Transforming Citizenship: Democracy, Membership, and Belonging in Latino Communities

Conclusion

n 207 Conclusion The latter part of the book has focused on how certain types of networks of reciprocity and trust formed within the sites of Latino civil society can enable rights claims that are the basis of what I refer to as associative citizenship. This represents an alternative to existing frameworks and notions of citizenship and is intended to incorporate four dimensions that determine the level and type of social and political membership—that is, the nature and level of access to, and participation in, major societal institutions. This provides a more complete conception of Latino citizenship than other approaches and is based on T. H. Marshall’s (1950) notion of citizenship as “full” membership in all of those institutions. It does so by incorporating the four factors that have had the greatest effect on the level of Latino membership and belonging in the United States: (1) the relationship between societal and political membership, (2) the pattern of inclusion and exclusion, (3) the sense of belonging, and (4) the effects of racialization. This framework reflects my view that citizenship is not only a legal or political status, but is also a resource for a transformational politics, or a politics of empowerment , aimed at achieving the full social and political membership of Latinos. While my focus has been on developing this framework and illustrating the way that 208 n Conclusion certain institutional conditions give rise to rights claims as the basis of associative citizenship, I have also emphasized that the emergence of rights claims cannot bring about social and political change without being converted into organized, collective political action. In most cases, this means having to rely on developing strategies and tactics outside the traditional boundaries of electoral politics. There are hundreds of examples of grassroots political groups and actions that were initiated in Latino communities dating back to the initial seizure of Mexican territories in what is now the U.S. Southwest. These have been organized around nearly every issue that affected their life opportunities and conditions, including health, education, voting rights, housing, and labor market access, among many others. Although I proposed the conception of associative citizenship as a theoretical alternative, I want to conclude by once again pointing to the contemporary Latino immigrant-rights movement as an example of a form of political action that relies heavily on the types of rights claims based on associational networks that have been the focus of my argument. One of the major goals of that movement has in fact been to initiate a process of converting rights claims into effective political mobilization aimed at changing public policy. So, far from being an abstract formulation, practices and enactments of associative citizenship have been thrust into the public sphere as a strategy for challenging the various ways that large sectors of Latino communities are kept from achieving “full” societal and political membership. The depth and scope of this movement gained national attention when within a three-month period during the spring of 2006, between 3.7 and 5 million people filled the streets in over 160 cities in forty-two states. In every region of the United States, immigrants and their allies contested the harsh anti-immigrant policies and practices that had gone on for nearly twenty years, and that culminated with Representative Sensenbrenner introducing and the House of Representatives passing HR 4437 in December 2005. While the media and much of the nation treated the mobilizations as a kind of short-term political spectacle, in fact the marches were the culmination of years of political organizing and planning involving hundreds of local and regional groups. Hometown associations, workers’ organizations and unions, community-based groups, church groups, student organizations, and a host of others came together to organize the largest mass protests in the history of the United States. Participants were majority Latino, but many people from other groups joined the marches as well. And they included a wide array of backgrounds: professionals, immigrants, parents, children, grandparents, students—all became one voice demanding legislation that would finally respect the human rights of immigrants , with or without papers. While the immediate policy goal of the marches was the repeal of the Sensenbrenner bill and has since morphed into the demand for comprehensive immigration reform, the broader meaning and goal was best Conclusion n 209 captured by the many placards and signs declaring that “Somos America”—“We are America.” And many of the marches were labeled the “Somos Americanos” marches. This captures the...