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Summer 2008: Table of Contents

||Curriculum||Environment||History||Human Rights Law||Literature||Migration and Diversity||Religion||
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Migration and DiversityBack to top

• Historical Impact of Race and Ethnicity upon Immigration in the United States: Theoretical Perspectives and the Application to Contemporary Latinos
  Rudolph Alexander, Jr.
• Affirmative Action, The Academy and Compromised Standards: Does Affirmative Action Lower Standards in University Hiring, Tenure and Promotion?
  Lawrence J. Hanks, Jas Sullivan, Sara B. Spencer and Elgin Rogers
• Race, Class and Legal Risk in the United States: Youth of Color and Colluding Systems of Social Control
  Nancy A. Heitzeg
• Expedited Citizenship for Immigrant Soldiers: Tribute or Bounty?
  Gabrielle Malfatti-Rachell
• Embracing The Stranger: Hispanics, American Christianity, And Immigration
  Lourdes E. Morales-Gudmundsson
• Strategic Human Resources and Human Capital Development: Strategies for Managing the 21st Century Workforce
  Kristie Roberts, Shamiah Woods, Allyson Earvin Richardson, Sheena Murray, Michael Moss, Mano Smith
• Yankee Migration: Causes and Reverse Trends in Urbanization
  Onoyom Godfrey Ukpong
• The Virgin of Guadalupe: Linking the past and present by exploring the role of religion in the cultural heritage of Mexican Consciousness
  Annmarie Valdes
• Discounting the Value Of Federal Fencing and Minutemen watching Illegal Immigrants Crossing The U. S.–Mexican Border
  A.B. Villanueva
• Gentrification: The New Colonialism in the Modern Era
  Jonathan L. Wharton
• September 11th Aftermath Changes Traditional Sioux Movement Patterns
  Daniel P. Zielske

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Historical Impact of Race and Ethnicity upon Immigration in the United States: Theoretical Perspectives and the Application to Contemporary Latinos
Rudolph Alexander, Jr.
Abstract
Immigration, migration, and emigration trace their origins to the beginning of humankind.  People have immigrated, migrated, and emigrated in search for food, survival from predators and enemies, and improved lives.   In modern societies throughout the world, immigration remains a highly sensitive phenomenon, especially when race and ethnicity are involved.  For example, the United States first referenced immigration within its Constitution in the 1700s, but it began to pass specific laws in the 1800s targeting Asians.  Later, Congress passed a law that only free White aliens were eligible for naturalization as citizens of the United States.  Further, it imposed quotas on the number of individuals who could come to the United States which was based on race and this law was not abolished until 1965.  Currently, the United States is experiencing an imbroglio over an immigration problem involving persons from Mexico and South America or people of Latino descent, which former President Jimmy Carter stated has elements of racism.  This article discusses the historical background of immigration in the United States and utilizes world systems theory and Everett S. Lee’s theory of migration to assist in understanding immigration.  World systems theory is also used to explain the behaviors of seven young Latino women who had immigrated to the United States from Mexico. 

Affirmative Action, The Academy and Compromised Standards: Does Affirmative Action Lower Standards in University Hiring, Tenure and Promotion?
Lawrence J. Hanks, Jas Sullivan, Sara B. Spencer and Elgin Rogers

Abstract
The literature opposed to affirmative action in hiring, granting tenure and promotion in the university claims that it lowers standards.  However, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the decades prior to the institutionalization of affirmative action in the Academy, hiring, tenure and promotion standards were quite lax—resembling an “old boys network.”  With the advent of affirmative action and the access of the academic market to candidates of both genders and diverse racial groups, came an institutionalization of specified—and therefore higher—standards for hiring and tenure of faculty.  Thus, affirmative action has not had a negative impact on standards; ironically, it has led to the creation of standards.  Therefore, because of affirmative action, all candidates today (even those that directly benefit from affirmative action) meet higher standards for hiring and assigning tenure than existed in the pre-affirmative action period.  The purpose of this study is to test that hypothesis using email surveys of Emeriti faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences at a large Midwestern University.

Race, Class and Legal Risk in the United States: Youth of Color and Colluding Systems of Social Control
Nancy A. Heitzeg

Abstract
Youth of color in the United States, especially African American and Latino males, are at increased risk for formal legal labeling and control by both the juvenile justice system and the adult criminal justice system. While factors such as poverty and low educational attainment offer partial explanations, this increase is largely attributable to significant shifts in policy and in the definition and control of deviance. Against a backdrop of the parallel rise of both the medical model of deviance and the prison industrial complex, a series of policy changes have escalated the likelihood that youth of color will have substantial and lasting legal encounters. This paper examines the role of colluding systems of social control in legal risk for youth of color, locating shifts in media, educational policy, and juvenile and adult criminal justice policies as central to persistent racial over-representation in legal systems of social control.

