'Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!' Global capital and immigrant rights

Race and Class

Volumn 48, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 77-91

  Robinson, William I ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Great American Boycott; HR4437; Immigration; Labour; Latino; May Day; New civil rights movement; Transnational; Working class

Indexed keywords

EID: 33748771472     PISSN: 03063968     EISSN: 17413125     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0306396806069525     Document Type: Review

References (19)

1. For these details, and more, see, inter alia, summaries of press reports from around the US compiled by CIS-DC Info Digest (Vol. 41, no. 17), Tally of plant closings and demonstrations', available by request at 〈http://www. mutualaid.org〉.
2. Manuel Orozco, 'Worker remittances in an international scope', Working Paper (Washington, DC, Inter-American Dialogue and Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank, March 2003), p. 1.
3. For this and more data and links to different academic and foundation reports and government census agencies, see the University of California at Santa Barbara web site 〈http://aad.english.ucsb.edu〉.
4. On migration and globalisation. and more generally on capitalism and migration, see, among others, Peter Stalker, Workers Without Frontiers (Boulder, CO, Lynne Riener, 2000);
5. Robin Cohen, The New Helots: migrants in the international division of labour (Aldershot, Ashgate, 1987);
6. Nigel Harris, The New Untouchables: immigration and the new world worker (London, I. B. Tauris, 1995);
7. Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration: international population movements in the modern world (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 1993);
8. Lydia Potts, The World Labor Market: a history of migration (London. Zed, 1990).
9. For discussion of current topics and new directions in the sociology of migration, see Alejandro Portes, 'Immigrant theory for a new century: some problems and opportunities', International Migration Review (Vol. 3, no. 4, 1997), p. 799-825.
10. See also Alejandro Portes and Jozsef Borocz, 'Contemporary immigration: theoretical perspectives on its determinants and modes of incorporation', International Migration Review (Vol. XXIII, no. 3, 1990), pp. 606-30.
11. For these details, see Richard Boudreaux, The new foreign aid: the seeds of promise', Los Angeles Times (14 April 2006), p. 1A.
12. Inter-American Development Bank, Remittances 2005: promoting financial democracy (Washington DC, IDB, 2006).
13. Philip McMichael, Development and Social Change: a global perspective, (Thousand Oaks, CA, Pine Forge Press. 1986), p. 189.
14. In a commentary observing that mainstream Black political leaders have been notably lukewarm to the immigrant rights movement, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes: 'The displacement of Black workers is a real problem - but not a problem caused by displaced Mexican workers ... if the state is allowed to criminalize the existence [of] immigrant workers this will only fan the flames of racism eventually consuming Blacks in a back draft of discrimination. How exactly does one tell the difference between a citizen and a non-citizen? Through a massive campaign of racial profiling, that's how ... In fact, the entire working class has a stake in the success of the movement.' She goes on to recall how California building owners and labour contractors replaced Black janitors with largely undocumented Latino immigrants in the 1980s. But after a successful Service Employees International Union drive in the 'Justice for janitors' campaign of the late 1980s and 1990s, wages and benefits went up and the union's largely Latino members sought contractual language guaranteeing African Americans a percentage of work slots. See Taylor, 'Life ain't been no crystal stair: Blacks, Latinos and the new civil rights movement', Counterpunch (9 May 2006). downloaded 18 May 2006 〈http://www.counterpunch.org/taylor05082006. html〉.
15. See the special issue of NACLA Report on the Americas, 'On the line: Latinos on labor's cutting edge' (Vol. 30, no. 3, November/December 1996).
16. For this data, further information and links, see the Network's website at 〈http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org〉.
17. For these details see 〈http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/econimpacts. html〉.
18. In drawing on migrant workers, dominant groups are able to take advantage of a global reserve army of labour that has experienced historically unprecedented growth in recent years. For instance, the entry of China, India and the former Soviet bloc into the global economy led to a doubling of the global labour market, from 1.46 to near 3 billion workers by 2000, which resulted in a decline in the global capital/labour ratio to just 55-60 per cent of what it otherwise would have been. See Richard Freeman, 'China, India and the doubling of the global labor force: who pays the price of globalization'. The Globalist (3 June 2005)
19. posted at Japan Focus, 26 August and downloaded on 13 October 2005, 〈http://www.japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=377〉.