Sherri Grasmuck

Ethno-Racial Identity Displays on Facebook

The present study investigates self-presentation in a nonymous setting and explores differences in self-presentation by distinct ethno-racial groups. Based on content analysis of 83 Facebook profiles of African Americans, Latino, Indian and Vietnamese ancestry students, supplemented by 63 in-person interviews, we found that ethno-racial identities are salient and highly elaborated. The intensive investments of minorities in presenting highly social, culturally explicit and elaborated narratives of self reflect a certain resistance to the racial silencing of minorities by dominant color-blind ideologies of broader society. In the nonymous environment of Facebook, various dimensions of identity claimsappear to be grounded in offline realities as revealed in interviews and observations of campus social dynamics.

MARKET SUCCESS OR FEMALE AUTONOMY? Income, Ideology, and Empowerment among Microentrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic

This article examines the impact of gender on the relative economic success of microentrepreneurs, their contributions to family income, and the impact of gender ideology and income on household decision making. The concept of economic success is problematized by examining how these businesses, even those of limited assets and income generation, offer women increased autonomy in household budgetary matters and decision making. The analysis draws on data from a representative survey of 201 male and female microentrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic. The findings show that household decision making is influenced by variations in economic power but that gender ideologies structure the direction and extent of this influence, reflected in distinct “gender thresholds,” or the point at which income contributions start to matter.

GEOPOLITICS, ECONOMIC NICHES, AND GENDERED SOCIAL CAPITAL AMONG RECENT CARIBBEAN IMMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK CITY

This article examines the different socio-economic consequences of migration for Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, Jamaicans and Haitians in the context of New York City. Migration outcomes are structured by a range of influences, including geopolitics, class selectivity, de-industrialization, ethnic niches and the timing of settlement. Emphasis is placed on the importance of variations in the household structures and gender strategies of these groups for understanding their different socioeconomic situations in the 1990s. Differences in the labor force participation patterns of the women in these communities and the employment traditions upon which they draw have significant consequences for the well-being of the five groups. These cases also question the common assumption that high rates of female headed-households inevitably lead to high rates of poverty, a pattern found among Dominicans and Puerto Ricans but not among Jamaicans and Haitians.

Immigration, Ethnic Stratification, and Native Working Class Discipline: Comparisons of Documented and Undocumented Dominicans.

A number of notions regarding the functions served by international labor immigration, expecially the undocumented population, are examined in this article. Comparisons of the working conditions of documented and undocumented Dominicans in New York City are made. Although the two groups resemble one another in terms of organization and industrial sector of employment, the organization of their respective firms is markedly different. It is concluded that one of the most important functions served by the illegal alien population is political and resides in its controllability by employers in the secondary labor market and, consequently, operates to discipline the native labor force.

Migration within the periphery: Haitian labor in the Dominican sugar and coffee industries.

This article presents data on the employment of Haitian labor in the sugar and coffee sectors in the Dominican economy. The Haitian cyclical pattern of migration is related to the enclave pattern of development as it has occurred in the Dominican Republic. The common features of both coffee and sugarcane production which stimulate the reliance on cheap foreign labor are discussed. Consideration is given to the differential impact of a “relative labor scarcity” in a peripheral society as compared to the relative labor shortages which appear in the secondary sectors of the core economies.

Transnational heritage migrants in Istanbul: second-generation Turk-American and Turk-German ‘Returnees’ in their parents’ homeland

ABSTRACT This paper addresses several less-explored dimensions of current scholarship on globalisation, migration and transnationalism: north–south migration streams, the role of second-generation ‘heritage migrants’ and the importance of social capital within unequal transnational social fields. We compare two circuits of second-generation migrants, Turk-Germans and Turk-Americans, engaged in ‘intensive transnationalism’ having independently moved to reside in their parents’ homeland. Istanbul becomes the site of homeland return for these distinct streams of educated heritage migrants. Cross-national comparison of the children of the more stigmatised Turk-German ‘guest workers’ with the socially less salient Turk-Americans of middle-class backgrounds offers insight into the way class networks and national capital are distinctly leveraged by adult children with immigrant parents of distinct contexts of homeland exit.

Between Two Islands: Dominican International Migration.

Popular notions about migration to the United States from Latin America and the Caribbean are too often distorted by memories of earlier European migrations and by a tendency to generalize from the more familiar cases of Mexico and Puerto Rico. Between Two Islands is an interdisciplinary study of Dominican migration, challenging many widespread, yet erroneous, views concerning the socio-economic background of new immigrants and the causes and consequences of their move to the United States. Eschewing monocausal treatments of migration, the authors insist that migration is a multifaceted process involving economic, political, and socio-cultural factors. To this end, they introduce an innovative analytical framework which includes such determinants as the international division of labor; state policy in the sending and receiving societies; class relations; transnational migrant households; social networks; and gender and generational hierarchies. By adopting this multidimensional approach, Grasmuck and Pessar are able to account for many intriguing paradoxes of Dominican migration and development of the Dominican population in the U.S. For example, why is it that the peak in migration coincided with a boom in Dominican economic growth? Why did most of the immigrants settle in New York City at the precise moment the metropolitan economy was experiencing stagnation and severe unemployment? And why do most immigrants claim to have achieved social mobility and middle-class standing despite employment in menial blue-collar jobs? Until quite recently, studies of international migration have emphasized the male migrant, while neglecting the role of women and their experiences. Grasmuck and Pessars attempt to remedy this uneven perspective results in a better overall understanding of Dominican migration. For instance, they find that with regard to wages and working conditions, it is a greater liability to be female than to be without legal status. They also show that gender influences attitudes toward settlement, return, and workplace struggle. Finally, the authors explore some of the paradoxes created by Dominican migration. The material success achieved by individual migrant households contrasts starkly with increased socio-economic inequality in the Dominican Republic and polarized class relations in the United States. This is an exciting and important work that will appeal to scholars and policymakers interested in immigration, ethnic studies, and the continual reshaping of urban America.