Expedited Citizenship for Immigrant Soldiers: Tribute or Bounty?
Gabrielle Malfatti-Rachell

The post 9/11 era has been marked by heightened anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States as revealed by a 2006 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in which 53% of the public said they believed illegal immigrants should be mandated to return to their native countries. The results of the survey also revealed that the public does not favor maintaining current levels of legal immigration, 37% favored keeping with present level and 40% declared it should be reduced. The period following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon coincides with the War on Terror.

Embracing The Stranger: Hispanics, American Christianity, And Immigration
Lourdes E. Morales-Gudmundsson

Abstract: American Christian churches have responded to the current Latino immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border in fundamentally two ways. On the one hand, the so-called “Christian Right,” intentionally and unintentionally feeds perceptions of Latino immigrants as suspicious and even dangerous. On the other hand, there are Catholic and Protestant theologians and laity who see the Christian church as being duty-bound to the stranger and alien, regardless of legal status. This paper explores how both these attitudes derive from and play into historical American ambivalence toward immigrants in general and the role the American Christian churches have played in dealing with the alien. American Christianity’s role as protector of and provider for immigrants must be preserved so that the nation not lose its moral compass nor its potential for future growth and prosperity.

Strategic Human Resources and Human Capital Development: Strategies for Managing the 21st Century Workforce
Kristie Roberts, Shamiah Woods, Allyson Earvin Richardson, Sheena Murray, Michael Moss, Mano Smith

Abstract
The departure of the baby boomers from the work force is an issue that few employers are prepared for.  The populations of Generations X and Y are ill equipped to replace the mass exodus of baby boomers from the work environment, therefore making recruitment the most important job in human resources.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of available jobs will grow faster than the labor force.  Hence, plans for recruitment, retention and succession have been thrust to the forefront as a priority of every business in America.  Before employers can address managing the generational gap in the work place, employers must derive feasible and effective recruitment strategies to ensure their vitality.  For U.S. corporations, tomorrow’s competitive battle will be won or lost on the strength and ability to build and retain a skilled workforce.

Yankee Migration: Causes and Reverse Trends in Urbanization
Onoyom Godfrey Ukpong

Abstract
 Trends in urbanization in New York City have been shifting gradually over the last two decades—similar to those seen of cities in comparable civilizations. Yankees have been migrating to adjoining suburban towns and rural neighborhoods. These changing demographics have forced the dismissal of default assumptions and outdated economic theories suggesting that rural-to-urban human migration is the only known pattern of urbanization, and that this trend has been an industry- or career-driven activity undertaken solely for economic reasons. While these beliefs might be true and seem rooted in the notion that large industrialized cities attract population density far more than developing suburban towns, the paradox is that recently
urban-to-rural migration has been typical of late modern-day Yankees.
What I will do in this article is investigate the cultural history of New York City in the wake of changing trends in its population demographics during the period under investigation, using past and present alien/undocumented City residents and prospective migrants from developing civilizations as a case study. Adjunct to the central issue in the Yankee migration, I shall reexamine applicability of selected twentieth-century economic theories of urbanization and cosmopolitanism to the case study, …[putting] in perspective a clearer understanding of what seems to be an accelerated evolution of demographic traditions in the City and its significance to cultural studies in our neoteric age.

The Virgin of Guadalupe: Linking the past and present by exploring the role of religion in the cultural heritage of Mexican Consciousness
Annmarie Valdes

When academic experts get together to discuss important issues, in our case immigration, often times the statement “we are preaching to the choir” is uttered several times due to the frustration felt in regard to defining problems, understanding cultural history and identifying its social influence, researching public policy and legal restrictions, understanding economic influence and then influencing the implementation of sound policies and the local, state and federal level.  For immigration, globally and specifically in the United States, this can seem to be a daunting task.  However, if the presenters at our conference are representative of the capabilities of our nation (and I believe they are!) the congregation of the United States should be prepared for new doctrine: that of racial acceptance, the power of immigrant economics, understanding the religious affect within the context of immigration, and a critical analysis of insufficient political and legal initiatives hopefully culminating in a re-drafting of political and economic policies in the United States. Our group represented a willingness that individuals have to understand the heart of the issues that we care for deeply, but also the willingness to return to our perspective home bases and begin more discussions there; a willingness to branch out, armed with new information to send a message that more work and time is necessary to promote cultural acceptance which seems to be at the heart of attempting any legislation regarding immigration that is not based in racial prejudices and fear; fear of the other and fear of sharing the economic possibilities and responsibilities that come with being a citizen of any nation. 

