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

View/ Open
Issue Date
2006-01Author
Menjívar, Cecilia
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
© 2006 by The University of Chicago.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Collections
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.
Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.