The Making of Mexican Illegality: Immigration Exclusions Based on Race,Class Status,and Gender

This article examines the history of US citizenship and deportation policies that have always been based on race, class status, and gender, as well as the effects of such policies on the making of Mexican illegality. Mexicans have been constructed as unassimilable and a threat to the US national polity. They are also viewed as working class likely to become a public charge. Mexican women have been imagined as extremely fertile and while their production has been desired, their reproduction has been feared. These social, political, and legal constructions resulted in the creation of Mexican illegality despite time of residence in the United States, ties to US citizens, or birthright citizenship. While scholars have documented immigration laws that have expatriated US citizen women (mainly of European racial backgrounds), policies that allowed for the deportation of “public charge” cases, and the racialization of Mexicans, who were once considered legally white for naturalization processes; the three identity-based exclusions have not been examined together to understand Mexican experiences in the United States. This article utilizes a racial, class, and gendered analysis to understand the making of Mexican illegality that began with the 1790 citizenship statue in which the United States Congress limited US citizenship rights to “free ‘white people’ and women’s citizenship was determined by their fathers or husbands.” The making of Mexican illegality continues with today’s immigration restrictions that perceive Mexicans as a threat to: national security, the white racial makeup of the country, and the stability of the economy.     

Increasing the Complexity of Young Adolescents’ Beliefs About Poverty and Inequality: Results of an 8th Grade Social Studies Curriculum Intervention

Poverty and economic hardship remain a reality for many of America's children. Although the causes of poverty are varied, Americans strongly endorse individual responsibility as a primary cause. Because beliefs about poverty originate in childhood and adolescence, intervention efforts targeting young people may be particularly effective in shifting attitudes about the poor and policies designed to help the disadvantaged. To test this proposition, the current study evaluated the efficacy of a 1-week 8th grade social studies curriculum focusing on poverty and inequality. Study participants were upper middle-class youth enrolled in multiple sections of a Social Studies course taught by a single teacher. Participants had little direct contact with marginalized groups such as poor and homeless individuals in their communities. Students (N=66) completed a survey assessing their attitudes and beliefs about poverty and poor people prior to, and 1 week and 6 months post-instruction. Results indicated that the curriculum was partially effective in increasing the complexity of students' beliefs about poverty. Students were more likely to emphasize fatalistic causes and less likely to list individualistic causes for poverty following instruction than before, but rarely emphasized structural causes for poverty and rated individual effort as the most influential factor in determining one's success. Implications of the study findings for curriculum efforts targeting young adolescents' reasoning about economic inequality and inequity and directions for future studies are discussed.     

The left-wing armed struggle in Italy from a critical-historical perspective: the case of study of Prima Linea

This article intends to cast new light on the history of the Italian left-wing armed struggle using the research perspectives offered by Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS). The object of the analysis is Prima Linea (Front Line, PL), which in less than 5 years (1976–1981) became the second most important left-wing clandestine organisation of the Italian 1970s. On the one hand, the historical development of the organisation is divided into two distinct phases. On the other hand, three dimensions of the armed activity of PL will be considered, namely, its ideological approaches, its organisational repertoires and the choice of the targets, in order to investigate the origins, meanings and outcomes of certain framing processes related to the concept of political violence. Taking into consideration direct sources of the organisation and the debates within the social movements, this contribution contextualises these conceptualisation processes of political violence by relating them to the surrounding social context and focusing on the role played both by the structural dynamics from above, and by the theories and practices developed within the revolutionary Left. The aim is to de-exceptionalise and historicise the left-wing armed struggle in Italy and to propose a critical explanation of such phenomenon.