Abstract

Out of concern for the nation’s safety after 9/11 and the flow of  undocumented and clandestine migrants from south of the border, the U.S. Congress addressed these concerns by authorizing the Secretary of Homeland Security to construct physical barriers in the area by the end of 2008. These barriers include reinforced fencing, lighting, cameras and sensors from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Not all the approximate 2000 mile border from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas will have two layers of reinforced fencing. Only certain areas totaling  about 700 miles will the border fence be installed. Also concerned with unauthorized  border crossers are self-styled Minutemen, a group of civilian volunteers, sitting in their lawn chairs watching illegal  entrants with their binoculars and reporting them to the  Border Patrol. Some of them roam the desert terrain like soldiers patrolling a war zone, apprehending illegal  entrants and turning them over to the Border Patrol. The fence and the Minutemen have been defended, applauded and glamorized by immigration restrictionists as the first line of defense against a Trojan Horse of invading illegal aliens. In this paper, the value of these physical structures and civilians patrolling the borderland will be discounted by a number of inconvenient truths about their negative effects on property, wildlife, law enforcement, and a friendly neighbor and trading partner.

Gentrification: The New Colonialism in the Modern Era
Jonathan L. Wharton

Abstract
Within the last fifty years, gentrification has become a serious concern in numerous cities, particularly in North America.  Gentrification occurs when college educated business professionals or the so-called "gentry class" locate (or relocate) to an urban community resulting in the displacement of low-income, often times long-time residents.  Consequently, housing and living expenses increase tremendously impacting a variety of local people.  Although these communities experience a number of modern changes (increased policing, improved city services and expanded commercial corridors to cater to the new residents), so many long-time residents are forced to relocate since rents and costs skyrocket to appeal to the gentrifying class. 
                Is gentrification the new 21st century colonialism?  Developers, realtors, bankers, investors, planners, architects, engineers and politicians often have a hand in this redevelopment and displacement phenomenon and act as capitalists in the idealized neo-urban frontier.  These actors frequently serve as the elite assuring that specific plans and policies are established for urban redevelopment and they rarely disclose their proposals to the consumers (the young urban professionals or yuppies) or long time residents, akin to colonialism.  Thus the argument here is that these elitists operate exclusively between themselves, serving as venture capitalists, while the consumers (yuppies) are largely left unaware of their relocating implications on the local community, similar to the Atlantic New World and western frontiers in North America.     

September 11th Aftermath Changes Traditional Sioux Movement Patterns
Daniel P. Zielske

Abstract
The Mdwakanton Dakota of Minnesota are considered the indigenous people of southern and central Minnesota.  They traditionally lived in the area of what is now Wisconsin and Michigan.  The flood of Europeans into the eastern lands of the United States forced them to move into Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota territories.  In 1862 they rose up against the white settlers after moneys owed to them by the United States government did not come and the Dakota were dying of starvation.  The uprising came to a quick end and many of the Dakota were placed in a prison camp at Fort Snelling near St. Paul, Minnesota.  The Dakota who fled the war made their way westward and north to the United States and Canadian border lands.  Many still live in these lands yet today.  The Dakota who were sent to the prison camp were later released and sent to Crow Creek, Nebraska.  In the late 1880’s some Dakota made their way back to the traditional lands of Minnesota.  They were later granted reservation lands in what is now known as Upper Sioux, Lower Sioux, Mystic Lake and Prairie Island communities.
In the treaties between the United States of America, Canada, the Dakota and Lakota (Sioux) Indians of the late 1700’s the U.S.  Government promised the Indians free and uninterrupted passage between the lands of Canada and the United States in what is known as the Jay Treaty of 1794.  This sovereign right was acknowledged and kept in good faith until the attacks on September 11, 2001.  After the attacks, movement between Canada and the United States has been greatly reduced due to the Patriot Act.  Native American citizens of the U.S. have not been allowed back into the country after they have left to do ceremonies in Canada.  Canadian Sioux have been turned back at the U.S. border and not allowed to participate in ceremonies in the U.S.  This, coupled with new wealth from casinos and the social stratification it brings, finds that there are new patterns of migration and movement emerging in the Sioux nation.  Movement based upon blood-line, political activisms and past experiences.

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