Labor and legality : an ethnography of a Mexican immigrant network

Author / Creator

Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth, author

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Summary

"Labor and Legality is an ethnographic account of the lives of ten undocumented workers in Chicago, originally published in 2010. The book seeks to push past one-dimensional rhetoric and show that ...

"Labor and Legality is an ethnographic account of the lives of ten undocumented workers in Chicago, originally published in 2010. The book seeks to push past one-dimensional rhetoric and show that undocumented workers are neither mere victims nor criminals, but complicated people engaged in workaday struggles to make their lives better. The book follows these men through their daily routines and records their efforts to improve their fortunes and make sense of their lives. After setting the scene, Gomberg-Muñoz reviews the political and historical circumstances of undocumented immigration, with a focus on post-1970 socioeconomic and political conditions in the United States and Mexico. The second half of the book then shifts to the author's ethnographic work, and focuses on how undocumented workers develop a wide range of social strategies to cultivate financial security, nurture emotional well-being, and promote their dignity and self-esteem. In a dramatically shifting sociopolitical terrain, the lives of the ten men featured in Labor and Legality go on. For some, life goes on in Mexico following deportation, while for others, life looks more or less as it did ten years ago-at least on the surface. But none of the men's lives are unchanged, and none are unscathed"--

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