Constructing citizenship: framing unauthorized immigrants in market terms

We show how conceptions of ‘market citizenship’ hold a central place in three distinct arenas: political theory; mainstream cultural narratives, and the views expressed by middle class Latino immigrants. Our analyses of both print media coverage and interviews with middle class Latino immigrants demonstrate that the narrative of market citizenship has heavily influenced the collective US understanding of state membership. This project not only finds a clear market framing in news coverage of the immigration issue, but finds that members of the Latino community have directly engaged with this frame and use it to refute the largely negative contentions of the popular press.