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    Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States

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    Menjivar_2006.pdf (167.5Kb)
    Issue Date
    2006-01
    Author
    Menjívar, Cecilia
    Publisher
    University of Chicago Press
    Type
    Article
    Article Version
    Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
    Rights
    © 2006 by The University of Chicago.
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    Abstract
    This article examines the effects of an uncertain legal status on the lives of immigrants, situating their experiences within frameworks of citizenship/belonging and segmented assimilation, and using Victor Turner's concept of liminality and Susan Coutin's "legal nonexistence." It questions black-and-white conceptualizations of documented and undocumented immigration by exposing the gray area of "liminal legality" and examines how this in-between status affects the individual's social networks and family, the place of the church in immigrants' lives, and the broader domain of artistic expression. Empirically, it draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Phoenix from 1989 to 2001. The article lends support to arguments about the continued centrality of the nation-state in the lives of immigrants.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/21440
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1086/499509
    Collections
    • Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Scholarly Works [736]
    • Sociology Scholarly Works [79]
    Citation
    Cecilia Menjívar , "Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants' Lives in the United States," American Journal of Sociology 111, no. 4 (January 2006): 999-1037.

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    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

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