Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA
abstract: On May 12, 2009, hundreds of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raided Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant in the sleepy town of Postville, Iowa, and arrested 389 workers. These workers, primarily Spanish speaking immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, were charged with felony aggra...
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ftarizonastateun:item:8710 2023-05-15T18:03:14+02:00 Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA White, Douglas Gerald (Author) Jonsson, Hjorleifur (Advisor) Eder Jr, James (Committee member) Chance, John K (Committee member) Alvarez, Robert R (Committee member) Arizona State University (Publisher) 2010 232 pages http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.8710 eng eng http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.8710 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved Cultural Anthropology Community Globalization Immigration Nationalism Sports Doctoral Dissertation 2010 ftarizonastateun 2018-06-23T22:53:38Z abstract: On May 12, 2009, hundreds of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raided Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant in the sleepy town of Postville, Iowa, and arrested 389 workers. These workers, primarily Spanish speaking immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, were charged with felony aggravated identity theft. This criminalization of immigration is a critical point in immigration policy in the United States, representing a ritual performance of the exclusion of immigrants from American society. In stark juxtaposition to the raid itself, the community of Postville was working to welcome the very immigrants that were targeted by ICE. In attempts at inclusion, Postville had created an adult soccer league that provided a sense of community and identity for immigrants. Using the classic anthropological method of ethnography, this research draws on extensive time immersed in the community of Postville to conduct a qualitative case study of the day-to-day meanings of immigration in the United States. This dissertation examines the adult soccer league and the ICE raid as examples of cultural performances of inclusion and exclusion by using anthropological concepts of nation, sport, and performance. Performance is used to mark national identity in both instances--a shifting, hybrid `transnational' identity in the case of the immigrants playing in the soccer league--and a clearly delineated `American' identity in the case of the ICE raid. Moreover, national identity is tied to other aspects of identity, such as gender. As the performances create national `imagined communities,' they also gender their participants and nations themselves. Ultimately this reveals the way that immigration itself is gendered, and the way in which American immigration policy is designed to promote an American national identity. These efforts are not only to the detriment of immigrants in the United States as laborers but also to the communities with jobs that draw these workers. The case study of Postville provides a lens to examine the meanings of immigration policy from the ground up and in the lives of those it impacts most--immigrants and the communities in which they reside. Dissertation/Thesis Ph.D. Anthropology 2010 Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis Postville Arizona State University: ASU Digital Repository Postville ENVELOPE(-59.773,-59.773,54.908,54.908) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Arizona State University: ASU Digital Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftarizonastateun |
language |
English |
topic |
Cultural Anthropology Community Globalization Immigration Nationalism Sports |
spellingShingle |
Cultural Anthropology Community Globalization Immigration Nationalism Sports Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
topic_facet |
Cultural Anthropology Community Globalization Immigration Nationalism Sports |
description |
abstract: On May 12, 2009, hundreds of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raided Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant in the sleepy town of Postville, Iowa, and arrested 389 workers. These workers, primarily Spanish speaking immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, were charged with felony aggravated identity theft. This criminalization of immigration is a critical point in immigration policy in the United States, representing a ritual performance of the exclusion of immigrants from American society. In stark juxtaposition to the raid itself, the community of Postville was working to welcome the very immigrants that were targeted by ICE. In attempts at inclusion, Postville had created an adult soccer league that provided a sense of community and identity for immigrants. Using the classic anthropological method of ethnography, this research draws on extensive time immersed in the community of Postville to conduct a qualitative case study of the day-to-day meanings of immigration in the United States. This dissertation examines the adult soccer league and the ICE raid as examples of cultural performances of inclusion and exclusion by using anthropological concepts of nation, sport, and performance. Performance is used to mark national identity in both instances--a shifting, hybrid `transnational' identity in the case of the immigrants playing in the soccer league--and a clearly delineated `American' identity in the case of the ICE raid. Moreover, national identity is tied to other aspects of identity, such as gender. As the performances create national `imagined communities,' they also gender their participants and nations themselves. Ultimately this reveals the way that immigration itself is gendered, and the way in which American immigration policy is designed to promote an American national identity. These efforts are not only to the detriment of immigrants in the United States as laborers but also to the communities with jobs that draw these workers. The case study of Postville provides a lens to examine the meanings of immigration policy from the ground up and in the lives of those it impacts most--immigrants and the communities in which they reside. Dissertation/Thesis Ph.D. Anthropology 2010 |
author2 |
White, Douglas Gerald (Author) Jonsson, Hjorleifur (Advisor) Eder Jr, James (Committee member) Chance, John K (Committee member) Alvarez, Robert R (Committee member) Arizona State University (Publisher) |
format |
Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
title |
Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
title_short |
Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
title_full |
Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
title_fullStr |
Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
title_full_unstemmed |
Community, Nationalism, and Soccer in America's Heartland: Globalization and Postville, IA |
title_sort |
community, nationalism, and soccer in america's heartland: globalization and postville, ia |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.8710 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-59.773,-59.773,54.908,54.908) |
geographic |
Postville |
geographic_facet |
Postville |
genre |
Postville |
genre_facet |
Postville |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.8710 |
op_rights |
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved |
_version_ |
1766174029992951808 |