American federalism and racial formation in contemporary immigration policy: a processual analysis of Alabama's HB56. Issue 4 (12th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jones, Jennifer A.; Brown, Hana E.
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 42:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 531
• Page End: 551
• Publication Date: 2019-03-12
• Subjects: Immigration -- racialization -- Alabama -- immigration policy -- federalism -- Latinos; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1403033
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Racialization scholarship identifies the state as a primary site of racial formation. Most of this research envisions the state as a uniform entity, with race-making occurring at a single level of political action. Analysing Latino racialization in immigration debates in Alabama, we argue that state-driven racialization occurs at multiple levels of governance. Although Alabama's 2011 HB56 is widely recognized as state-enforced Latino racialization, we find that the bill resulted from mutually reinforcing racialization practices and policies that played out at multiple levels of immigration governance. These findings not only present a revisionist history of HB56, they suggest that any account of states and racialization requires a nuanced and complex understanding of the state, its institutional structure, and its operations. Individual state institutions may do different work as race makers, but race-making efforts by federal, state, and local actors interact to produce both racialized subjects and racial hierarchies.