Mobilizing for Immigrants' Rights Online: Creating Symbols of Belonging to the “American” Nation

It’s no secret that being an immigrant, especially an unauthorized immigrant, is a challenge these days in the United States. Discrimination, marginalization and deportation loom large, and comprehensive and fair immigration policy seems an elusive goal. In response, the immigrants’ rights movement increasingly mobilizes online. Among these cyberactivists’ primary tools are symbolic representations of immigrants belonging to the “American” nation, more specifically its civil sphere, the moral universe where battles for inclusion take place. Concrete symbols of family, hard work and community coexist with more abstract representations of “American” national ideals such as equality, fairness and opportunity. Utilizing a cultural sociological perspective, I examine the ways in which the immigrants’ rights movement uses such symbols to perform national identity online. In particular, I employ the tools of the Strong Program, as articulated by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith, among others. The goal is to put meaning and the process of meaning making squarely at the center of analytical attention.

What are the ways in which the immigrants’ rights movement creates and engages symbols to signal immigrants’ belonging to the nation? How do such structures of meaning work to portray immigrants as part of the sacred social fabric of the civil sphere and to counter images of pollution? How does the deployment of symbols help translate claims of belonging for a particular group into a universal right of inclusion? To explore these questions, I apply a dual methodology. First, I perform a hermeneutical analysis of the website content of 15 national-level organizations – focusing on the visual but paying attention to important textual cues and discourse. I also interview their leaders and webmasters to explore their motivations, goals and strategies. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between symbols, social movements and national identity.