Punctuated by marches across the United States in the spring of 2006,
immigrant rights has reemerged as a significant and highly visible
political issue. Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of U.S. Citizenship
brings prominent activists and scholars together to examine the
emergence and significance of the contemporary immigrant rights
movement. Contributors place the contemporary immigrant rights movement
in historical and comparative contexts by looking at the ways immigrants
and their allies have staked claims to rights in the past, and by
examining movements based in different communities around the United
States. Scholars explain the evolution of immigration policy, and
analyze current conflicts around issues of immigrant rights; activists
engaged in the current movement document the ways in which coalitions
have been built among immigrants from different nations, and between
immigrant and native born peoples. The essays examine the ways in which
questions of immigrant rights engage broader issues of identity,
including gender, race, and sexuality.