Ming Hsu Chen is an Associate Professor of Law, Political Science, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also Faculty-Director of the Immigration and Citizenship Law Program and co-edits the ImmigrationProf blog. Dr. Chen’s book “Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era” was published by Stanford University Press in 2020.
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Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era
A Discussion With Author Ming Hsu Chen
Friday, March 05, 2021, 12pm EST
Event Overview
The law says that everyone who is not a citizen is an alien. The social reality, however, is far more complicated.
In the fourth installment of our Reimagining Citizenship series, author Ming Hsu Chen will present her book “Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era.” In it, she provides readers with the everyday perspectives of immigrants on what it’s like to try to integrate into American society during a time when immigration policy is focused on enforcement and exclusion.
Dr. Chen argues that the citizen/alien binary should be reframed as a spectrum of citizenship, a concept that emphasizes continuity between the otherwise distinct experiences of membership and belonging for immigrants seeking to become citizens. Combining theories of citizenship with empirical data on integration and analysis of contemporary policy, Dr. Chen builds a case that formal citizenship status matters more than ever during times of enforcement and proposes constructing pathways to citizenship that enhance both the formal and substantive equality of immigrants.
The book presentation will be followed by a discussion with Shannon Gleeson, an associate professor at Cornell’s ILR School.
The series “Reimagining Citizenship” features scholars, writers, and artists whose work interrogates the limits and possibilities of legal, social, and cultural belonging. Through book talks, roundtables, and presentations, we consider how multidisciplinary, multispecies approaches to the study of migration open up new understandings of citizenship, borders, and social transformation. Organized through Cornell University’s Migrations Global Grand Challenge.
In the fourth installment of our Reimagining Citizenship series, author Ming Hsu Chen will present her book “Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era.” In it, she provides readers with the everyday perspectives of immigrants on what it’s like to try to integrate into American society during a time when immigration policy is focused on enforcement and exclusion.
Dr. Chen argues that the citizen/alien binary should be reframed as a spectrum of citizenship, a concept that emphasizes continuity between the otherwise distinct experiences of membership and belonging for immigrants seeking to become citizens. Combining theories of citizenship with empirical data on integration and analysis of contemporary policy, Dr. Chen builds a case that formal citizenship status matters more than ever during times of enforcement and proposes constructing pathways to citizenship that enhance both the formal and substantive equality of immigrants.
The book presentation will be followed by a discussion with Shannon Gleeson, an associate professor at Cornell’s ILR School.
The series “Reimagining Citizenship” features scholars, writers, and artists whose work interrogates the limits and possibilities of legal, social, and cultural belonging. Through book talks, roundtables, and presentations, we consider how multidisciplinary, multispecies approaches to the study of migration open up new understandings of citizenship, borders, and social transformation. Organized through Cornell University’s Migrations Global Grand Challenge.
What You'll Learn
- Why formal citizenship status matters more than ever during times of intense immigration enforcement
- The significance of understanding citizenship as a spectrum rather than as an alien/citizen binary
- How pathways to citizenship enhance immigrant equality
Speakers
Ming Hsu Chen
Faculty-Director of the Immigration and Citizenship Law Program and Associate Professor
University of Colorado Boulder
Faculty-Director of the Immigration and Citizenship Law Program and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School
Shannon Gleeson
Edmund Ezra Day Professor
Cornell University ILR School
Edmund Ezra Day Professor and Chair, Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History, Cornell University ILR School; Co-Chair of the Migrations Initiative Taskforce, Cornell University
Shannon Gleeson is the Edmund Ezra Day Professor and Chair of the Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History at the Cornell University ILR School, as well as a professor by courtesy in the Department of Sociology. Her research and teaching focus on projects that examine the implementation of immigrant worker rights as well as the interdisciplinary study of the forces that shape migration flows and migrant experiences. Dr. Gleeson is also engaged in various collaborative projects that examine the implementation of immigrant worker rights.
Dr. Gleeson is the author of five books based on her work; the most recent is “Accountability Across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America” (University of Texas Press, 2019, edited with Xóchitl Bada). Dr. Gleeson holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Demography from the University of California, Berkeley, and was previously on the faculty of the Latin American and Latino Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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