Contemporary Sociology Review of "Building Walls"

Reviews 501 the twenty-first century rooted in Black fem- and everyday interactions. From these data, inism, intersectionality, and the connections he constructs the ‘‘border wall’’ as a mecha- between white supremacy, patriarchy, and nism of sociopolitical and racial exclusion capitalism. The book does an excellent job that is both physically manifested at the defining the main principles of the move- U.S.-Mexico line and symbolically inscribed ment as well as debunking why it and other in the American imaginary. Black social movements have been miscate- Categorical thinking, anti-immigrant speech, gorized as radical and undemocratic. immigration as an experience—these are the Stay Woke can be an effective academic main conceptual and analytic categories Cas- text for an undergraduate course on race, tañeda triangulates as his theoretical frame- inequality, and social movements. While work, establishing the book’s structure in Stay Woke centers on Black experiences and three parts. The first conceptual component, inequality, a discussion of how the authors categorical thinking, identifies how lived define ‘‘Black’’ would have been useful, and imagined boundaries are created through especially for the common reader, those nation-building projects and individualized who have only heard about M4BL through self-understandings of citizenship. The sec- the media, and individuals interested in ond component, anti-immigrant speech, interrogating the ways in which they sup- examines how boundaries are reinforced port white supremacy everyday. The text through divisive discourses within the realms does a good job illustrating the connections of policy debate and media discussions. The between upholding white supremacy, patri- third, immigration as an experience, personi- archy, and capitalism, but a richer conversa- fies how boundaries are politically challenged tion about dismantling capitalism was miss- and phenomenologically redefined. ing from the ending affirmations. These Part One begins with Castañeda’s exposi- affirmations provide a kind of roadmap for tion on ‘‘categorical thinking’’ as the process modern organizing of all kinds. Stay Woke enabling national, racial, and political is an eclectic text and is a strong model of boundaries. He evaluates how the nation- an academic work that can promote public state normalizes its role as protector of discourse and conversation about racial a ‘‘race’’ of people through collective myth inequality and social movements in the and shared customs. Having attained its twenty-first century. durable character, categorical thinking self- reinforces as a mechanism of exclusion by which U.S.-native whites define themselves Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in in opposition to ‘‘others.’’ Castañeda frames the United States, by Ernesto Castañeda. how the exclusion of Mexicans from Ameri- Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. 240 can identity remains inscribed in political pp. $95.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781498585651. rhetoric and popular discourses that con- struct Mexicans as uneducated, violent, and AARON ARREDONDO undeserving criminals. University of Missouri Beyond the state-sanctioned production of aia2pc@mail.missouri.edu categorical groups and symbolic boundaries, Part Two discusses how these are discursive- In Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the ly reconstituted through ‘‘anti-immigrant United States, Ernesto Castañeda presents speech.’’ Castañeda illustrates how the a comprehensive set of theory-driven empir- Minutemen—a xenophobic border patrol ical essays on the structural and experiential group—used the space of an Ivy League to aspects of physical and symbolic boundaries promote their ideological campaign against between U.S.-native whites and Latin people. Mexican immigration. Decrying the elitist Through a methodological assortment of in- radical left as detached from the needs of depth interviews, reflexive memos, survey authentic Americans, the Minutemen effec- data, and historical precedent, Castañeda tively used the setting to reframe progressive illustrates how boundaries are shaped by immigration reform as enabling the violent normative frameworks, divisive discourses, takeover of ‘‘America.’’ As we recognize the Contemporary Sociology 49, 6 502 Reviews anti-immigrant anxieties manifest in the a symbolic border wall denies Mexicans rec- traditional public sphere, Castañeda also ognition as New Yorkers. Although the bor- includes a chapter on white nationalist online der manifests even outside the American communities. Southwest, Mexican migrants nonetheless The Stormfront white nationalist online express resilience in achieving integration forum forges the political identity of a white in community life. By remaining autono- collective undergoing erasure from the mous in how they live and associate, Mexi- American narrative. The categorical closure can migrants undermine the structural dura- of an ‘‘us’’ versus ‘‘them’’ is animated by bility of symbolic boundaries, overcoming the following declaration: ‘‘White liberals their marginalization in a city that is rarely actually enjoy when we tear blacks down as ever associated with their presence. that validates their deeply held antipathy Throughout the book, Castañeda effective- toward alien races, an antipathy that almost ly implicates the border wall as a semiotic all whites share, regardless of what they say reference point for the conceptual and practi- publicly’’ (p. 106). These data characterize cal construction of symbolic boundaries. It the magnitude of symbolic boundaries operates as a semiotic mediator shaping the between groups when white nationalists categorical and behavioral boundaries that frame white liberals as essentially embody- differentiate between U.S.-native whites ing their same racial biases. and Latin people. In this manner, Castañeda Drawing from both the abstract and dis- both directly and indirectly contributes to the cursive dimensions of symbolic boundaries, theoretical and analytical project of spatializ- Part Three analytically situates them at the ing critical immigration studies. He does so micro level of lived experiences and every- by way of his conceptual application of the day interactions. Framing ‘‘immigration as built wall as a metaphor signifying the social an experience,’’ Castañeda contextualizes distance between Mexicans and whites. participants’ narratives as they share their While the book remains theoretically com- first- and second-hand experiences observ- prehensive, conceptually detailed, and ana- ing and overcoming the U.S.