Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT Restriction‐oriented immigration policies and polarizing political debates have intensified the vulnerability of undocumented people in the United States, promoting their “willingness” to do low‐wage, low‐status work. In this article, I draw on ethnographic research with undocumented immigrants in Chicago to examine the everyday strategies that undocumented workers develop to mediate constraints and enhance their well‐being. In particular, I explore how a cohort of undocumented Mexican immigrants cultivates a social identity as “hard workers” to promote their labor and bolster dignity and self‐esteem. Much of the existing literature on unauthorized labor migration has focused on the structural conditions that encumber immigrants and constrain their opportunities. By shifting the focus to workers’ agency, I seek to complement these analyses and show how undocumented immigrants actively navigate the terrain of work and society in the United States.
Source: American Anthropologist
Author: Ruth Gomberg‐Muñoz
Institution: University of Illinois Chicago
Language: English
Topic: Migration and Labor Dynamics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2058463569