‘It’s Our Moral Imperative As (White) Americans’: The Classed Meanings of Whiteness and the Politics of Immigration in Arizona

Even when U.S. immigration policy does not directly affect them, American citizens still flock to the U.S.-Mexico borderlands to take the law into their own hands. Some activists stealthily work with the Border Patrol to stop border crossers. Others defy border agents by leaving out water to help migrants journeying across Arizona’s Desert. What are the motivations of these different groups of Americans? I argue that the answer has to do how the meanings of whiteness vary across class. Although both groups in this study were overwhelmingly white, pro-immigrant activists were solidly middle class, while restrictionists were downwardly mobile, blue-collar men. Scholarship on U.S. immigration politics has ignored this class difference as well as its implications for participants’ motivations and mobilization methods.

Specifically, I find that pro-immigrant activism attracted white participants who struggled with being politically progressive, on the one hand, and socioeconomically privileged on the other. Aware of the gulf separating their own experiences from the plight of disadvantaged groups, pro-immigrant biographies revealed failed attempts to be ‘good white allies.’ At the border, however, they realized that they could exploit their privilege. There, race and class privilege became a (possible) tool to weaken the state and help a vulnerable group. This rare opportunity is what made border activism appealing to pro-immigrant respondents.

Restrictionist activism, meanwhile, appealed to blue-collar men who grappled with being simultaneously privileged and marginalized. Restrictionists felt that they were more American and concomitantly, more entitled to a good life than ethnic minorities and immigrants. Yet, restrictionists’ lives were characterized by the marginalization of downward mobility. Shoring up the state allowed restrictionists to manage this crisis of racial privilege and class marginalization. As civilian extension of Border Patrol, restrictionists felt powerful, active, and needed. Volunteer work in the borderlands helped them escape the disempowerment they otherwise felt.