-Mexico border lytically rich, it requires further development wall, both physically and symbolically. of Mexican migrant narratives as they are Regarding its physical aspect, border resi- among the most affected by the nationalist dents in El Paso differ in their experiences and xenophobic context of the United States. of the boundary. The multitude of perspec- In Chapter Eight, dedicated to the lived expe- tives expressed in their participant memos riences of Mexican migrants, the discussion can be summarized by participant Laura leans toward the sensationalized narrative López. She writes: ‘‘[the border wall] is the of fleeing violence from Mexico. In itself, most emblematic and powerful element that this reifies American exceptionalism as exists to symbolize the interaction between a real thing, which prompts further discus- the two countries and the way that this sion on how Mexicans and Latin people are division is lived differently depending on imagined and portrayed through North the social situation in question’’ (p. 139). American scholarship. Discursive reality shows that in English Although Part Three does present narra- the built divide was often referred to as tive data from transborder and U.S. Mexi- a ‘‘fence,’’ whereas in Spanish the term cans as well as survey data from Mexican ‘‘wall’’ remained consistent as the referent. migrants, there are two aspects to consider: Fact of the matter is that contemporary the former constitute a relatively privileged debate over the ‘‘border wall’’ alludes to the segment of the Latin population as college stu- heightening of symbolic boundaries between dents who either possess U.S. citizenship or are Americans and Mexicans. This is observed able to cross from Juárez to El Paso to attend when nativist white discourse deploys the class. Concerning the latter, while survey data referent of ‘‘wall’’ by their intent with increas- alludes to the types of relationships Mexican ing the border’s militant impermeability. migrants sustain with other New Yorkers, a nar- In his ‘‘Invisible New Yorkers’’ chapter, rative perspective articulating the nuances of Castañeda uses survey data to explain how their lived experiences is lacking. Contemporary Sociology 49, 6  Reviews 503 Extending from this observation, it would phrase ‘‘I’m not a feminist, but. . . ’’ This is be empirically useful to see how white Amer- where Lynn Chancer begins her analysis of ican majorities and Mexican-origin popula- the feminist movement, taking stock of tions articulate their relationship to one what feminism has accomplished since the another. When we do obtain a perspective ‘‘second wave,’’ why the movement has from the American majority, the interview experienced setbacks since the second wave data is presented as an afterthought. Toward 50 years ago, and what remains to be accom- the end of the last substantive chapter, we plished. In After the Rise and Stall of American witness white colleagues attempting to Feminism: Taking Back a Revolution, she asks assign positive value to Mexican migrants why, despite the feminist movement’s suc- through racialized allusions to patriarchy, cesses, our culture and institutions remain family, restaurant work, soccer, Spanish, white-male-dominated. In her thorough and a job well done in low-wage menial examination of the tensions within the occupations. To understand how the ‘‘border movement and the backlash the movement wall’’ manifests in the hearts and minds of has faced, she argues that feminists need to the democratic majority requires further focus on balancing women’s commonalities examination of mainstream white percep- and differences. tions of Mexican-origin and Latin groups Chancer begins by taking stock of second- under these increasingly ambivalent socio- wave feminism, arguing that we must learn political and racial climates. from the past in order not to repeat those Nevertheless, Castañeda presents a con- same mistakes in the future and offering sol- ceptually thorough and theoretically com- utions informed by scholarship. For example, prehensive account for understanding the she argues that the second wave of the wom- structural, discursive, and experiential con- en’s movement is often misremembered as ditions that racialize and demean the life solely made up of white middle-class wom- and presence of Latin people in the United en, reminding readers of the rise of Black States. We not only observe his contribution women organizing against sexism in the Civ- to the sociological subject matter but also wit- il Rights movement. She traces the shifts from ness an exemplar of where migration studies liberal and radical second-wave feminists to stands today. By introducing a framework on intersectional third-wave feminism. As the Latin racialization and Pan-American racial movement’s successes have not been experi- projects, Castañeda takes critical immigra- enced equally by all women, Chancer argues tion studies in the direction that is most need- that the movement needs to learn from the ed to assess the political, demographic, and mistakes of the second wave, which ‘‘veered racial future of the United States. away from cross-class and cross-race orga- nizing’’ (p. xiii), and use an intersectional approach to organizing in the future. After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: In the standout chapter, ‘‘Debating the ‘F’ Taking Back a Revolution, by Lynn S. Word,’’ she reviews the recent history of fem- Chancer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University inism in the United States, pointing out traps Press, 2019. 345 pp. $26.00 cloth. ISBN: feminist organizing has fallen into. Among 9780804774376. these are competitions over who is a ‘‘good feminist,’’ framing the movement as binary WENDY M. CHRISTENSEN when issues are more complex, and making William Paterson University feminism too ‘‘rigid’’ a structure, at the christensenw@wpunj.edu expense of women’s agency. She calls for feminists to reemphasize the successful sec- With the rise of #MeToo and recent Wom- ond wave concept that ‘‘the personal is polit- en’s Marches, feminism is experiencing ical.’’ In the following chapters she argues a resurgence in the United States. At the that feminists can continue to make progress same time, progress has stalled on feminist by linking individual lives with the social goals, and many people still refuse to call world. To avoid divisiveness in the move- themselves feminist, evoking the familiar ment, she recommends feminists stress the Contemporary Sociology 49, 6