of the story. As Asad L. Asad shows, many people with a sanctionable status cannot-and, in some cases, do not want to-evade surveilling institutions or the formal records they generate: evading the institutions that keep formal records is a luxury that most immigrants (especially those with children) cannot afford. In Engage and Evade, Asad uses a wealth of interviews and ethnographic observations collected in Dallas County, Texas, bolstered and contextualized by original analyses of national survey data, to explore whether, how, and why immigrants engage with surveilling institutions. Presenting the stories of immigrants living in mixed-status families in which at least two members of the household have different legal statuses, and focusing especially on the experiences of immigrant parents, Asad argues that engagement with such institutions stems as much from hope for societal inclusion as it does from fear of exclusion. By paying attention to the ways in which immigrants make sense of, pursue, and use the records that result from these engagements, Asad reveals a variety of ways these individuals reinforce or resist their sanctionable status through the state's own surveillance"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on August 31, 2023).

Print version: Asad, Asad L. Engage and evade. Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2023]

English

9780691249049 electronic book
0691249040 electronic book
9780691182285 hardcover

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